RADLEY BALKO: A Right To Photograph The Police.

In fact, under Maryland law what Graber did isn’t actually a crime. For a recording to be illegal, one of the parties being recorded must have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A cop, acting as a cop, with his gun drawn, while standing alongside a public roadway, has no such expectation. On April 15th, Graber was released and the charges against him were dropped. As he told Miller, “The judge who released me looked at the paperwork and said she didn’t see where I violated the wiretapping law.”

Graber was harassed, intimidated, illegally arrested, and jailed for an act that clearly wasn’t illegal. According to Graber, the name of the judge who signed off on the raid of his parents’ home doesn’t appear on the warrant. As Graber told Miller, “They told me they don’t want you to know who the judge is because of privacy.” If true, that statement is so absurd it’s mind numbing. A judge issued an illegal warrant for police to invade the private residence and rummage through the private belongings of a man who broke no laws, and we aren’t permitted to know the judge’s name in order to protect the judge’s privacy?

Judges shouldn’t have “privacy” regarding judicial acts. They shouldn’t even have immunity. The doctrine of judicial immunity, as I’ve noted before, was created by . . . judges!