Illinois Supreme Court strikes down eavesdropping law

Today the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s “eavesdropping” law, which had been widely criticized as the most unfair, overbroad law of its kind in the country. Under Illinois state law, recording someone else’s words without his or her consent was a felony. The law was supposedly intended to protect people’s private conversations, which...

Today the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s “eavesdropping” law, which had been widely criticized as the most unfair, overbroad law of its kind in the country.

Under Illinois state law, recording someone else’s words without his or her consent was a felony. The law was supposedly intended to protect people’s private conversations, which may seem reasonable enough. In practice, however, the law was often used to stop people from recording and publishing their interactions with government officials.

For example, in 2009, Chicago resident Christopher Drew was charged with a felony for recording police as they arrested him for selling his artwork on State Street without a permit.

In 2010, Bridgeport resident Michael Allison was charged with a felony for carrying a tape recorder into his own court hearing – which he did because the court wouldn’t provide him with a court reporter. “You violated my right to privacy,” the judge told him in open court.

The Illinois Supreme Court put an end to all this today with unanimous decisions in two cases, People v. Clark and People v. Melongo.

The court ruled that the law was overbroad and violated the First Amendment right to free speech because it prohibited recording and publishing speech that was obviously not private at all, such as “a loud argument on the street,” “a political debate in a park” and “the public interactions of police officers with citizens.”

The state’s lawyers had argued to the court that the question of how much recording should be banned is a “policy question best left to the legislature.” The court rightly disagreed, because the General Assembly is not entitled to violate the First Amendment.

In the past year, the Illinois Supreme Court has repeatedly shown that it is willing and able to give state laws the constitutional scrutiny they deserve, rather than just serve as a “rubber stamp” for whatever the General Assembly wants to do, as when it struck down the Illinois “Amazon tax” last October.

Illinoisans can therefore be glad that at least one branch of their government appears to be capable of doing right thing.