>> Linda Tripp is TOAST!
As noted before, Maryland has no jurisdiction over Tripp, since her tapes involved interstate calls:
Not a legal shack
News reports have given the impression that taping
telephone calls in Maryland is legal only if all parties consent;
and therefore, Linda R. Tripp broke the law when she
recorded her telephone conversations with Monica Lewinsky.
That apparently is not the case, however.
"Yes, Linda Tripp was recording calls while in her
Maryland home; and yes, Maryland law requires all-party
consent," James A. Ross, head of the Ross Group, a privacy
and security outfit based in Washington, told us earlier this
summer.
"However, the calls were not made within the state of
Maryland," he said. "They were interstate calls made between
Washington, D.C., and Maryland, and therefore the federal
law applies, not state law. And federal law allows taping when
one party consents."
In other words, said Mr. Ross, Mrs. Tripp recorded legally.
In two columns this week, we've been examining whether
Mrs. Tripp was properly warned when she purchased her
phone recorder from Radio Shack -- as is Tandy Corp. policy
-- that taping calls within Maryland without consent of all
parties is illegal. In doing so, whose name should surface again,
but Mr. Ross.
No stranger to state and federal courts as an expert witness
in criminal cases involving the same laws now in question in the
Tripp-Lewinsky recordings, Mr. Ross actually testified on
behalf of Tandy, Radio Shack's parent company.
"About 20 years ago, Tandy was sued for $6 million in
federal court in Columbia, S.C. for 'aiding and abetting in the
commission of a felony' by selling a telephone recording control
(PN 43-236) to a fellow who used it to record his wife's calls
to her boyfriend (or something like that)," Mr. Ross told us
Thursday.
"I was chosen by Tandy to be their expert witness," he said.
"That case was the start of an effort by Tandy to cause its
Radio Shack store people to be aware of the law," Mr. Ross
added, however as he put it:
"Gosh, oh golly, gee whiz, you can't expect store clerks to
know the electronics, know the law, know what a customer
plans to do; and advise customers on such"
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