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Leftist Prosecutor Tries to Censor Video Embarrassing to ACORN
ACORN, the group that helped launch Barack Obama’s career as a community organizer was recently caught in undercover stings advising about how to set up a brothel that would bring “minor girls into the country for purposes of prostitution,” reports the Washington Post. (ACORN receives taxpayer money despite a long history of financial fraud and vote fraud).

Now, Patricia Coats Jessamy, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, is trying to silence those who have broadcast the video footage, relying on a Maryland law that violates the First Amendment. She is not interested in prosecuting the crimes recorded on the video. Instead, Jessamy, an ardent Obama supporter, wants to prosecute the makers of the undercover video — and those citizens, bloggers, and journalists who broadcast it or “use” or “disclose its content.”

In her public statement, she complains that the video may “possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law . . . Article §10-402, which requires two party consent. If it is determined that the audio portion now being heard on YouTube was illegally obtained, it is also illegal under Maryland Law to willfully use or willfully disclose the content of said audio. The penalty for the unlawful interception, disclosure or use of it is a felony punishable up to 5 years.” (Similar laws in Massachusetts have been used to shield kidnappers calling in ransom demands, and police abusing motorists!).

It is obvious to me as an attorney that Patricia Jessamy is threatening a selective prosecution. The First Amendment generally overrides state privacy laws insofar as they would prevent disclosure of public corruption and discussion of matters of public concern, as the Supreme Court has made clear in cases like Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989), Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001), and Time v. Hill (1969).

But as the Examiner notes, “Maryland is a one-party state,” where Democrats are in charge of all three branches of government. And it is conceivable that the Maryland courts will let Jessamy use an obscure technicality to harass the makers of the video for years, despite the First Amendment....