Judge OKs Secretly Recorded Convos On Courthouse Steps

A federal judge will not suppress conversations recorded by the FBI without a warrant on secret devices outside two California courthouses. The devices were placed on the courthouse steps, on nearby vehicles and at a courthouse bus stop. The judge called it “unsettling”  that the government would listen to conversations at those locales given the personal nature of many of them, but called it “unrealistic” to assume such conversations were private because “there are video cameras on many street corners, storefronts and front porches, and in the hand of nearly every person who owns a smart phone.” She also noted that the conversations at issue were conducted in a normal tone of voice, not a whisper.