Legality of A-V recording in Texas?

[Dee_Ann 0]

Hi !

 

Guys, I have a HUGE problem. About 15 months ago I moved from my old place to the home my folks built 45 years ago (Mom passed away, Dad remarried and moved away, left this house to me). This is a very nice upper-middle class neighborhood that's ALWAYS been crime free, there has never, ever been problems here. Until recently.

 

The house across the street from me was bought up some years ago by a slimy doctor that invests in rental property all over. Lots and lots of rental property.

Much to my dismay I learned this after I had moved into my parent's home (now my home). The owner of the home lets a rental management company handle it 100% so all they have to do is collect a check for owning it.

 

So about 6 months ago the people in there (a bit shady but not too horrible) moved out. Just a week later a new family moved in.

No problems for a few months until xmas eve. I had ONE camera at the time looking out through a window. It was a pretty awful setup but I didn't want to put up my old cameras that were in traditional Pelco weather cases such as you see outdoors at gas stations. They are large and would look very odd on this very nice house. At my old house I hide them under the eaves of the house but this house has no eaves. So I had just the one camera looking through a window.

 

I was sitting at my desk and I saw people out front riding a go cart in the street. No problem. But then I saw the guy ride it through my yard. Problem.

So I go outside and there are two grown men in the street, one standing, one in the cart. I ask him to turn the engine off so I can talk, he does and I ask him to please do not ride his cart in my yard anymore. He instantly flew into a rage and started cursing at me and denying it. I told him "I saw you on camera, I have a recording of you riding in my yard."

 

This made him even more angry and he said even worse curse words and was yelling at me now. So I went back in the house. Next thing I know I hear him outside yelling at the top of his lungs "You F-ing B*****!" and "F YOU B****" and every bad thing you can imagine. I walked outside in my driveway to the inside of my gate and he was running around screaming and cursing, I thought he was going to run at me, jump the fence and attack me so I held my phone up in the air and told him I was going to call the police on him.

 

He taunted me and dared me to. I got too scared to even call 911, I thought he might kill me if I did. After 10 minutes of verbal abuse I went inside and called my dad and told him what happened. I was shaking and throwing up. By the way, this guy, he's a big gorilla looking dude, like he takes steroids and has road rage. That's what I call him, Mr. Roid Rage.

 

My dad told him to stay inside and don't do anything unless he tries to break in the house. So I left it at that. I thought that was the end of it, I didn't hear anything from him for about 6 weeks. About a month ago my dad has a friend that owns a small store and the guy upgraded his cameras to all new HD stuff so he took out all the old gear, handed it to my dad and told my dad to give the stuff to me. Woot woot! So I was gifted eight iMax cameras and an 8 channel DVR. I already have an 8 channel DVR from my old house so now I have two. The one I already had is way better anyway.

 

So about three weeks ago I put two of the iMax cameras on the front of my house. One was working, one was not connected yet. Both were pointed down at my yard so I can see when someone pulls into the driveway or when UPS pulls up to deliver. It also could see about half way into the street. So a few days pass then I'm sitting here and I hear cursing and I look up and see Mr. Roid Rage standing right on the edge of my yard, on the curb but not in my grass. And he was just standing there, pointing, staring at my cameras and cursing loudly.

He kept walking back and forth cursing and pointing, this went on for an HOUR. And it got more and more intense. He was yelling for me to come outside because he wanted to talk to me, so he said. And I did not. I stayed inside and did not say a word or show my face at all. Then he took his shirt off like guys do when they want to fight and his anger was so intense that I was in fear for my life even behind locked doors. So I called 911 and I told them I was in fear for my life. The police pulled up in a few minutes and turns out the guy had an open beer in his hand. They handcuffed him and arrested him within seconds of arriving and he was charged with public intoxication. After they took him to jail his wife came outside and she started cursing at the police, I had the door cracked so I could listen and I hear her say "It's her fault! She started the whole thing when she put cameras up to spy on us!" The cop told her "She can put up as many cameras as she wants and she can aim them right at your front door if she wants, it's totally legal and within her right because you have no expectation of privacy in the front of your house. If the mailman or UPS man can see something without peeking over a fence then she can point a camera at it and record it."

