1

Sure, the liberals on the jury will want to sentence him to death,

Lol. Think ACORN will manage to get someone on the jury?

2 Oh Ace had his pink panties in a bunch when this first broke out, now he says it's rinky dink.  I'm very disappointed in our own miss chicken little.

3 I will settle for life in prison with Rosie O'Donnell and Keith Olbermann.

4 HE DESERVES TO BE ASS RAPED BY SWEATY BLACK PRISONERS FOR BEING A RIGHT WING RACIST CRIMINAL!!!!

5 O'Keefe was already in the office "waiting for someone"...how is that "entering under false pretenses"?

6 You know what's funny? If I did this, it would be considered delightfully impish agitprop.

7 Or the thing gets quietly dropped when they subpoena Sen. Landrieu's staff.  And the real phone people.  What do you want to bet the phone system was put back in perfect working order after this?

8 The best part of his statement is the last paragraph:

It has been amazing to witness the journalistic malpractice committed by many of the organizations covering this story.  MSNBC falsely claimed that I violated a non-existent “gag order.”  The Associated Press incorrectly reported that I “broke in” to an office which is open to the public.  The Washington Post has now had to print corrections in two stories on me.  And these are just a few examples of inaccurate and false reporting.  The public will judge whether reporters who canÂ’t get their facts straight have the credibility to question my integrity as a journalist.


Unfortunately, I'm not sure "the public" (beyond the teeny fraction who reads blogs) will ever get to know the original reporting was wrong.

9 I'd get a TV show.

10

I think a public flogging is in order.

Keep in mind this is Washington DC with is like 80-20 democrat. and we all know only idiots show up for jury duty, therefore there is a good chance you could get 12 liberal democratic jurors

11 On the bright side, we did get to shout from the rooftops at every opportunity that a conservative teabagging activist was pulling a Watergate... for days.

12 I hear NBC Dateline didn't rig the phones to blow up and then blame it on the automotive industry like they did in the 1990s

13 Yup, I can already see it.  James will be sent to some Supermax gulag, forced to do hard labor, and become someone's girlfriend.  Oh wait, is Gitmo still open?  Barry may want to think twice about closing it.  It would be a convenient place to um, "place" political enemies.

14 You know what's funny? If I did this, it would be considered delightfully impish agitprop. - Michael Moore

------------------

I'd get a TV show. - Morgan Spurlock

-------------------

I've already optioned three movies on this neo-McCarthyist rape of America.

15

Why he wanted to get into the telephone closet isn't clear -- it's possible, though I don't think likely, he wanted to do a visual inspection.

Ever make a film? You need footage that can be spliced together in the editing room to make a compelling story.

For some directors this is also a crutch. When they're not clear on the concept or the script is a work in progress, they shoot a shitload of film and hope the editor can make some sense out of it.

16 Trying to make sure constituents can get through to their duly elected representative? Execute him!

17

I hear obama will release a few terrorist to yemen which should clear up a cell for O'Keefe at Gitmo

18 James O'Keefe broke into the office of a Senator and bugged her phone? I totally heard of that!

19 The fact that he's tipping his legal hand publicly -- something lawyers scream up and down to never do (leave the government entirely in the dark about your defense so they can't prepare adequately for it)

Or, simply that his lawyers actually have balls.  Too many lawyers pursue the "close to the vest" strategy, thinking that the opposition attorney is too stupid to figure it out on their own.  But in reality, if your opposition is THAT stupid, you might as well put all your cards on the table anyway.  You're going to win, and maybe you'll scare the other side into folding.

[/end my rant as a ball-laden litigator]

20

I suspect this will be pled out for some community service.

If they do anything other than a misdemeanor and a warning it is too much.

 

21 "Still, there is the rinky-dink beef (and yes, I do think it's rinky-dink, under the circumstances) of entering a federal office under false pretenses."

Isn't the charge a tad bit more than that? As in entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony. If that bit is a required element of the crime, then there may well be no crime at all. Where's the attempted felony charge? Where's the conspiracy to commit a felony charge?

