ACORN lawuit: DOA

Legal beagle Leon Wolf of Red State:

The suit alleges that Andrew Breitbart, working in concert with O'Keefe and Giles, intercepted an "oral communication" using an electronic device, which would indeed be a violation of the act. The problem, however, is that the statute specifically defines "oral communication" in section 10-401(2)(i) as: "any conversation or words spoken to or by any person in private conversation."
What this means . . . is that at least one of the parties to the conversation must have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation. In other words, if someone stands up in the town square and shouts out loud and someone else records it, that is not a violation of the act.
The problem for ACORN is that, as a matter of law, the employees at ACORN had no reasonable expectation of privacy in what they said to members of the public who entered their offices. As made clear by Katz v. United States and its progeny . . . "What a person exposes knowingly to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection."

In other words, ACORN will be laughed out of court, even here in the People's Republic of Maryland. How much concern is this nuisance suit causing? James O'Keefe Twittered last night:

Celebrating ACORN lawsuit with a candlelight dinner on the Pacific Ocean.

ACORN: Our Legal Advisors Are Incompetent, Too!

URGENT: ACORN SUES BREITBART

Via Newsbusters:

ACORN has filed a lawsuit in Maryland against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and the Web site Breitbart.com for secretly videotaping the organization’s employees at its Baltimore office.

Expect updates and maybe bikini photos . . .

(Don't hate me for that. Heaven knows I've suffered enough lately to be forgiven an innocent joke.)

Mika Brzezinski bikini pics?

Da Tech Guy has a sick, twisted imagination. If Rule 5 is matter, Mika Brzezinski is anti-matter.

Why is it that, no matter how often the Savonarola of the right-wing blogosphere tries to lead by example, some of you evil-minion wannabe types need to be told things like this?

If you want to see first-class evil minionship, check out Nice Deb, with her super-fine photo of Pimpin' James and Kenya the Ho.

Let's face it, James O'Keefe is the biggest Mack Daddy who ever turned a girl out. And Hannah Giles . . . Dude. If Hannah's all about the Benjamins, Mika Brzezinski is all about the nickles and dimes.

What does Da Tech Guy have in common with ACORN? They're both nuts.

Da Tech Guy disses me, so naturally Jim Treacher don't give me no respect:

I was going to say something a bit saucy about Hannah Giles, but she's a black belt and her dad is a big-game hunter. So I'll just say that fearless investigative journalism has never looked this good.

Right. Like I never looked good. But when I was Hannah's age, Jimmy Carter was president and the unemployment rate was nearly as high as the inflation rate, but neither was as high as the interest rate. The only thing I was interested in investigating was how to sneak into my girlfriend's dorm room.

Hannah is involved in an organization called Young America's Foundation. Back in 1980, I was involved in a very popular youth organization called Garage Rock Band, which had at least three different chapters on the campus of Jacksonville (Ala.) State University alone.

Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet. A computer was something the size of my '72 Dodge Dart and was operated with little IBM cards that said "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate." So it's not exactly my fault I wasn't an overnight celebrity when I was 20.

If I'm beginning to sound like my father explaining to me what it was like to grow up on a dirt farm in Randolph County, Alabama, during the Great Depression, OK. Used to be, conservatives believed in traditional values.

Which was why I was never a young conservative. Baby, I'm the greatest musical has-been that never was:

I come up hard, baby, but now I'm cool.
I didn't make it sugar, playin' by the rules . . .

James O'Keefe is 25. When I was 25, I was making $5.25 an hour driving a forklift in a warehouse on Fulton Industrial Boulevard in Atlanta, trying to save up to buy a P.A. system to start my own band.

Haywood's Recording Studios in the West End had the best deal on eight-track time ($25 an hour, not including reel-to-reel master or cassette duplicates). So an eight-hour session cost more than my after-tax paycheck from two 40-hour weeks, and I worked as much overtime on that forklift as I could get.

The band . . . ah, well, it never turned out to be what I'd hoped. We practiced a lot, played a few parties, a few free outdoor concerts, but the guitar player and the bass player were more into their girlfriends than they were into the music. One day at practice, it all finally blew up, and it was just me and the drummer left. But I guess I've told most of that story before.

Nowadays, my old P.A. speakers are in my 16-year-old twin sons' bedroom, part of a makeshift guitar amp setup powered by a Marshall head. because the one boy thinks he's James Hetfield one day and John Frusciante the next. Whatever. He's no Steve Gaines. The other boy prefers acoustic. But they've been playing for three years, and I never even started playing guitar until I was 16. So who knows?

This afternoon, I dialed the phone number of a guy I was sure had forgotten me, but I was wrong.