 

So Mrs. Roid Rage went back inside and the cops came to talk to me about it and I told them what all had happened. He told me the same thing about my cameras, that if it's out front they have no expectation of privacy and I can aim as many cameras as I want at their house. While we were talking he pointed to a box on his chest and said "See this? This is a body camera, it's recording you and everything you say, you're in public and have no expectation of privacy. " I replied "That's fine, that doesn't bother me at all." After a little chat about the whole mess the cops went on about their business and I went back inside. Mr. Roid Rage was able to bond out of jail about 6 hours later that evening.

 

Since then I have been totally afraid to go outside. I'm afraid to take the trash to the curb, I'm afraid to mow my yard or do yard work, I wasn't able to go outside and enjoy my azaleas

when they bloomed, I can't do my gardening and most of all, I can't ride my bike anymore because I'm scared to death of this guy.

 

So after that happened I went on Amazon and I bought a microphone kit for my cameras and now it can and does record audio of everything going on in front of my house because of all the threats and intimidation. I need to have video and audio proof of the harassment and terrorism he is inflicting upon me. I talked to some of the other ladies around here and they too are afraid to go outside anymore because of him and two of them now keep shotguns at hand and their curtains drawn all the time. We've become prisoners in our own homes because of him. My dad gave me two pistols because of this and I now wear two freaking pistols on my belt all the time. I also have three large dogs that will eat him alive if he comes in here. Since then I have also added the rest of the cameras and have eight cameras watching my house and yard in addition to recording audio out front 24/7.

 

But now I am wondering about the audio recording because this past Sunday he was standing out IN THE STREET talking on a cell phone very loudly and part of the time he put the other party on speakerphone! This was a quiet Sunday morning and he could have made his phone call inside his house but instead he came out into the street, where he KNOWS I have cameras. So as he paced back and forth, in the street, talking loudly I heard him telling the other person he is worried that his life is going to be ruined forever because he is going to have to put a sex offender sign in his yard. He was asking the other person advice on how to convince a jury that he didn't do it. Then there was a lot of talk about a teenage girl. So apparently he has recently been arrested for sex crimes against an underage girl and he's in a panic about his future. Then he said "I'm gonna make that little b**** get on her knees and I'm gonna put a f***** gun to her head". I could only get about 80% of what he was saying because he was pacing around and sometime he would turn away from my house while talking. So he was either telling the other person on the phone that he intends to murder his accuser or he plans to terrorize her into changing her testimony against him.

 

Then he walked over to a truck parked in the street in front, flipped down the tailgate and sat on it and continued to talk. "You should see all the f***** cameras this b***** has over here! Yeah man, that b**** has three cameras on the front, one on each side and three on her garage. I want to know what the f*** that b**** is protecting in there. Yeah, I'll bet she's got a meth house in there."

 

(Sure. Right.. I'm a 55 year old woman with social anxiety disorder that never leaves the house, ever. No visitor, ever.. It's like a ghost house, no one would ever know anyone lives here except that it's kept up.)

 

So he goes on, "Yeah man, a few weeks ago I was f***** with that f***** BULL DYKE (and as he says this he turns and looks right at my house and says this extra loud) and the cops show up and arrest me for P.I. (public intoxication) and I went to jail for awhile. Then he mumbled something else I couldn't make out then he says very loudly "Yeah, well that f***** b**** put me in jail. She don't know who she's f****** with. I'll straight up get a f****** sniper rifle!"... As he said that he jumped off the tailgate and began to walk back into his house and as he got to the porch he ended his call and went inside. So the entire 28 minute call was conducted while he was standing in the street in front of my house and he did it in a loud voice as if he wanted everyone to hear him. On an early Sunday morning.

