THEY CAN TAPE YOU, but they don’t like for you to tape them:

A Newton activist who concealed a camera to videotape a Boston University police sergeant was convicted of violating state wiretapping laws. An associate is charged with witness intimidation.

Peter Lowney, 36, was sentenced last week to six months probation and fined $500. A Brighton District Court judge ordered him to stay away from the sergeant and remove footage from the Internet.

Lowney shot the film during a 2006 political protest. Ordered to stop recording, officers arrested Lowney for hiding the still-rolling camera in his coat.

The notion that videotaping events at a public protest is “wiretapping” — or that a court could order such footage removed from the Internet — is absurd.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Eugene Volokh. It’s my position, of course, that there’s no such thing as “privacy” for police officers who are in the performance of their duties. This is further evidence, however, of the need for federal civil rights legislation protecting the right of citizens to photograph, videotape, and otherwise record the public behavior of law enforcement officials.