LOS ANGELES (AP) — A temporary restraining order has been issued preventing an anti-abortion group from releasing any video of leaders of a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. The group is the same one that previously released three covertly shot videos of a Planned Parenthood leader discussing the sale of aborted fetuses for research.
The Los Angeles Superior Court order issued Tuesday prohibits the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of three high-ranking StemExpress officials taken at a restaurant in May. It appears to be the first legal action prohibiting the release of a video from the organization.
The Center for Medical Progress has released three surreptitiously recorded videos to date that have riled anti-abortion activists. The Senate is expected to vote before its August recess on a Republican effort to bar federal aid to Planned Parenthood in the aftermath of the videos’ release.
In a statement Wednesday, center leader David Daleiden said StemExpress was using “meritless litigation” to cover up an “illegal baby parts trade.”
“The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work,” he said.
StemExpress is a Placerville-based company started in 2010 that provides human tissue, blood and other specimens to researchers. Planned Parenthood is one of the company’s providers of fetal tissue.
A company spokesman said StemExpress is “grateful its rights have been vindicated in a court of law.”
In the first video released by the Center for Medical Progress, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, describes techniques for obtaining fetal body parts for researchers to activists posing as potential buyers from a human biologics company over lunch. When asked about partnering with Planned Parenthood directly rather than through its affiliates, Nucatola mentioned StemExpress as one company that had approached them.
In another previously released video, a woman identified as a former StemExpress phlebotomist describes drawing blood and dissecting dead fetuses.
“I thought I was going to be just drawing blood, not procuring tissue from aborted fetuses,” the employee, Holly O’Donnell, said.
Planned Parenthood’s affiliates in fewer than five states provide fetal tissue for researchers, according to the organization. The Center for Medical Progress accuses the group of illegally making a profit from that.
Planned Parenthood has said it only receives reimbursements for costs of providing tissue donated by women and that it has done nothing wrong.
The temporary restraining order issued Tuesday will remain in place until a hearing on Aug. 19.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The videos are incredibly misleading, sure. But this is almost certainly an unconstitutional prior restraint.
California has laws against videoing private citizens without their explicit consent…
“The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work,”
I see. So YOU get to claim that, but we’re supposed to assume that PP is guilty until proven innocent and is not following “all applicable laws in the course of” its tissue donation work? Fuck that. Prosecute these fuckers. NOW.
[quote]California Law Penal Code § 632, enacted under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, makes it illegal for an individual to monitor or record a “confidential communication” whether the communication is carried on among the parties in the presence of one another or by means of a telegraph, telephone, or other device. California is known as a “two-party” state, which means that recordings are not allowed unless all parties to the conversation consent to the recording.
Under Penal Code § 632©, “confidential communication” includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.[/quote]
Source: http://stimmel-law.com/ru/article/secret-recording-conversations-california-crime
Yes, they were in a restaurant, but it is the expectation of the parties that determines whether confidentiality and privacy were anticipated. It is an issue of FACT, not law, and is therefore for the jury to determine. They can and should be prosecuted. Let the jury sort it out.
Neener, neener, neener!
Ahh, no it’s not. You obviously don’t know California law despite throwing around terms like “prior restraint”. No one can make an audio or video recording without the consent of all parties.