and the prosecutors who took the case to court assumed what he was doing was against the law.
it looks like the judges in the lower courts thought so as well. The case was argued all the way up to the Supreme Judicial Court (Massachusetts Supreme Court) which looked at the language of the law and said, basically, "Guess what. Sorry, but it's not in there." Public reaction seems to have been universally stunned at this discovery.
I remember years back there were cases where women were secretly videotaped, and the courts ruled this was legal because all the laws about surreptitious recordings dealt with audio, not video, recordings--cheap video equipment not having been invented at the time the laws were written. As long as there was no audio in the recordings, the tapes were perfectly legal. Here too the various legislatures had to play catch-up.
This happens with every new technology. The laws have to be general enough to cover all reasonable contingencies, but at the same time not SO general that they get applied in other ways people don't like. I believe not too long ago in Massachusetts the courts ruled that the same laws that prohibit surreptitious recordings also meant that citizens couldn't use recording equipment when stopped by police on the highway. So if someone recorded a cop beating up a perfectly innocent person, the recording was inadmissible in court, and the person who made the recording was subject to arrest. Don't know whether that glitch has been fixed yet, or not.
You're right though, what this needs is for some legislator in each jurisdiction to take this on pro-actively. Given the state of American politics these days, I doubt that happens very much, no matter what the issue.
Best wishes.
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