This is a sincere question. I did a quick search to see if there was a recent, relevant diary where I could post a comment, but I came up empty. So instead, here comes my first diary. Be gentle.
I don't know if this was reported earlier, but I just heard about it today. On March 19 of this year, Lauren Windsor (and a colleague) recorded conversations with Roger Stone at the "Catholics Prayer for Trump" event at Mar-a-Lago. Here's a write-up in Rolling Stone.
Roger Stone has threatened to sue Windsor, of course. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure defamation is out. (see my amateur explanation at the end)
But I wonder if she violated Florida wiretap laws. These laws vary from state-to-state, and fall into one of two basic categories:
- One-party consent (at least one party to the conversation must consent to it being recorded)
- All-party consent (all parties to the conversation must consent to it being recorded)
All-party consent is often incorrectly referred to as "Two-party consent," which I suppose is technically if not legally correct if the conversation in question only has two parties. There are many compilations of the various state laws. Just to be clear, these laws usually (always?) refer to oral and electronic communications. I am unclear if violating these laws are a civil or criminal matter, so even if the answer to my title question is yes, it may not be up to Roger Stone if Lauren Windsor faces any legal peril.
Anyway, Florida is an “All-party consent” state, which suggests to me that these recordings violated Florida law. One of Florida’s exceptions to requiring the consent of all parties to the conversation is, “where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.” These conversations didn’t happen in public, but they sound like they happened in a large, crowded room at a private club (perhaps in a ballroom that used to have boxes of state secrets on the stage for all we know). I have no idea if that all adds up to a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Are there any experts on Florida law here who can weigh in on this, or just correct anything I’ve gotten wrong?
P.S: If you are wondering about the June 3rd recordings of the Alitos, that event was held by the Supreme Court Historical Society dinner and, if I am reading their website correctly, was held at the Court. The District of Columbia is covered by one-party consent laws, so those earlier-reported recordings appear to not run afoul of the law.
As far as defamation goes, there are multiple hurdles Stone would need to overcome. The biggest one is that truth is an absolute defense to defamation. So unless the recordings were heavily edited to misrepresent what Stone was saying, NOPE. As far as I know, that should be the end of the story concerning defamation.