22 Sounds to me like he was looking to see if Landreau's people had an on/off switch installed at the trunk line so that they could simply and innocently sit at their desks and have no clue as to why the phones were strangely silent.

23

The fact that he's tipping his legal hand publicly -- something lawyers scream up and down to never do (leave the government entirely in the dark about your defense so they can't prepare adequately for it) -- seems to indicate he's pretty confident of his legal position, or at least believes the consequences here to be fairly minor.

It also does two other things:  It gins up public sympathy for his cause, which decreases the likelihood of a show trial and increases his ability to raise legal funds (should that be a concern); and it denies his prosecutors what they were wanting -- his silence.  So next time they'll know they can't shut him up by forcing him into a ticky-tack trial. 

24

O'Keefe had a legitimate point, but it's lost in all this uproar of his arrest. Too bad. He should have come up with a legitimate reason to be in her office, not a phone-y one.

That said, I wonder if charges will be filed against the 'witnesses' if it turns out they lied to the FBI or embellished the facts in order to get the O'Keefe Gang arrested. Her aides are all spinmeisters, after all, so how could they resist? Or if they told the FBI one thing, but told their media friends something else. Watch for all charges to be dropped when the witnesses have to say anything under oath.

On another subjest, that of Sarah Palin: Mandation is too a word! Look it up on OneLook.com or Wordnik.com. Examples of usage:

Commission, but with the particular Power in whose territory the property has become situated by cession or mandation. — The Economic Consequences of the Peace Despite its quasi-mandation by the European Commission, the outlook is particularly grim for DVB-H. — C21Media.net Before the digital-only mandation begins in February 2009, my family wants to look at all the options possible for a new TV. — Wrong Planet Asperger / Autism Forums

Sarah Palin: Smarter than most of the inter-tubes!

 

 

25 Expanding on my post #20, there is another option: the Columbo strategy of misdirection.  It's where you tell part of your story, but leave out some key details in an effort to fool your opponent into thinking you are a moron.  Your opponent then launches their opposition arguments against your fake stupid position.  In the process, they open themselves up for a flank / sandbagging attack in your reply.

That's what O'Keefe and Breitbart did with Acorn, when they only revealed some video, tricked Acorn into making claims about other locations, and then Breitbart revealed more videos directly contradicting Acorn's spin.

26

Don't forget the ABC operatives, goaded by union activists, who gained employment with Food Lion solely for the purpose of spying on operations.

IIRC, a jury found for Food Lion in the civil case (there were no criminal charges), but damages were zero or next-to-nil.

27 Remember the kid in SF that videotaped some people trashing a cop car? He said he was immune to subpoena since he intended to put the video on a blog and as a "journalist" he did not have to obey the courts, and in order to protect a "source" he would not give up the tape.

Well, there was a really big outcry in his favor from the net-roots, and the techies over at wired, slashdot,... saying that a new media journalist should get this favored status.

I wonder if there will be same outrcry for Okeefe?

28 I hope he gets a simple slap on the wrist.  Olberman's head will literally explode on air.

29
The whole "get into the phone closet" thing leaves me puzzled. A simple call to the phone call will tell you whether a give phone number is taking calls or not. As far as the closet is concerned, most offices have a trunk or fiber connected directly to a PBX, which then distributes calls to the extensions throughout the office. Modern PBXes are software-controlled; a simple instruction will let a company "busy out" lines or restrict the number of inbound calls that can be taken at a time; and, of course, just looking in the phone closet will not tell you how the PBX is configured.

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that O'Keefe was pulling one of his guerilla-theater stunts, was recognized, and Landrieu decided to make a federal case out of it, literally.

30 19 James O'Keefe broke into the office of a Senator and bugged her phone? I totally heard of that!

Posted by: Charlie Gibson at January 29, 2010 01:23 PM (8dnmm)

Now if you had said "buggered his phone" I might be a little more interested...

