Since it’s founding in 1920, the ACLU has held steadfast to the singularly important goal of holding America and American lawmakers accountable to the values set forth in our US Constitution. Adam Schwartz, an attorney for the ACLU of Illinois, spoke to CBS 2 about Chris Drew, the local street artist featured in the ACLU Insider’s last post. Drew faces eavesdropping charges after tape recording his own arrest on Dec. 2 for selling art without a peddler’s license in a prohibited selling area. The CBS 2 article said:
Illinois law requires consent of both parties to record a conversation. It’s intended to protect privacy.
But ACLU attorney Adam Schwartz argues, the law wasn’t meant to protect cops working in public.
“If you and I are standing on a corner, talking to each other, we can’t expect that this is a private conversation. Anybody walking by can hear,” said Schwartz. “So it makes no sense to prosecute a person in that circumstance for eavesdropping because we didn’t expect that conversation to be private.”
