Political privacy concerns abound. Recent articles point to eavesdropping in a small municipality’s board of education as well as on the national scale.

from Houghton Lake, Michigan; The Houghton Lake Resorter:

Recordings, missing computer files, eavesdropping among focus of investigation meetings

Houghton Lake Board of Education received a re­port from Recon Management Group, LLC, dated May 17, 2016, regarding areas of inves­tigation…
Investigated were al­legations related to eaves­dropping on a phone con­versation; Cryderman’s claim that a board member drove to his house for the purpose of intimidating him; computers being “wiped” of data; misrep­resentations to the board about knowledge of tape recordings; violations of competitive bidding; interference with the investiga­tion and miscellaneous concerns…

Bucher’s findings regarding the eavesdropping allegation were that: “… all parties involved admit that the call took place in which (name redacted) ac­cidentally called Brent’s phone without their knowledge and Brent admitted that he did in fact eavesdrop on their call.”…

Also investigated was the possible tape recording of individuals without their knowledge. A large portion of the report details who recorded whom and who knew about it and may have mis­led the board about the knowledge of its existence.

[Read more]

An article in The Bulletin reports:

Bugging in Brazil exposes fear of biggest betrayal yet

Marcelo Odebrecht, the former head of Brazil’s largest construction conglomerate who was arrested in a massive corruption scandal, is trying to reduce a 19-year sentence through a plea bargain…

…Little did he know that his friend, former Petrobras executive Sergio Machado, was secretly taping their conversations as part of his own collaboration deal, going so far as to record him at a hospital. The leaked recordings were obtained during a probe, dubbed Carwash, into corruption at the state-run oil company.

…[Former President Jose] Sarney called his old pal a “moral monster” after he caught the statesman on tape. Machado had told his old friend that he left his phone behind to avoid unwanted wiretapping by police, Castro said. But the executive kept a second hidden device to tape the man he used to describe as his father.

[Read more]

Also in Mint Press News:

Brazil’s Elite React To Trove Of Leaked Audio Recordings By Trying To Ban Audio Recordings

Leaked secret audio recordings of Brazil’s most powerful figures have sparked a series of explosive scandals in the nation’s ongoing political crisis. Now, Brazilian lawmakers are trying to outlaw publication of such recordings.

A bill, which has been idling since last year in the Câmara dos Deputados, Brazil’s lower house of Congress, has picked up new steam this month. The proposed legislation seeks to criminalize the “filming, photographing or capturing of a person’s voice, without authorization or lawful ends,” punishable by up to two years imprisonment and a fine. If the recording is published on social media, the penalty rises to four to six years.

…The bill would not block the federal police’s use of secret recordings, but would prohibit any recording — secret or open — conducted without full consent and not produced in “the public interest,” a subjective term that would likely be left to the discretion of judges.

[Read more]