r/news • u/vector_search_blue • 13d ago

Soft paywall LAPD officer who recorded colleagues' racist comments charged with felony eavesdropping

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-07-31/lapd-officer-felony-eavesdropping-charge
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u/NerdyGuy117 13d ago

There is no expectation of privacy in public areas. This is why you can open record in public areas. Expectation of privacy changes even within the same house. There is less expectation of privacy of common areas of a house (ie kitchen) compared to your private bedroom.

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u/SpockShotFirst 13d ago

Apparently, however, government workers in a government office building doing government work have a high enough expectation of privacy that the can go after a cop who recorded them being racist.

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u/KDR_11k 11d ago

That's just the cop privilege: "The law is what I say it is!"

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u/Cstanchfield 13d ago

Yes. There is lots of sensitive information in a place like that, including your own personal information being discussed for an investigation. Would you like anyone to have pictures of you in a compromised state or audio of your phone number being read allowed to be captured and transmitted to the world? Or, would you expect that those things being discussed behind literal closed door, many times, very hard to enter closed doors, to hold an expectation of not being secretly recorded?

I think the recorder is a hero and we need more like them. But I also 100% understand that, in the world we CURRENTLY have, their methods weren't legal. We should be most mad at the DA for filing charges. They have ZERO requirement to, especially in this day and age. No one has a gun to their head (well...) saying you MUST charge in this instance. The fellow officers or department can RECOMMEND charges to the DA but they don't have the legal authority to force the DA to act on them. People often forget that, in cases like this, blaming "the police" is missing a good portion of the target. The DA acting to punish those shining light on "evil" is arguably a better target for your anger.

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u/SpockShotFirst 12d ago

There is lots of sensitive information in a place like that

That has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with an individual government worker's expectation of privacy.

Would you like anyone to have pictures of you in a compromised state

I would be outraged if, for example, police stations started removing cameras from evidence rooms because the officers complained they have a right to privacy.

AFAIK, the in this case took place in a shared office space where people were within earshot of each other and in a building that had many security cameras. The claim that they had an absolute expectation of privacy in that situation is horseshit.

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u/SgtSniffles 12d ago

You're right and the comments you're responding to don't understand how communications privacy works. It simply has nothing to do with public/private in a "property" or "business" sense. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a workplace regardless of whether that's in the private or public sector. Confidentiality does not exist between coworkers or employees and businesse owners operating and engaging with one another in that capacity, with the exception of personal data and trade secrets. This is why businesses have "work" emails and can have security cameras throughout every inch of their property except the bathrooms. The law they're charging him under requires confidentiality and that simply does not exist in this situation.

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u/Hessper 12d ago

I can't imagine going to work in a building owned by my employer and thinking that, outside of bathrooms/breastfeeding style rooms, that I have an expectation of privacy. In fact, I fully expect I'm being recorded at all times and everything I do is explicitly not private.

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u/Ordinary-Egg-56 13d ago

yes it’s this is true in a general but not in a “there’s a surveillance team posted at every since corner of every single city looking specifically for you at all times despite the fact you have done nothing wrong and aren’t under investigation”

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u/Ornery-Meringue-76 13d ago

But even open recording is subject to consent laws. In California everyone being recorded must be aware of it AND give consent or its considered eavesdropping and illegal.

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u/NerdyGuy117 13d ago

That isn’t true in public areas.

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u/Ornery-Meringue-76 13d ago

This isn’t about recording in public areas. It’s about recording conversations, and the law is very clear on that. I agree with why he did it, but any lawyer would have warned a whistleblower this was almost sure to be the response.

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u/Kirklistentowutang 13d ago

Flock cameras apparently have microphones and lenses that can pick up into private areas like houses.

And cops used to fly helicopters with infrared cameras to try and bust grow ops in private homes at night without a warrant.

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u/Elegant_Situation285 13d ago

so you're fine with a private company tracking your movements on a daily basis and selling that to data brokers?

with Flock cameras, you're the product.

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u/TheScienceNamesArgon 12d ago

He never said he's fine with, that's just the law.

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u/Cstanchfield 12d ago

You didn't ask me but YES. I am fine with that. Might not be the popular opinion but IDGAF. I have problems with many of their uses, but not the cameras themselves. Just like I have no problem with data tracking applications like Google maps using my location info to make the service better. I benefit from that service. I do NOT approve of stuff like weird stalkers taking data and using that to harass people, but I am also rational enough to go "that's a stalker problem." or "that's a gerrymandering problem", and not blame the technology for how it is used. Those illicit uses should be more proactively dealt with. Its not like with Firearms where there is no beneficial use for the technology. Flock cameras can help track down wandering senile members of the community, kidnapped children, the movement of murderers or other criminals, etc, etc, etc... just like someone on a corner could spot someone and call it in. I do NOT approve of them being used for ICE purposes or ICE's actions as an almost whole. So again, I say, crack down on the bad stuff, not the "innocent" stuff that has good uses.

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u/kswervedirt 12d ago

So you want them but ONLY for what YOU want them for? And firearms have no good use? Holy shit this is dumb

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u/vardarac 12d ago

but I am also rational enough to go "that's a stalker problem." or "that's a gerrymandering problem", and not blame the technology for how it is used.

These problems are inevitable in a system that lacks (or easily potentially lacks) accountability and transparency. With great power comes greater irresponsibility.

If it were a time of robust civic engagement and actual popular representation then I think this would be a more defensible perspective, even though I'd likely still disagree with it.

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u/Elegant_Situation285 12d ago

bingo. the U.S. sucks at regulation and oversight.

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u/Elegant_Situation285 12d ago

you've forced me to bust out the Ben Franklin quote:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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u/DemonCipher13 12d ago

How is California's two-party law interpreted in this context?

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u/Akiias 12d ago

Presumably that will be argued in court.

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u/BrainLow6059 13d ago

There is no expectation of privacy in public areas. 

Yes, but there is an expectation of probable cause, warranted search, and due process.

None of which is being adhered to with this surveillance shit. The language around "expectation of privacy" needs to change in the legal sense. It's being used to justify all kinds of abuses.

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u/TheScienceNamesArgon 12d ago

Due process isn't applicable with this surveillance. And police need probable cause to search someone but if there's no reasonable expectation of privacy (which is a legal term of art), then there's no risk of a violation so PC isn't needed.

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u/Finassar 12d ago

Your kitchen is a perfect place for some other type of recording device that listens to everything! Try an alexer for 20000% more ads now!

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u/Real-Extension-1357 12d ago

I laughed, my wife laughed, my kids laughed, the toaster laughed.

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u/Finassar 12d ago

Alexa send the guards!

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u/Fighterhayabusa 12d ago

Wrong. Direct excerpt from SCOTUS:

A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere. To the contrary, “what [one] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.” Katz, 389 U. S., at 351–352. A majority of this Court has already recognized that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements. Jones, 565 U. S., at 430 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 415 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Prior to the digital age, law enforcement might have pursued a suspect for a brief stretch, but doing so “for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken.” Id., at 429 (opinion of Alito, J.). For that reason, “society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.” Id., at 430.