Still no eavesdropping law in Illinois
When the Illinois Supreme Court in March struck down the state's eavesdropping law as overly broad and thus unconstitutional, lawmakers were under pressure to quickly draft a new law to protect the privacy interests of citizens whose conversations may now be recorded without their consent.
Just before the General Assembly recessed in May, the Senate passed a new eavesdropping law (HB 4283), but the House adjourned before taking action on a Senate amendment.
The definition of private conversation under the Senate's amendment of HB 4283 is any communication between two or more persons intended to be of a private nature under circumstances "reasonably justifying that expectation."
The Senate amendment, however, contains exemptions that allow police officers, with permission from prosecutors, to record conversations as part of felony criminal investigations without a judicial warrant. Baker and representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union object to those exemptions, and they are likely to be the subject of continued debate when the General Assembly reconvenes. Find out more on the July Illinois Bar Journal. The implications of not having an eavesdropping law in place are nicely summarized by John Roska of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation in the Champaign News-Gazette.
Member Comments (2)
As the lead attorney for DeForest Clark in the above-mentioned case(s) that declared the Illinois eavesdropping statute illegal, I would caution all sides to this debate to read the submitted briefs.
A secondary argument could be made that granting one set of persons greater 'rights' to record than another set of people is also illegal and discriminatory. So giving police officers the unfettered right to record a type of conversation that any other citizen could not, could be a questionable statute as well.
As I understand it the origin of the requirement for two party consent to audio tape recordings originated with surreptitiously recorded conversations involving Illinois legislators taking bribes. Given the nature of politics in Illinois I will not be surprised in the least when the legislature again seeks to protect itself from being brought to daylight.