So to give some backstory, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress have been charged 15 felony counts for invasion of privacy over the undercover reporting scheme they accomplished regarding Planned Parenthood. Basically these two reporters sought out to prove that planned parenthood did in fact sell organs and tissue from aborted children. In order to do this, they went and impersonated two people looking to buy baby parts. The idea was that they were going to record everything that happened, such as conversations and procedures.
Their findings should be found disturbing by anyone with a strong conscience and I encourage you to try and find the unedited videos (although I wish you luck. They're taken down almost immediately everywhere I've searched). To sum up the hours of footage, the video shows multiple high-ranking Planned Parenthood members joking about selling baby body parts for market rates and picking through baby body parts in order to demonstrate which sorts of body parts were available for sale for medical research, as well as talking about the best methods of abortion for procuring those baby body parts. Many officials were very openly willing to discuss the methods taken to save valuable tissue and organs to be sold later. The huge point I'm trying to make is that planned parenthood, since this subject became talked about, has denied that they do this. Anyone who's actually watched the videos cannot deny that they were lying but that's not the point of this post. It's no surprise to me planned parenthood is once again caught in such atrocities. What IS surprising is the lefts willingness to hide and ignore it, and their eagerness to silence those who expose these things.
With the back story out of the way, let's look at the court ruling. I feel like banging my head into a wall Everytime a government official from the west coast lifts a finger.
Fourteen of the 15 charges filed came under California Penal Code Section 632(a), which states in relevant part, “Every person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, by means of any electronic amplifying or recording device, eavesdrops upon or records the confidential communication ... shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison, or by both that fine and imprisonment.” let me put some extra emphasis on the word *confidential*. The majority of these conversations were not in a confidential secluded room with only the officials and men in suits. These were public conversations happening in restaurants. I'm sorry. But judging by all the conversations I've accidentally picked up from other people in restaurants, I think it should be common knowledge that restaurant banter isn't a place that should be considered confidential. Then there are the few parts of the videos where they're talking within planned parenthood doors; which planned parenthoods lawyers argued should be considered private areas. And they technically are right. Just kidding ;). gotcha didn't I? They are wrong because of one simple rule. Or... Ruling. By the 9th circuit court of appeals (undoubtedly the most liberal circuit in the country) in 2002. Long story short:
They the 9th circuit decided that undercover tapes made in a private area by undercover journalists who are considered strangers to that company are not illegal. They ruled this during a ruling on a very similar undercover investigation by ABC News against Medical Laboratory Management Consultants for Primetime Live, in which they ruled in favor of ABC News saying: “Devaraj's willingness to invite these strangers into the administrative offices for a meeting and then on a tour of the premises indicates that Devaraj did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of solitude or seclusion in the parts of Medical Lab that he showed the ABC representatives.”
In addition to this, the 9th circuit also stated that they could not find any reasonable expectation of privacy between the two parties saying: “Devaraj did not reveal any information about his personal life or affairs, but only generally discussed Medical Lab's business operations, the pap smear testing industry, and Gordon's supposed plans to open her own laboratory.” also, while comparing Arizona law to California law, the court EXPLICITLY stated that EVEN UNDER CALIFORNIA LAW, there was still no expectation of privacy: “The expectation of limited privacy in a communication – namely the expectation that a communication shared with, or possibly overheard by, a limited group of persons will nonetheless remain relatively private and secluded from the public at large – is reasonable only to the extent that the communication conveys information private and personal to the declarant.” You could practically copy and paste the circumstances David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress worked under and be able to tell that there were no privacy laws broken here.
Furthermore, Daleiden and Merritt were also tried for trying to buy illegal baby parts. Yes. You heard me right. The courts tried to charge a felony for trying to buy baby parts but didn't bat an eye to planned parenthood as the supplier. Have you smashed your face into your phone screen yet? These charges were later dropped for obvious reasons. Good job courts, ya did one thing right :)
So before I leave you all to go on with your daily lives, I would like to raise one question. Where were all the defenders of the press jumping to lash out at the courts for violating Daleiden and Merritt's 1st amendment rights? There are so many hilarious people out there trashing trump for merely criticizing the media but this gets ZERO criticism from the left?
It's ironic. Because I was scrolling through my news feed and I saw a story from earlier last week where National Public Radio asked for the reinstatement of a reporter who secretly recorded high school students and legislators chatting about LGBT issues. Yet NPR has said nothing about Daleiden and Merritt.
I'm becoming less and less convinced that the left is fighting for 1st amendment rights and more and more convinced that they're just fighting anything that exposes their agenda. Ben shapiro worded it perfectly: "They pretend to be fighters against governmental overreach – they’ll fight Trumpian fascism every step of the way! – but the minute that somebody they don’t like, a conservative, faces serious government crackdowns, they shut up." No lefty would DARE have a negative thought about their beloved knights with forceps, body bags, and misinformation. They'll silence anybody who rises up against it. So now these innocent journalists are facing serious punishment and the lefts most beloved "healthcare center" gets to continue their planned genocide.
Having said all this, I'm seriously considering dropping my plans to major in computer science and just go headfirst into law. People with sense need to be running this country and I can't sit here making Facebook posts if I'm not willing to fight these atrocities with every God given breath I have.
