Man Charged With Wiretapping Over Traffic Stop Video


A Baltimore motorcyclist was charged with illegal wiretapping after police spotted a traffic stop recording on YouTube that he had made with a helmet-mounted camera.

According to The Baltimore Sun, John Graber was pulled over for speeding and reckless driving on March 5 by an officer in an unmarked car. He captured what transpired and uploaded a 23-second clip to YouTube. Soon after, police presented the 24-year-old with a warrant and proceeded to search his parents’ house.

Graber’s video equipment was seized and he was charged with violating Maryland’s wiretapping law – because his video was accompanied by audio that was captured without the police officer’s consent. Maryland police deny the arrest was to settle the score for Graber posting a potentially embarrassing video of what has been described as an “overly-aggressive traffic stop.”

Police spokesman Gregory Shipley stated as much when he said “this is not some capricious retribution”. According to Shipley, police were just doing their jobs. He added:

(The audio recording) is a violation of the law. Period. That’s what our job is. We’re not going to apologize for doing our job.

As much of an annoying smart-ass as Graber seems to be, surely police have bigger fish to fry?

[UPI; Image]

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C.S. Magor is the editor-in-chief and a reporter at large for We Interrupt and Uberreview. He currently resides in the Japanese countryside approximately two hours from Tokyo - where he has spent the better part of a decade testing his hypothesis that Japan is neither as quirky nor as interesting as others would have you believe.
3 Comments on this post.
  • Tweets that mention Man Charged With Wiretapping Over Traffic Stop Video | We Interrupt — Topsy.com
    10 May 2010 at 3:18 am
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    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by CSMagor. CSMagor said: Man Charged With Wiretapping Over Traffic Stop Video http://su.pr/2oazic #weirdnews #crime #revenge […]

  • Shane Drew
    10 May 2010 at 9:09 am
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    they may have bigger fish to fry, but they don’t come easier than this

  • Shane Drew
    10 May 2010 at 4:09 am
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    they may have bigger fish to fry, but they don’t come easier than this

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