Andy Harris news, "Progressive activist" aka Wiretapper Jake Burdett

Jake Burdett, a 20 year old Salisbury University student, progressive activist, and Indivisible Worcester member, has been charged with felony wiretapping by the Office of U.S. Congressman Andy Harris for recording and live-streaming a meeting with Congressman Harris’ staffer while meeting in a taxpayer-funded office during a protest.

We strongly feel that affairs conducted by our elected public officials and those working under their charge should be transparent, open, and accessible to all citizens via public media including written, recorded, televised, internet posting, livestreamed and otherwise. A well-informed, actively engaged citizenry is essential to a live and exemplar democracy. In this case, Andy Harris is behaving in a manner that bullishly repressive and intimidating.

Jake has a court appearance on Friday, March 22, at 9 AM at the Wicomico County Circuit Court at 101 N Division Street, Salisbury, and we encourage all Indivisible Worcester members, supporters of Jake Burdett, and supporters of government transparency and marijuana legalization to attend his court appearance in support of him.

We ask those attending court to be respectful; conduct in courtroom should be attentively present yet quiet and non-disruptive, adhering to courtroom rules and etiquette. No signs, no shouting, no disruption, no unrequested comment, no disrespectful behavior please. Please wear appropriate courtroom attire and your Indivisible Worcester buttons.

AFTER Jake's court appearance, Indivisible Worcester will hold a demonstration at noon on the plaza n front of the building, where we will have several speakers address the issue of government transparency, Harris' attempts to silence critics, and his combativeness towards constituents who disagree with him. We will also address the issue of amending Maryland's current "2-party consent" wiretapping law to exempt public officials and staffers acting as representatives of public officials in public spaces from this law, as we don't feel they should be given the same privacy rights as regular private citizens. Please bring your signs, opinions, and voices and energy to a peaceful, law abiding protest. If there is some downtime between the end of Jake's court appearance and the demonstration at noon, we will likely go to a group lunch to discuss the court appearance in the meantime.

Additional actions you may wish to take ***BEFORE OR AFTER COURT APPEARANCE***

* Calls to offices of your state legislators and Congressman Harris should be appropriately assertive, concise and on point addressing need for change in legislation to exempt public officials and their staffers from the "2-party consent" wiretapping laws in Maryland

* Op-Ed articles and letters to the editor in support of Jake

Indivisible Worcester Maryland is a volunteer political group fighting Trump's racist, authoritarian, and corrupt agenda by exercising our rights to free speech and peaceable assembly under the Constitution of the United States of America. We disavow all who advocate violence as a solution to our Nation's present crisis. We require that participants in our actions obey all laws and cooperate with the police to maintain public safety.

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Jake Burdett, a 20 year old Salisbury University student, progressive activist, and Indivisible Worcester member, has been charged with felony wiretapping by the Office of U.S. Congressman Andy Harris for recording and live-streaming a meeting with Congressman Harris’ staffer while meeting in a taxpayer-funded office during a protest.

We strongly feel that affairs conducted by our elected public officials and those working under their charge should be transparent, open, and accessible to all citizens via public media including written, recorded, televised, internet posting, livestreamed and otherwise. A well-informed, actively engaged citizenry is essential to a live and exemplar democracy. In this case, Andy Harris is behaving in a manner that bullishly repressive and intimidating.

Jake has a court appearance on Friday, March 22, at 9 AM at the Wicomico County Circuit Court at 101 N Division Street, Salisbury, and we encourage all Indivisible Worcester members, supporters of Jake Burdett, and supporters of government transparency and marijuana legalization to attend his court appearance in support of him.

We ask those attending court to be respectful; conduct in courtroom should be attentively present yet quiet and non-disruptive, adhering to courtroom rules and etiquette. No signs, no shouting, no disruption, no unrequested comment, no disrespectful behavior please. Please wear appropriate courtroom attire and your Indivisible Worcester buttons.

AFTER Jake's court appearance, Indivisible Worcester will hold a demonstration at noon on the plaza n front of the building, where we will have several speakers address the issue of government transparency, Harris' attempts to silence critics, and his combativeness towards constituents who disagree with him. We will also address the issue of amending Maryland's current "2-party consent" wiretapping law to exempt public officials and staffers acting as representatives of public officials in public spaces from this law, as we don't feel they should be given the same privacy rights as regular private citizens. Please bring your signs, opinions, and voices and energy to a peaceful, law abiding protest. If there is some downtime between the end of Jake's court appearance and the demonstration at noon, we will likely go to a group lunch to discuss the court appearance in the meantime.

Additional actions you may wish to take ***BEFORE OR AFTER COURT APPEARANCE***

* Calls to offices of your state legislators and Congressman Harris should be appropriately assertive, concise and on point addressing need for change in legislation to exempt public officials and their staffers from the "2-party consent" wiretapping laws in Maryland

* Op-Ed articles and letters to the editor in support of Jake

Indivisible Worcester Maryland is a volunteer political group fighting Trump's racist, authoritarian, and corrupt agenda by exercising our rights to free speech and peaceable assembly under the Constitution of the United States of America. We disavow all who advocate violence as a solution to our Nation's present crisis. We require that participants in our actions obey all laws and cooperate with the police to maintain public safety.

