Eavesdropping and Corruption in Illinios
I am fighting to make Chicago more friendly to artists because in the winter of 1984 I hitch hiked in a blizzard from Minneapolis to Chicago with one last payroll check in my pocket. I know what it takes to survive as a struggling artist.
Don’t think we live in a police state in Illinois? Compare Chicago with New York as regards artists interfacing with their police.
The following are the instructions given to artists by Robert Lederman, artist organizer of artists, in New York City.
What does it take to survive as an artist in a new city without any friends or money or a job but only your talent and ambition. It takes grass-roots opportunities, cheap accommodations and scenes where artists are able to gather to inspire each other.
"Artists are once again reminded of a basic fact about
laws, your rights and courts that most of you continue to
completely ignore at your own peril:
You have to collect EVIDENCE if you want to win your case.
That goes for beating a ticket or winning a lawsuit.
Your verbal recollection, notes or witnesses are not going
to help you prevail against the testimony of the police.
EVERY SINGLE conversation with a PEP officer, NYPD
officer, Parks Dept official or BID employee should be taped
from the first to last word of the event. Get their names
and who they work for on tape as well. Such tapes are legal
WITHOUT getting permission to make them,
and absolutely can be used in court.
I found cheap accommodations but the other two ingredients seemed to be lacking. Maxwell street was the only place where people could sell things but it turned out to be a flea market where art could not be sold because people were looking for bargains not hand-made items and art.
If you are going to let the Parks Dept do whatever they
want to you in whatever arbitrary way, and not even bother
to document it with a video, you are asking for more and more
harassment.
Following this advice in Illinois will land you in a 1st class felony fight because you have no right to gather the evidence you need to dispute anything a policeman says in court in Illinois. Add to this, in Chicago we have Mayor Daley, who will not fire violent officers – even those with 50 or more human rights abuse charges against them, or even tell the City Council who those officers are."
There was no street art scene anywhere I looked. I put my camera down, picked up a pencil and taught myself how to draw. I found a community garden in the Uptown community and got involved. After three years I proposed a mural project to a community organization and led a group of youth in a summer mural project at the Peoples Church on Lawrence Avenue. This was my first income from art activity in Chicago.
I know it hurts. I know its hard to admit after repeating the pledge of allegiance since our first day in school and when I think about how many times have I have sung the national anthem but consider my reality, I am facing up to 15 years in prison from selling art for $1 on State Street. I was arrested on the misdemeanor for selling art but charged 6 hours later with a 1st class felony for eavesdropping on my own arrest and violating the privacy rights of the officer who arrested me. I had a digital audio recorder running collecting background noise from our Street Artist Adventure.
At the opening for the mural I suggested we needed a non-profit arts organization. Everyone clapped and went home leaving me to clean up. That is how the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center was born. For successful small community arts organizations the first few years are the most difficult. My cofounder, Laillah Abdullah, passed away after two years and I continued on.
My lawyer tells me there is a correspondence between those states that have overly broad eavesdropping laws and states where the mob has influence. Corruption! Of course. If you are a corrupt public official or a person involved in corruption its in your favor to have an eavesdropping law that prevents anyone from recording anything in public without the fear of a felony. A corrupt person feels more comfortable in a state like that. Corruption includes police who violate police procedure and who hide violations of police procedure. Unfortunately, its possible for a lot of honest people to end up felons while the real felons walk free. That’s why I ask – what is the state of our police in this state we are in?
When our first space at a social service non-profit was withdrawn we moved to the American Indian Center where our Board President, Robert Wapahi, was the artist in residence. I have never made a living wage working at the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center but volunteered overtime to make our art activities happen.
Want to clean up corruption in this State? Start by changing the eavesdropping law. It’s a small but important step in that direction. And it sets the citizens free to contribute to the improvement of public servants from the street level up. This is the best thing for the many good men and women on any city force or any city street, right? Because police should be able to be proud of being professional, upholding the constitution and citizens rights, while doing their duty, right? Pride in service – pride in self. Right or wrong? And citizens should be able to have that same confidence in their police force.
