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In a California court on Tuesday, two anti-abortion activists were charged with 15 felony counts of invasion of privacy stemming from an undercover video sting on Planned Parenthood. David Robert Daleiden and Sandra Susan Merritt filmed themselves while trying to purchase fetal tissue at several Planned Parenthoods in 2015.
In doing so, the two fabricated false identities and credentials and created a fake bioresearch company (Biomax Procurement Services) to cover their tracks. They managed to weasel their way into Planned Parenthood locations and a conference for the National Abortion Federation in 2014. Their efforts carried on through September 2015, and they ended up secretly recording confidential, non-consensual conversations with 14 people. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said this was an invasion of privacy:
“The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California’s constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society. We will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations.”
The duo, who are part of the anti-abortion nonprofit Center for Medical Progress, labeled themselves not as criminals, but as “citizen journalists” who were trying to uncover the inner workings of Planned Parenthood. However, CNN reports that some of the footage was doctored:
The videos were edited and in some cases contained footage that was not of aborted fetuses. In one, Daleiden used footage of a still-born child he found online with a narration about a Planned Parenthood abortion of a fetus the same age.
The videos caused a major stir, and some members of the Texas GOP used them as “evidence” to try and defund Planned Parenthood earlier this year. However, a Texas judge threw the video evidence out and called them the “building blocks of a best-selling novel.” Despite this slam and the new felony charges in California, Daleiden seems undeterred and claimed that more unreleased videos are on the horizon. Planned Parenthood maintains that it has not profited from selling fetal tissue.
(Via The Washington Post, NBC News & CNN)
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The Breitbart right-wing dirty tricksters brought down Acorn the same way.
It was allowed then. I don’t know happened here.
Oh yeah, and both sides are the same.
All of those doctored tapes to bring down the heritage foundation and the NRA. Shameful Liberals.
“Both sides are the same” is the new “I don’t trust Hillary, but I don’t like Trump either.” It’s a way for a shitheel to get away with being a shitheel.
Democrats are not righteous and just, but they are not equal to Republicans. UFR, I refer you to the recent Senate and House votes on allowing ISP to sell our private browsing histories to anyone who is willing to pay for it. Not a single Democrat voted for it and not a single Republican voted against it. Does that not tell you something? When push came to shove, the entire GOP stood up against OUR rights as consumers in favor of enhancing the profit margins of ISPs who donate millions to their campaign coffers. Try and spin a defense of that, go ahead. How about when the current Congress’ first act upon reconvening in January was a Republican effort to attempt to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics? The GOP only backed down from that after a massive public outcry. But yeah, both sides are equal, right?
If this comment section were a room, I have a feeling we’d throw open the door and find everyone above dead, smothered to death by their own sense of self satisfaction