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   From: ceeya@kenyan.com   
      
   LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An anti-abortion group has a free speech   
   right to release covert video of discussions with a California   
   company that provides fetal tissue for research, even if the   
   footage was illegally recorded, a judge ruled Friday.   
      
   Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne O'Donnell rejected   
   efforts by StemExpress to block the videos, though she said the   
   company likely will prevail in its lawsuit claiming its privacy   
   was violated by an anti-abortion activist posing as a biomedical   
   company employee.   
      
   While the ruling cleared the way for the release of yet another   
   video by the little-known Center for Medical Progress, it was   
   not clear how soon it might post it online. StemExpress said it   
   disagreed with the ruling and was considering an appeal.   
      
   The Irvine-based anti-abortion group reignited the abortion   
   debate after releasing undercover videos last month of Planned   
   Parenthood officials discussing aborted fetal organs it provides   
   for research.   
      
   Abortion opponents said the video showed Planned Parenthood was   
   illegally harvesting and selling the organs. Planned Parenthood   
   said it did nothing wrong and the videos were deceptively edited   
   to support extremists' false claims.   
      
   Fervent reaction to the videos prompted members of Congress to   
   try to kill funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides   
   health services to women such as birth control, sexual disease   
   screening and abortions. It has also led to calls for   
   investigations of the center and of Planned Parenthood.   
      
   Placerville-based StemExpress, which got some of its fetal   
   tissue from Planned Parenthood, was drawn into the controversy   
   when its chief executive and general counsel met in May at a   
   Northern California restaurant with two representatives of the   
   phony Biomax Procurement Services.   
      
   It was a ruse orchestrated by the center's leader, David   
   Daleiden, who posed as "Robert Sarkis" to secretly record the   
   conversation.   
      
   When the first Planned Parenthood videos surfaced this summer,   
   StemExpress Chief Executive Officer Catherine Dyer realized   
   she'd been duped and her company sued to pre-emptively block   
   that footage from being seen.   
      
   The company, which broke ties with Planned Parenthood last week,   
   said the videos were illegally obtained because officials   
   weren't notified they were being recorded and their right to   
   privacy was violated. A lawsuit over their privacy claims is   
   pending.   
      
   Releasing video would draw the company and Dyer "deeper into the   
   vortex of public animosity stirred up by CMP's crusade to brand   
   everyone associated with Planned Parenthood as evil criminals,"   
   the company said in court papers.   
      
   Dyer said the company's connection to Planned Parenthood led to   
   violent threats and forced her to hire a security team.   
      
   StemExpress won a temporary restraining order last month, but   
   O'Donnell said Friday that the center's First Amendment rights   
   to release the videos trumped the company's right to block them   
   under their privacy claims.   
      
   The judge said she couldn't tell who was telling the truth about   
   how confidential the May meeting was, but she said the fact   
   Daleiden concealed his identity and secretly recorded the   
   conversation made his account less believable.   
      
   O'Donnell rejected the center's argument that the secret   
   recordings were legal under an exemption that allows such   
   subterfuge if someone believes they are gathering evidence of a   
   crime.   
      
   "Defendants' apparent ideological conviction that fetal tissue   
   procurement is a violent felony does not, without more, rise to   
   the level of a `reasonable belief,' " O'Donnell wrote.   
      
   While O'Donnell said StemExpress would probably prevail in its   
   privacy lawsuit, the center's lawyer said that statement was   
   based on little evidence.   
      
   Attorney Charles LiMandri said the recordings will show Dyer had   
   no expectation of privacy in a public restaurant where a diner   
   was sitting at the next table and waiters came and went   
   throughout the meal.   
      
   "I'm very pleased that justice was done and that my client is in   
   a position to release the video," LiMandri said after the   
   ruling. "The constitution is vindicated, and the truth will be   
   shown."   
      
   The Los Angeles case is one of two that the anti-abortion group   
   is facing in California.   
      
   A federal judge in San Francisco who temporarily blocked the   
   center from releasing recordings it secretly gathered at annual   
   meetings of National Abortion Federation is scheduled next   
   Thursday to consider a permanent injunction.   
      
   http://www.myfox28columbus.com/news/features/top-   
   stories/stories/California-Judge-Allows-Anti-Abortion-Group-to-   
   Release-Video-188983.shtml#.VdqbjflVj38   
      
        
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)