MIM Notes 166        July 15, 1998

Massachusetts says No to phone privacy

JUNE 5
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that citizens of 
the commonwealth can legally have their phones tapped by 
the police without warrant or justification. The 
decision came after a case where the State Police used 
eavesdropped on telephone conversations to get evidence 
in an unlawful entry case. The Justice said, "Any 
expectation of privacy in a telephone conversation is 
not objectively reasonable."

The court's decision on the basis of "objective 
reasonability" is based on imperialism's contradictory 
line and practice of calling anything unreasonable if it 
doesn't serve the interests of the oppressor. This 
decision makes it possible for the pigs to listen in on 
any conversation and use it against the masses in court. 
Since no warrant need be obtained, conversations from 
unrelated times can be used and manipulated to "prove" a 
persyn guilty in the white man's courts. Considering the 
decision came from a case where the taped evidence was 
not presented, only mentioned, pigs will not be expected 
to present documentation of conversations. Instead, 
implicating evidence can be admitted just by the word of 
the pigs. 

One judge disagreed, saying that a warrant is not a hard 
thing to obtain. MIM unites with anyone saying this is 
an unjust decision, but also realizes the irony in the 
judge's statement. In reality, warrants are easily 
obtained. Now however, the short bureaucratic trip to 
the courthouse can be cut out of the injustice systems 
attack on the oppressed. 

The decision falls right in line with the rest of the U$ 
plan to give pigs more autonomy as an occupying force 
and as the leg men for the hanging courts. RAIL and MIM 
have learned through practice and studying history that 
the first people attacked are activists. That is why we 
uphold strict lines on security which include making 
political phone calls from pay phones, getting P.O. 
boxes and using fake names whenever doing political 
work. We are open about this policy, and its necessity 
to make the job of the pigs as imperialism's domestic 
army as difficult as possible. 

Note: Boston Globe, June 7, 1998 p. B8