Project Veritas, a right-media group that uses hidden cameras, is setting up in Massachusetts after a federal court said a state law prohibiting secret audio recordings of police officers and other government officials is unconstitutional.
The ruling zeroes in on government officials performing duties in public.
“We haven’t been able to work in Massachusetts until now and we will work in Massachusetts,” said James O’Keefe, head of the Project Veritas.
“We may be in Massachusetts already,” he added. “We can’t talk about what we do.”
The ruling was part of the result of Project Veritas taking on Suffolk District Attorney’s Office, arguing that “undercover news gathering and reporting could result in criminal charges and civil lawsuits if undertaken in Massachusetts” because of a state law banning secret audio recordings.” The ACLU of Massachusetts had its own separate lawsuit that led to the ruling.
Court documents outline the interest of Project Veritas, a New York-based nonprofit, in some potential topics in Massachusetts, including “instances of landlords taking advantage of housing shortages in Boston where students may live in unsafe and dilapidated conditions,” and ties between the landlords and local officials.
The nonprofit also expressed interest in investigating the controversy over “sanctuary cities,” the oft-used term for local communities that seek to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
“It would accomplish this by secretly investigating and recording interactions with government officials in Boston in the discharge of their duties in public places, including police officers, to learn more about their concerns about immigration policy and deportation,” the court filing said.
The nonprofit would also “secretly investigate and record government officials who are discharging their duties at or around the State House in Boston and other public spaces to learn about their motives and concerns about immigration policy and deportation,” the filing added.
A 2010 O’Keefe undercover investigation into Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana senator, resulted in him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor of entering government property under false pretenses. In the incident, O’Keefe pretended to be a telephone repairman.
In another incident, according to the Associated Press, a woman who was affiliated with Project Veritas “tried to get the [Washington Post] to report a false sexual allegation against Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.”
As for the ACLU of Massachusetts, the a left-leaning group filed its own separate lawsuit in June 2016 against the Boston Police and the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two activists.
"We all suffer when fear of retribution or prosecution stifles conversations about police accountability,” said Roxbury resident René Pérez, one of the plaintiffs. “This ruling is a step towards greater police accountability and towards the safe, effective exercise of the right to record the police.”
Michael Lambert, an attorney with Prince Lobel Tye LLP, said the ruling reinforces one of the ideas behind the First Amendment: People shouldn’t be afraid of government, but the government should be afraid of the people.
The ruling is also a victory for journalists, he said.
“This decision doesn’t mean all journalists and everybody’s going to constantly be recording the police in secret, it just means they’re able to if they need to,” Lambert said. “And they’re able to do so if and when it’s necessary.”
What constitutes public space and who is considered a public official are still open questions, as the ruling acknowledges, Lambert added.
“It’s certainly interesting in this case, you have the ACLU and Project Veritas, consolidated into one,” he said. “I think that just shows the nonpartisan nature of the First Amendment. It is not owned by the right or the left, it belongs to the people.”
Material from Associated Press was used in this report.