"How could I ever forget you, man?" Haywood Tucker said. "You had some good tunes."

He's living in Mableton now, and runs his pro digital studio out of his house. We talked about the old days, and he remembered meeting my wife years ago, after I'd finally given up the music and started a family.

"Wow, I guess your kids are about all grown up now?" I asked. Yes, he said, and boasted that his daughter seems to have inherited his musical talent, writing songs for top groups. I told him my oldest was 20, junior in college, planning to be a teacher.

"That's good -- we need good teachers," Haywood said. I explained that both my boys play guitar, but lot more like Metallica than the kind of funk-rock fusion I was trying to get back in the '80s.

He congratulated me when I told him I'd been working as a Washington journalist for so mnay years, and I said, "Well, it's OK, I guess . . ."

It was a "blessing" to hear from me, he said, and at one point in our conversation, he said, "Well, the Lord knows who you are. Don't worry about all that other stuff."

Really, why should I worry? Still, I asked him if, next time he and his family said grace, they'd mention my name. You can never have too much of that.

UPDATE: The O'Keefe/O'Toole error noted by the copy desk commenters has been corrected.

Interview with Doug Giles, whose daughter Hannah helped take down ACORN

In wake of the news that the Census Bureau has cut ties withe ACORN, I posted this at The American Spectator:

I just got off the phone with Christian youth leader Doug Giles, whose 20-year-old daughter played the role of the prostitute "Kenya" in the now-famous videos.
"A lot of young activists just caught fire," said Giles. "I'd like to take credit, but it was all Hannah."
Giles said he has received an overwhelming response, entirely positive except for one negative e-mail from a "knucklehead."
As for the "community organizer" group exposed by the video at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, Giles said jokingly, "Those ACORN people are sweating in their nut-sacks."

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has text of the letter from the director of the Census Bureau to ACORN:

"Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has ineed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts. While not decisive factors in this decision, recent events concerning several local offices of ACORN have added to the worsening negative perceptions of ACORN and its affiliation with our partnership efforts. . . . We no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your offices."

Hasta la vista, dirtbags! BigGovernment.com has an official statement from the executive dirtbags at ACORN, and there's much more reaction at Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Ruh-roh. Jeff Quinton tipped me about this yesterday, and now Jeff follows up with this:

STATEMENT OF STATE’S ATTORNEYS OFFICE FOR BALTIMORE CITY RELATIVE TO THE ALLEGED BALTIMORE ACORN INCIDENT
Baltimore, MD – September 11, 2009 – We have received inquiries from citizens and the media asking whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office would initiate a criminal investigation for acts allegedly committed at ACORN offices located in Baltimore. The only information received in reference to this alleged criminal behavior was a YouTube video. Upon review by this office, the video appears to be incomplete. In addition, the audio portion could possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law, Annotated Code of Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings 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.

WBAL is also reporting this angle. Such a prosecution would be a public-relations disaster for the state, for Democrats and for ACORN, but when liberals get a jones for vengeance, they don't usually care about such things. Just ask Linda Tripp.

UPDATE II: Evidently, Hot Air and Ace of Spades were on it first, but I saw it via Jeff Quinton's Inside Charm City, which is why I credited him. Also blogging at Weasel Zippers. Will update if further developments.

BTW, I'm told Hannah Giles will be on Fox News' "Red Eye" tonight, and Ann Coulter will also be a guest.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin is on the story, and Ed Morrissey has the lowdown on the state's attorney in Baltimore, Patricia Jessamy, a liberal Democrat hack -- as might be expected. That's why they call them "Baltimorons," after all.

Notice that when Fox News covers ACORN, that's raaaaacist. However, when the Washington Post is compelled to follow up on the news . . . crickets chirping.

Also, as Little Miss Attila points out, I do have Hannah Giles bikini photos. I already own the Google bomb, but haven't decided yet whether to post the actual photos. My dilemma is this: Knowing that the photos exist, what happens if some sleazy leftoid site gets hold of them and posts them first? In such a scenario, by being "too nice," I would inadvertantly allow a liberal dirtbag to get all that lucrative traffic -- and the liberal dirtbag would (a) put the photos in a negative context, and (b) allow a lot of nasty comments.

Many people have observed of the ACORN situation that the stunning thing in all this was how anyone could be so stupid as to believe that someone as nice as Hannah would be a prostitute. Even with the giant green plastic earrings and slinky skirt.

UPDATE IV (Saturday 10:45 a.m): I'm off to Washington today to cover the 9/12 March on DC. Just in case an emergency arises, a post with the Hannah Giles bikini photo is already queued up in draft, and one call to Smitty . . . Well, I hope we don't have to do it, but it would be wrong to let some liberal dirtbag get that traffic.