They were trying to ascertain the phone system in the closet had been altered to reject constituent calls.

O’Keefe was there to record the conversation and activity and was transmitting it back to the “listening device” a few blocks away.

There was no intention of planting bugs.

The affidavit didn’t accuse the group of “wiretapping” but of “willfully and maliciously interfering” with a government phone system, which may mean something less sinister in practice

Then from Frum:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict: the James O’Keefe/Landrieu phone interference case will be resolved with a very stern talking to by a judge, no criminal record, and 100 hours of community service each for the four arrested young people.

Sorry to burst your fantasy, M.R.

It is worth remembering that police beat journalism is the most one-sided in the field. You get the cops story and nothing from the arrestee. No one will let the arrestee speak for fear he will violate his rights, and a smart arrestee isn’t going to talk. The lawyer almost always says almost nothing and waits to work in court. If the media stays interested that is when the people find out about the inevitable other side. It is interesting that the journalism profession does not as a rule do anything much to blunt the assumption almost all of us make that the arrestee is guilty because he was, well, arrested. Newspapers, for example rarely seem to run paragraphs saying something like “X police agency makes x thousand arrests per year, and in x percent of the cases charges are dropped, a settlement agreement is reached on a lesser charge or the case is otherwise disposed. No more than x percent actually go to trial. Of the x percent of cases going to trial x percent result in conviction.” Some formula like that that at least shows a little scepticism about the guilt of the arrestee.
IMO this arrest is pretty weird and so is the conduct alleged. Who would want to be sandwiched between an outraged US Senator and the FBI??
This should be very interesting as more facts come out.

Read the updated stories. He was using the cell camera to tape his compatriots who were doing the bugging. In other words, he just supplied the evidence to convict himself.

These guys are screwed. And it’s a shame because they’re just dumb-ass kids high on ideology and arrogance. They need to cop a plea fast. If they drag this out the feds will hammer them.

I’ll bet he’s acquitted. This is probably a publicity stunt, and I’ll bet he called the FBI on himself.

Don’t mistake this as making an excuse for a criminal… if he’s guilty of a felony, throw the book at him. I just find it a bit far-fetched that he could be so stupid that he would actually try to bug a Senator’s office.

Conservative “New Media Hero” Makes Richard Milhouse Nixon Proud — Busted For Wiretapping In A New Orleans Federal Building… EVEN RIGHT-WING BLOGGERS ARE DISMAYED AT JAMES O’KEEFE’S DISREGARD FOR THE RULE OF LAWThis time, the …