31 Does this mean there won't be any discovery, cuz I was really, really looking forward to the discovery phase.

32 I. SEE. NO-THING!

33

I think it's fair that James gets a 100 hours of community service for this. It'd be worth it for the publicity of the stunt alone and, really, he was oh-so-slightly out of line here.

I mean, definitely out of line enough that my Liberal friends will start going "James meh-meh-meh!" on me, so I think that annoyance deserves a little trash pick-up or what have you.

34 I think all charges will be dropped eventually if O'Keefe plays his hand carefully.

The last thing the govt wants dragged out in court is the lax security at the front door that let the two "repairmen" in under false pretenses.  Particularly in light of the recent TSA fiascoes.

I'm guessing that discovery would show that there were dozens of similar lapses where contractors were let in without cross checking ID's against who was authorized for building maintenance contracts and against open issues.

35

 but I'm 99.99% sure there is some law on the books about merely interfering with or obstructing the work of airport security

It's against the law to make JOKES about explosives in an airport.  Smuggling even fake explosives through security is probably considered a little more of a problem than that.

36 poopy poop!

37

I can see how the law got involved - they were asked to produce ID and couldn't.  But how did it get as far as charges being filed for what doesn't even rise to the level of a lo-tech prank?  

A prank would be disrupting office activities.  This doesn't even rise to that level if you believe O'Keefe.  If you believe Shuster, it's Watergate II:  The Twilighting of the Burglars.

38 Would be interesting to advertise for Louisianans who have called the Senator's office and were unable to get through. How many are out there and can they all fit inside a court room?

39 interesting that this and the on-going edwards sleezapalooza stories managed to blow the elle light story off the headlines. not saying there's a conspiracy, just questioning the timing. in my cynical old mind, the elle light story has a hell of a lot more to it, and is of far more importance than o'keefe getting tried and convicted by the media. as for the edwards' stories: could be worse. could be a nancy pelosi sex video.

40 Weird question maybe but when did "our phones have been jammed" equate to: "our phones aren't working properly"?  Where I come from (up north) if someone tells me their phones "are jammed" it means they are getting so many calls that not all of them can get through, it doesn't mean the phones aren't working.  Yet it seems like people are assuming Landrieu's statement that her phones were jammed meant they were non-functional and that O'Keefe was out to find out whether that was so.  I'm missing something here.

41 I think we can all rest assured knowing that Eric Holder's Justice department will protect O'Keefe.  We saw with the Black Panthers tossed out convictions that Mr. Holder goes to great lengths to protect those that are protecting the integrity of our Constitutionally assured protections.

42

Way O/T but way too funny (from CBS via Hotair):

(CBS)  The ongoing soap opera involving John Edwards and his ex-mistress has taken another bizarre turn.

The two-time failed presidential candidate's former mistress, Rielle Hunter, has obtained a court order demanding that a former Edwards aide turn over videotapes and photos Hunter says belong to her, reports CBS News Correspondent Tara Mergener.

Andrew Young's tell-all book, "The Politician," which is slated to hit stores Saturday, makes the explosive claim that Young found a sex tape made by Hunter and Edwards just months before the January 2008 Iowa caucus, Mergener says.

Do the materials Hunter is after include that tape?

According to the Maj. Charles Blackwood of the Orange County, N.C. Sheriff's Office, the restraining order "speaks to video recordings and photographs that depict matters of a private and personal nature."

Young refused to hand over the tapes and photos

43 What O'Keefe and his buddies did was a horrible hate crime.  It's not some innocent, well-meaning misdemeanor like intimidating voters entering a polling place because of their race.

44

I'm still of the opinion that this was an incredibly stupid thing to do.  If they didn't realize it was illegal, they should have.  If they did know it was illegal but did it anyways, they were being foolish.

The explanation that they weren't out to tap the phones but simply to investigate the claim that her phone lines were jammed sounds very plausible- more plausible than the notion that they were somehow going to tap her phones.

