Hidden Pubic Space Microphones used in Oakland by FBI to Trap Conspirators
Hidden Microphones Exposed As Part of Government
Surveillance Program In The Bay Area
May 13, 2016 6:24 PM By Jackie Ward
OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Hidden microphones that are part of a
clandestine government surveillance program that has been operating around the
Bay Area has been exposed.
Imagine standing at a bus stop, talking to your friend
and having your conversation recorded without you knowing. It happens all the time, and the FBI doesn’t
even need a warrant to do it.
Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly
record conversations.
Jeff Harp, a KPIX 5 security analyst and former FBI
special agent said, “They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in
trees, they plant microphones in equipment. I mean, there’s microphones that
are planted in places that people don’t think about, because that’s the
intent!”
FBI agents hid microphones inside light fixtures and at a
bus stop outside the Oakland Courthouse without a warrant to record
conversations, between March 2010 and January 2011.
Federal authorities are trying to prove real estate
investors in San Mateo and Alameda counties are guilty of bid rigging and fraud
and used these recordings as evidence.
Harp said, “An agent can’t just go out and grab a
recording device and plant it somewhere without authorization from a supervisor
or special agent in charge.”
The lawyer for one of the accused real estate investors
who will ask the judge to throw out the recordings, told KPIX 5 News that,
“Speaking in a public place does not mean that the individual has no reasonable
expectation of privacy…private communication in a public place qualifies as a
protected ‘oral communication’… and therefore may not be intercepted without
judicial authorization.”
Harp says that if you’re going to conduct criminal
activity, do it in the privacy of your own home. He says that was the original
intention of the Fourth Amendment, but it’s up to the judge to interpret it.
Comments
Post a Comment