State Eavesdropping Law Ruled Unconstitutional
By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 2, 2012 7:00PM
Illinois' controversial eavesdropping bill was ruled unconstitutional by a Cook County judge this morning. The law makes it a Class 1 felony to record a law enforcement officer without his permission.
Judge Stanley J. Sacks, presiding in the case of Christoper Drew, said the law could criminalize "wholly innocent conduct."
Drew was charged under the eavesdropping law in December 2009, which he set out to intentionally challenge along with a law against peddling without a license. The ACLU of Illinois supported Drew in his actions. A woman who was also charged under the eavesdropping rule after she used her Blackberry to record two Internal Affairs officers who were trying to pressure her to drop sexual harassment charges against a third officer was acquitted last August..
Last month, an amendment to the eavesdropping law passed an Illinois House committee. If the amendment is passed by the State Legislature, it would allow "a person who is not a law enforcement officer nor acting at the direction of a law enforcement officer may record the conversation of a law enforcement officer who is performing a public duty in a public place and any other person who is having a conversation with that law enforcement officer if the conversation is at a volume audible to the unassisted ear of the person who is making the recording."