In twenty years of organizing “Art of the T-shirt” exhibits I met many struggling artists and advocated for an artists market, wondering the entire time why none existed in a major urban environment like Chicago.
I spent twenty years building an art organization, the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center, mostly as a full time volunteer. Those were twenty years of interfacing with local artists, creating exhibits of art on t-shirts and teaching screen printing in a free screen print workshop for artists. Artists need places to meet the public and build audiences. Throughout history the public walks and parks have been places for artists to build their audiences, and that always went for selling their work in public, too. Unlike any other nation, we have a 1st Amendment to our Constitution that promises us this right of speech.
When the Iraq War angered me to the point of printing and giving away anti-war art on cotton patches I began to study our First Amendment rights to sell art in public and discovered the laws that prevent art scenes from developing in Chicago are unconstitutional.
Yet, many cities around the world allow their artists more rights than Chicago does to reach their public. That is why I challenged the peddlers license by selling art for $1 on State Street. What are the Chicago Police, the State’s Attorney, and the State of Illinois saying by bouncing back with a 1st class felony for audio-recording my own arrest? Are they that afraid of artists who dare to speak out?
My research showed that the grass-roots art opportunities have been stripped away from area artists by the Chicago peddlers license and park board policies that marginalize artists and other speech vendors.
The eavesdropping law needs to be amended. This law is gaining in notoriety from my case and others. There is no case law on the constitutionality of audio-recording police because it is legal to do so in most states. Only recently have cell phones made audio and video recording as common as chewing gum or the aluminum can. The time is ripe to re-evaluate the Illinois eavesdropping law.
If there had been a thriving art scene where I could have sold my creative work and networked with artists my career would have progressed more quickly and with greater ease. But none existed then and none exists today. If I have to go to prison to change this I will. It's our First Amendment right to sell art in public for which I fight.
Just 12 states have all parties consent laws, meaning everyone must consent to legally audio-record a conversation in public. But most allow that the conversation must be deemed a private conversation like you on your telephone or with a business partner discussing business discretely.
I created the Art Patch Project to educate the public to our rights protected by the First Amendment. The public and other artists are as unaware as I used to be that it is our right to sell art in public as long as we are not blocking the way of those walking on the side walk. We give-away art submitted by a growing number of artists on screen print on patches to create awareness of our rights.
In Illinois – the most extreme of the 12 states, privacy is not even an issue – public or private – without all parties consenting – audio recording is a felony. True enough, as the law is written, but the whole reason for the law and my charge is privacy, the privacy of the public speech of an arresting officer. The same arresting officer who has no privacy that his employer – the State respects – while he/she is on duty.
With all the cameras the City has everywhere including all police cars, they can watch him, you and me but its a first class felony for us to gather information in public that could protect us from false testimony in court. A public arrest is a public interaction on the public way by a public servant paid by our tax dollars. We have a duty to use our 1st Amendment rights to report and to prove corruption and ineptitude in government. We do this by gathering evidence.
We need to restore artists’ right to sell art in public and citizens’ right to gather information on police and other public servants in public when they are on duty. These two specific 1st Amendment rights we need to re-establish in Illinois and Chicago to honestly say we are a free people.
The State of Illinois is presently trying to put me in prison for up to 15 years from selling art for $1 on State Street to test the peddlers license. In Illinois they use an unconstitutionally broad eavesdropping law to persecute social critics who dare to audio record their encounters in public with police. They claim with a straight face their actions have nothing to do with free speech or the First Amendment.
Please take a stand on this issue. I also ask for your suggestions on how and where to find allies in our effort to change this law. Finally, if you really get it – could you donate something on Facebook or NetworkforGood (Guidestar) online to the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center so we can buy and post the transcript of our oral arguments for dismissal and expand the Art Patch Project. We want to post all the news related to this case we can gather – online – so that we can illustrate the justice we receive in Illinois.
