Chicago artist Chris Drew, in order to protest a permit requirement, deliberately violated a city ordinance by selling handmade patches. He captured his arrest on a digital voice recorder, only to be charged with a felony for recording the event.

I have previously written about the fact that videotaping the police is a crime that carries with it potentially long prison sentences.

In the past couple of days, Chris’s case is getting more national attention. Don Terry writes about the case in the New York Times:

Christopher Drew is a 60-year-old artist and teacher who wears a gray ponytail and lives on the North Side. Tiawanda Moore, 20, a former stripper, lives on the South Side and dreams of going back to school and starting a new life.

About the only thing these strangers have in common is the prospect that by spring, they could each be sent to prison for up to 15 years.

“That’s one step below attempted murder,” Mr. Drew said of their potential sentences.

The crime they are accused of is eavesdropping.

The authorities say that Mr. Drew and Ms. Moore audio-recorded their separate nonviolent encounters with Chicago police officers without the officers’ permission, a Class 1 felony in Illinois, which, along with Massachusetts and Oregon, has one of the country’s toughest, if rarely prosecuted, eavesdropping laws.

“Before they arrested me for it,” Ms. Moore said, “I didn’t even know there was a law about eavesdropping. I wasn’t trying to sue anybody. I just wanted somebody to know what had happened to me.”

Ms. Moore, whose trial is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Cook County Criminal Court, is accused of using her Blackberry to record two Internal Affairs investigators who spoke to her inside Police Headquarters while she filed a sexual harassment complaint last August against another police officer. Mr. Drew was charged with using a digital recorder to capture his Dec. 2, 2009, arrest for selling art without a permit on North State Street in the Loop. Mr. Drew said his trial date was April 4.

I want everyone to know how UNJUST these arrests really are. It is another example of unchecked police power in Illinois. The Huffington Post just recently published a story about Chris and his case if you want to learn more. Finally, if you would like to keep up with the details of this case, feel free to e-mail Chris at [email protected] to get on his electronic newsletter list.

Note: My sincerest apologies to CHRIS. For some reason, I decided to call him Charles in my earlier post. I can only say that I thought I was typing CHRIS…