VIEWPOINTS
f QUORUMS. OPimONS iHTtnt to the ioitor
Jail recording violates
rights, confidentiality
■ OUR OPINION: Tape
recording steps on legal
traditions and breaks law
“Caution Any converse
lions between incarcerated
members and visitors may
be recorded and/or moni
tored within the visiting
area at any time “
Theae 21 words (or at
least a policy stating the
same) could have poasibly
kept the tana County fail
out of its currant battle with
Catholic Church offti ml*
t onosrning a recording
made of a meeting between
a triple-murder suspect and
a Cathoik Priest.
Instead, the fail is begin
ning to feel the wrath of the
Catholic f'hurt h and other
religious and legal organics
lions.
Conan Halt*, named by
l-ane Quinty proem utors as
a suspect in the murders of
three teenager* found lain
last Dm nmlw on a Spring
field logging road, took the
(uu rament of reconciliation
(confession) from Timothy
Mockaitis. priest of St,
Paul's Catholic Church in
Eugene in (ail on April 22
And |ail official* recorded
that dialogna.
According to mu< new*
report. an official from the
district attorney's office said
Halo know about tha poasi
bility of being recorded.
But at cording to a Eugene
spokesperson for the
Catholic Church, the knowl
edge that a confession might
be recorded would keep a
priest from even meeting
with an individual who
wanted to take the sacra
ment of reconciliation
Apparently. Mockaitis
went into the meeting with
the understanding that he
ami Hale woulti be covered
by the privilege of confiden
tiality that the (Catholic
Church lias had lor years
The bottom lino it that lh«
recording should not have
boon mao* and it should be
inadmissibln as evidence for
the prosecution in court
Not only does the record
ing over-step religious
boundaries end rights, it
infringes on one's right to
uphold th* 5th Amendment
to the Constitution — the
right to refrain from self
incrimination.
CC-—
Not only doex the recording
over-step religious boundaries
and rights, it infringe i on ..,
ike right to nr/rain from seif
incriminatum
—---m m
According to one Univer
sity law professor, the only
way prosecutors could use
the recording at evidence
would be if they could
piove Main knew about the
possibility of being tape
recorded and had then
waiver! hit right to confi
dentiality
District Attorney Doug
Marc broad said the record
ing wat made with the
intention of gathering and
developing evidence and
not at an attack on the
Catholic Church or any
other church or religion.
But the damage hat
.dread v been done.
If tbe tape tomehow
makes its way into the
courtroom, which i* an
extremely tilm possibility,
the results will be grave
consequences for personal
freedom and confidentiality
traditions and laws
This whole mess could
have been avoided if only
l-ane County [ait officials
Iwd made it clear to both
parties that somewhere at
some point in the conversa
tion. a tape recorder just
might be turned on.
Emerald
■
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Support free community broadcastina
How the Kell tan we expect new tech
oologies to solve our problems when
we don't effectively use whet we
already have? Why do so many people
talk about finding ways to build • sense of com
inunity, and then completely ignore one of the
moat powerful tool* available* Are we. as a cul
ture, too stupid, ignorant and apathetic? Are we
so conditioned by what is that we are incapable
of seeing what amid he*
Last week. 1 had the opportunity to see roost
of the Ethic* After the Holocaust* conference
front the unique vantage point of being part of
the video crew that broadcasts most of the con
ference over cable end satellite TV.
Unlike TV viewers and conference attendees,
my view of the event was a series of fnqpnents
from each of the lectures interrupted by the
need to change camera positions, twitch from
one camera image to another, make sure name
keys came and went as needed and to adjust
audio levels as Conditions changed
While this somewhat schisophrenic view pro
vented me town hearing everything that each of
the speakers said, it did provide me with an
example of why our culture has no much trouble
communicating with one another
The i (inferenc e was a unique, perhaps even
historic, assembly of some of the meat profound
thinkers alive today in the areas of ethic s, social
interactions and social responsibilities.
For three day*, the speakers freely shared
their knowledge and understanding with then
audiences, and (or throe day* a crew from the
IMC broadcasted live via table and satellite TV
It was an atnaung experience, but it left me
wondering
The cable transmissions made the conference
accessible to anyone in Eugene. Albany. Salem
and Portland who were tied into TO cable.
Satellite transmissions could be received by
anyone tuned into that particular satellite from
Mexico City up to Canada and as far east as the
Mississippi River But what if you weren't tied
into TCI and didn't have « satellite dtsi; i apahle
of receiving the signals?
Here was a tremendous wealth of information
and insight being transmitted, and yet only a
tmy fraction of the population of the entire
western United States would see it because
what was being said was not commercial
It is unlikely that any commercial TV broad
caster could find a sponsor to pay for the broad
cast lime, the broadcasters couldn't make any
money from the program, and therefore, none of
them selected it
To their credit, OPB is thinking about broad
casting some of the tapes from the conference,
especially the one-on one interview with Elie
Weisel But what about the other lS-plus hours?
That conference, like many such events, had
the potential to help us better understand the
many social problems that continue to haunt us
*nd help us find workable solutions to those
problems Everyone in the western United
State* could have soon that conference. but as
long as access to broadcast TV is limited to what
is comamckU, they never will.
The answer is community based local TV
broadcasting. I'm not talking about cable TV;
there is already community access to cable
Only a fraction of households are plugged into it
for a cost Virtually every household in America
has a TV that is capable of receiving broadcasts
at no coat. And I'm not talking about public
broadcasting as it now exists. OPB faces ail of
the economic pressures that commercial stations
do If it doesn’t broadcast shows that attract and
hold large audiences, it can t attract the money
from viewers and corporations that it needs to
operate.
BTJny»
taiy
M
I m talking about community
w tou to broadcast TV Com
men iai broadcaster* are cur
rently pouring millions of
dollar* into Washington in
tinier to get more chunk* of the
broadcast spectrum allocated
to them by the PCC.
The technology already
exist* to allow these broadcast
era to transmit two or more
cnannats in uw same space
(hal ihey now use for one channel. They plan to
uw that extra bandwidth to sell paging and
other telecommunication* service*. So why not
force them to make at least one channel in every
community open to local community aeons*
programming?
Why not have at W*t one channel in every
community dedicated to broadcasting town hall
meeting*, local government meeting*, commune
tv action programs and even conference* like
the one hist week?
Instead of limiting access to those who are
able to subscribe to a given cable system, why
not make those programs accessible to the entire
community st no cost?
There are people who struggle every day to
send worthwhile information to those who want
it. There are people In every community who
want to know what occurs in their community
but do not have easy access to that information
Local TV broadcasting can solve each of those
problems
Think of the power such a tool could bring to
the shaping of a sense of community. The tech*
nology already exist*. All that seems lacking is a
vision and ihe willingness to pressure our NKt*
«d officials to make true community access a
requirement for broadcaster* who want more of
the broadcast spectrum.
Larry- Haftl. a senior maturing in fou malum. is a
columnist for the Emerald.