However, the hatchet job by the MSM doesn't change the fact that what they're accused of doing was illegal, reckless and stupid.  I wouldn't want to see them do hard time, but don't expect me to cheer them on or justify their little stunt.

45 34

I think it's fair that James gets a 100 hours of community service for this.

Posted by: William at January 29, 2010 01:39 PM (77TeU)

Why is that even approaching fair?

46 Compared to O'Keefe's crimes, voter fraud and aiding the importation of underage girls for prostitution is trivial.

47 about jamming the phone lines, it's easy to do. just call-forward the incoming number to another phone, then take that phone off the hook. easier, call-forward the phone to its own number. the tell-tale sign is the busy signal is immediate, no delay at all, where if it's a real busy signal, there's a slight delay before the incoming caller hears the busy signal. i used to work in the cubicle prairies of silicon valley, and i found that if i call-forwarded my number to my own number, incoming callers always got a busy signal, and the fricking phone wouldn't ring all day long, leaving more time to work on my tetris skills.

48 The whole "get into the phone closet" thing leaves me puzzled.

The "Have you ever shot a film?" guy above might be onto something. O'Keefe could have been getting location inserts (shots of stuff to cut away to, illustratively). The phone box in the office would be a good one, typical of an investigative documentary.

I have no theory. I don't know what this guy does. I haven't even seen the ACORN videos.

But I was the first one here to start bitching that all the "bugging" talk had no source except in the first round of news stories, and that its only later appearance was in an FBI spokesman quote, all of which (both all) are always total bullshit. Toldja.

49 entering a federal office under false pretenses

Hey, Obama did that, too.

50

Maybe this stunt has serve its ultimate purpose. I never heard anything about the phone lines being down or always busy. Probably never would either if it hadn't been for this arrest.

Perhaps this is a way to force the media's nose into the story and force them to report it. So far it's been a success. Several outlets have even had to offer retractions.

Maybe this kids are on sold legal ground and went in knowing how the press would overreact. Even gave Brietbart an opportunity to unload on Schuster.

Almost smells like another media sting.

51 I think he got something on tape that the good senator doesn't want seen, so she made a federal case of it to seize the tapes (for evidence, you see).  Once the tapes have been "misplaced" the case will be dropped for "lack of evidence" you see.

52 There is absolutely no test equipment that exists that could possibly tell the capacity of an office's phone lines from the closet.  None. Even an experienced telephone tech would need paperwork with him to even find the right lines in the telephone room(s) of a small office building, much less a huge Federal building.  It's just wires.  If you had a handset, you could go offhk and get dialtone, then type in a code to have the number repeated back to you in that handset.  Some techs, even with paper work, still have to do that because the count may be off.

Remember Die Hard?  That was neat.  Telephone techs are not known for being neat.  Most frames, closets, and cabinets are a fucking mess with no labeling at all.  Even if they got into the closet there is nothing there for them to prove anything.

The Central Office is a different story.  Anyone with access to the switch could look at the lines (probably a hunt group, or a DID or PRI) and look at the capacity.  But even doing that today has no bearing on what happened yesterday or a month ago.

These guys were dopes.  You have to have a security clearence to even get near anything to do with government phone lines.  The phone techs who work in these buildings are probably very well known.  Me thinks James and friends have watched too many episodes of 24.

53 If he's trying to figure out if the lines are really "jammed" (not sure what that means, was not aware that jamming meant no calls can get thru) he would need to see how many lines there are, where are the phones they go to) are they off the hook, are they being forwarded somewhere else, is there a team of 10 people furiously answering 100's of calls an hour, is there even ONE person in the entire office answering ANY calls at all?  Maybe it was as simple as calling the constituent line from all 4 guys cellphones and looking to see where/which phone rang (or didn't ring) in the office.  I'll be interested to see the video.

54

James O'Keefe broke into the office of a Senator and bugged her phone? I totally heard of that!

Posted by: Charlie Gibson at January 29, 2010 01:23 PM (8dnmm)

Criminy, that triggered the Mission: Impossible theme.

