Did Ian Murphy Break The Law?

[Kennah]

Ed just mentioned about recording laws and how they vary from state to state.

I'm not an attorney; however, in my non-legal opinion, if Murphy called the Governor from New York state, then no he did not violate the law.

Both Wisconsin and New York appear to be so-called "One Party States"--IOW, only one party in the call needs to know about or consent to the recording.

In my state of Washington, all parties have to consent to the recording, and this can be satisfied by simply announcing it.

Wisconsin
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/wisconsin.html

New York
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/newyork.html

Washington
http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/washington.html

[joneschick]

1. I'm also not an attorney, BUT

in one discussion thread, it was mentioned that because Walker is the governor, open record law covers the recording. Anyone with great research skills know how to determine if this is true? :hi:

[Bold Lib]

2. My concern is that he may have broken the law by claiming to be David Koch.

I'm by no means an expert in this area and laws vary greatly from state to state but - there may be an issue of identity theft here. It's one thing to make up a name to work incognito but it is something else to pose as a known person for gain. In this case access to the governor. I think it will depend on how the law is specifically worded on this, but I am concerned.

[cbdo2007]

3. Yeah, the recording seems secondary to the fraud issue.

Not sure why anyone would care about the legality of the recording when it is against the law to impersonate a public figure. I'm kind of surprised the reporter guy isn't more worried about this.

[shraby]

8. David Koch is NOT a public figure. There are probably

many people by the name of David Koch, so he didn't impersonate anyone. There are over 600 by that name.

[Kennah]

4. Here is a link to the Wisconsin Statutes

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/rsb/stats.html

I searched for the keywords false representation. I scanned about half of the 62 hits, and most are tied to making false representation for the purpose of theft.

Most states have statutes about falsely representing oneself as a police officer, and even that varies a lot from state to state.

But falsely representing that one is a political ally, I'd say that Darwinian laws were the only ones broken--by Scott Walker.

[AlabamaLibrul]

5. It's social engineering and "pretexting", which is not fraud or illegal.

It is only illegal (and a felony at that) if used to obtain phone or banking records.

It may be tortious, and he may face a lawsuit for it, at which time the nature of any civil offense of social engineering will be determined.

Edited because I don't wish to make a definite yes/no statement on a possible lawsuit

[sabrina 1]

6. It was the Governor's responsibility to determine whether or not

he wanted to take the call and/or whether or not it was legitimate. It doesn't say much for the security of the Governor's office when they do not vet calls to make sure they are legitimate.

I worked for a top Democratic fundraiser, well-known in the political arena and was instructed to 'take phone numbers' from callers. We knew the numbers of all the more prominent people and could easily check those numbers. But the best way was to simply say 'Mrs X is not available right now, can I take your number?'

Sounds like they don't have much of a system to prevent this kind of thing, and were willing to accept the call because it came from a wealthy funder. I doubt anyone calling for the Unions, or for the Democrats would have gotten through.

[BobbyBoring]

7. Who Cares

What about the asshole that did all the phony vids with ACORN, etc

We're finally learning to fight fire with fire~