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Shamr0ck said:

Is there any expectation of privacy in a public forum? If not, how could this be wire tapping?




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Shamr0ck said:

Is there any expectation of privacy in a public forum? If not, how could this be wire tapping?




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Stoveman said:

There were two different instances and only one involved the young Burdett. The incident where Harris' office door was shoved open was in DC and did not involve him.

The other instance, in which he is being charged, was after a protest on the Eastern Shore where Jake went into Harris' local office to speak with a staff member. The staff member told him to turn off his phone which he was streaming to FB live. He didn't, broke the law and got caught.

Don't like the law then work to change it. Jake could have requested an on the record interview, gone to the press, etc... about this perceived injustice.

Jake is a flaming Bernie lefty and was recently elected to the Wicomico County Democratic Party committee. I think I remember reading in one news article when the story first broke that he had pissed off the Salisbury Dems by calling them "Putin's Puppets" and that they were going to remove him after his sentencing.

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Stoveman said:

There were two different instances and only one involved the young Burdett. The incident where Harris' office door was shoved open was in DC and did not involve him.

The other instance, in which he is being charged, was after a protest on the Eastern Shore where Jake went into Harris' local office to speak with a staff member. The staff member told him to turn off his phone which he was streaming to FB live. He didn't, broke the law and got caught.

Don't like the law then work to change it. Jake could have requested an on the record interview, gone to the press, etc... about this perceived injustice.

Jake is a flaming Bernie lefty and was recently elected to the Wicomico County Democratic Party committee. I think I remember reading in one news article when the story first broke that he had pissed off the Salisbury Dems by calling them "Putin's Puppets" and that they were going to remove him after his sentencing.

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Andy Harris abuses Md. law against wiretapping
By Toby Perkins and Susan Buyer
O n Friday, Jake Burdett, a 21-year-old Salisbury University student and member of our group, Indivisible Worcester Maryland, is scheduled to appear in the Wicomico County Circuit Court for “felony wiretapping.” Maryland Congressman Andy Harris brought the charges against Jake.
What did Jake do? He went to the congressman’s office to emphasize his support for marijuana legalization and recorded a meeting with the congressman’s staff on his phone without permission. That was the alleged “felony wiretapping.” In 38 out of 50 states, the way Jake used his phone would not have been a crime.
When Jake learned that he might have violated Maryland’s obscure, badly written wiretapping law, he acknowledged his mistake. He deleted the recording. He apologized. But Congressman Harris is still trying to hang a felony charge around this young man’s neck.
Obviously Congressman Harris’ actions in this case are against all common sense and decency. But from our personal history with the congressman we think we know why he is doing it. Dr. Harris — a physician, Donald Trump supporter and member of the far-right “Freedom Caucus” — is acting, as he has acted in other ways: to destroy our democratic freedom.
The two of us founded Indivisible Worcester Maryland in late 2016 to fight — peaceably and constitutionally — against President Trump’s agenda and for democracy. Members of our group have met with staff on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland for Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen. We have been at all of Congressman Andy Harris’ local Town Halls. We have visited Dr. Harris’ Salisbury office a half-dozen times, once when the Congressman was there.
Congressman Harris’ staff, like the staff for our senators, have always been civil to us. They have emphasized to us their subservience to our congressman. We think they would never charge one of us with a harmless, non-violent felony unless Dr. Harris personally directed them to do it.
Over the last two years we have seen Dr. Harris use escalating strong-arm tactics against constituents who dissent. More and more policemen have surrounded him.
At one Town Hall we were obliged to write down anything we had to say to the congressman on index cards at the door. Then Dr. Harris had the local sheriff select our cards from a hat, one at a time. First the sheriff read each card to himself and carefully put aside all of the questions that he apparently didn’t like before reading the next card aloud to the congressman.
At another Town Hall, we saw Dr. Harris call forward a deputy to flex his muscles in an absurd way over the heads of a group of seated dissenters in an apparent attempt to shut them up. It’s funny to think of now, but at the time the deputy’s actions looked threatening and unreasonable enough that one of us pulled out a phone to record the scene in case the policeman over-acted.
Was that against some “wiretapping” law?
We think Dr. Harris is personally unsuited to the heat and tumult of democracy. He seems downright scared of dissenters and not too fond of his supporters, either. But the problem goes far beyond the congressman’s personality.
The laws against marijuana that Jake objects to are part of the notorious “war on drugs,” which, Nixon’s aide John Ehrlichman admitted , was launched in the 1970s specifically to disenfranchise African-Americans and young people. Consequently, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration now than any other nation that keeps records, in any part of the world, democracy or dictatorship.
And those prisoners of ours in the United States, to our shame, are political prisoners. Like Jake, they are victims of a deliberate attack on democracy, one that Dr. Harris supports.
Indivisible Worcester Maryland members plan to sit behind Jake at his trial on the morning of March 22nd in Wicomico County Circuit Court in Salisbury to show that we support him, because an attack on one of us is an attack on all. Then, at noon, we will rally in front of the court to send Congressman Harris yet another message asking him to change course and work to save our democracy. We invite you to join us.
Toby Perkins and Susan Buyer are coordinators of Indivisible Worcester Maryland. They may be reached at indivisibleworcestermd@gmail.com .

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Stoveman said:

An LTE in today's Baltimore Fishwrap.

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