55 I don't think they were there to "check" any phone lines. They were just trying to elicit embarrassing answers to questions and collect footage to fill time for voice over.

56

If the dudes dad is a DA, I think O'keefe may no where the line is.

57

I don't think they were there to "check" any phone lines. They were just trying to elicit embarrassing answers to questions and collect footage to fill time for voice over.

And they need to dress up like phone company employees and access the telco closet to do that?

58 51   I agree.  Otherwise, any footage would have been limited to online views only.

59 I don't know why they didn't just splice a lot of stock footage together with an indignant voice-over telling the audience what to think about it. With the right dupes in the audience to respond to it, a guy can make a fortune!

60 So... O'Keefe is like Fletch, right?

61 "And they need to dress up like phone company employees and access the telco closet to do that?"

Um, have you ever been in a telco closet?  Do you think they just walk in, put a clip on a wire and the tap to the Senator's line is set?  You have been watching too many old episode of Mission Impossible.   The telephone repair guy who came to my house couldn't figure it ou.  Plus, did you see O'Keef's pimp outfit.  I'm sure his telco outfit was just as entertaining.

I can't wait to see the video.  What calls can't get through?  Let's check the telco closet...mmm, looks ok in there.  Maybe her desk phone is busted.  Nope, got a dial tone.

62 The collateral damage is awesome. The sub prime media is imploding with retractions. Big Bertha Lewis wantz my money. Shuster is a scheister. First time I saw Acorn fraud footage on AMessNBC. Breitbart talking slander and libel. Domino type detonations all over the place. Keister and Chris Tingle head explosions. Madcow using the term allegedly every 3 seconds. Too funny.

63  Okeefe might get stuck doing 100 hours of community service for Acorn.

64 15 You know what's funny? If I did this, it would be considered delightfully impish agitprop. - Michael Moore

------------------

I'd get a TV show. - Morgan Spurlock

-------------------

I've already optioned three movies on this neo-McCarthyist rape of America.

Posted by: George Clooney at January 29, 2010 01:22 PM (8dnmm)

My Adam's Apple has been bobbing double-time in excitement over this

65

The other thing that pisses me off about this is the leftie trolls over their disingenuous security concerns being the real crime (that didn't concern them over Dr Hassan et alia), making it sound like it was Fort Knox or something being broken into for the purposes of committing a crime.

So do any Awlins' morons here know (or care to check out the building in question) to tell us whether it's an ordinary office tower (and maybe whether it's an old stone building or a more-modern glass building); whether the lobby is completely open or if there's some form of security guard in the lobby; if there is a desk with a security guard, whether you have to check-in before accessing an elevator or if the security guard is more of a doorman who is just there to sign for packages or answer general questions from people entering the building e.g. "I'm from Acme Deliveries--is there a service elevator for me to bring these anvils to Coyote Inc. or do I use the regular ones? And they're on the 3rd Floor, aren't they?"

66

He doesn't seem to be generating much support from the left.

No shit, Einstein. (Or would you rather not be compared to a Jew? I'd hate to be culturally insensitive--you can go to prison for that in Canada.)

67 @66: The Hale Boggs Building is on the corner of Magazine and Poydras Sts. (tinyurl.com/HaleBoggs). The public enters from Magazine St. into a controlled lobby space. (The GSA provides security.) You have to walk through a metal detector, and the GSA screens all bags. While the public does not need to sign in, I believe I remember seeing sign in sheets for vendors, repairmen, etc. Once past security, you are pretty much free to move about the building. However, several magistrate judges have offices in that building (Hale Boggs is adjacent to the EDLa courthouse), and Federal Marshals provide additional security there. Alternatively, you could enter through the EDLA courthouse via a security controlled hallway (metal detectors, x-ray machines, and federal marshals), and cross into the federal building through a skyway.

68

Thanks, Many Scars, especially for the security/entrance information.

I used Google Earth to check out the building and saw that it is a more-modern office tower setup, and noticed that there were court-house-related names in the sidebar of tenants' names.

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