 

Later the same day he had guests over and he walked them around in the street, walking up to the edge of my yard, pointing out my cameras to them, more cursing and then they retired to the front porch where they discussed different ideas to blind my cameras. I heard him say "I'll get a 1,000 watt light from my brother in law and I'll aim it right at that b****'s house, I'll blind her and her f****** cameras then she can't see anything I'm doing. I'll make it so bright she'll have to put tin foil on all her windows, she'll never sleep again." A few other ideas were thrown up such as paintballs and BB guns to put out my cameras but they pretty much agreed that the extreme lights were the safe way to go.

 

As for that, I would imagine that shining an extreme light on my house to annoy me and blind my cameras would be illegal. My cameras are passive, his light would be an actor aggression and harassment and an invasion into my space. And by blinding my cameras he could sneak into my yard to murder when when I'm unable to see and record him.

 

Then there was the discussion of either murdering or intimidating a witness against him in a rape case that he is the perpetrator of.

And there is the discussion of him getting a sniper rifle in response to me having called 911 on him a few weeks ago and him going to jail for it.

 

Being that he had that conversation in the street in front of my house and he did it loudly as if he wanted me to hear it, am I OK to contact the police and give them a copy of this video and audio recording in which he discusses criminal activities that concern a rape and maybe even two murders that he is considering committing? Can I get in trouble for this recording? I did not put the cameras and microphone up to record him specifically but to protect me from him and people like him. I believe that it's his own stupidity that he was running his mouth in the street, just like when he was drinking on a public street and terrorizing me. By the way, he was never charged with terrorizing me that day, only with public intoxication. But now this is more than just some beer swilling moron talking smack in the street, he openly discussed rape, murder and tampering with witnesses, ON A PUBLIC STREET!

 

Should I call the police and tell them all of this? Or should I just keep quite about it and hope he doesn't actually try to murder me?

My dad gave me two pistols (I do know how to use them) and he told me "If he physically attacks you you shoot him in the chest and once you pull that trigger don't you stop pulling the trigger until the gun is empty or he's down and dead. And if he's still alive you take out the other pistol and empty that one into his chest too."

 

I don't want to kill anyone, I just want this white trash evicted from my neighborhood. I don't know what to do with this video/audio because I can't understand the 20 dozen different things I've read online about survelliance camera audio recording. It varies from state to state and it's all in legalease that I just do not understand.

 

Thank you for any legitimate advice you can give me, I'm truly in fear for my life, this guy has been terrorizing me and the other neighbors and this recording may be the one and only chance we have to get him out of here forever. I just don't know how (or if) to proceed.

 

Thanks!

[mattaggie 0]

Wow that's a long story. You should definitely keep police involved. I would imagine this guy is all talk but you never know. I'd report every run-in you have with him, including over hearing him say threatening things. You can ask the police about audio recordings. I think its legal. Where in SE Texas are you? I'm near Houston.

[tube tech 1]

go here. scroll down half a page until you see a cached PDF from MWL law. save it to your hard disk

 

https://www.google.com/#q=legality+of+recording+conversations

[Dee_Ann 0]

Ok, I am not a legal-beagel as they say, so this is a bit hard for me to comprehend as I am unsure how it would apply to my situation.

 

It is not unlawful for an individual who is a party to or has consent from a party of an in-

person or electronic communication to record and or disclose the content of said communication unless the person is doing so for the purpose of committing a tortious or criminal act. An individual may also disclose the content of any electronic communication that is readily accessible to the general public.





 

 

Being that I wasn't actually a party to the conversation BUT, it was essentially a public performance, considering that he chose to conduct his phone call while pacing back and forth in the street in front of my house AND he was full and very aware that he was being recorded by multiple security cameras AND he chose to conduct his phone conversation in a very loud voice, loud enough that I could hear him from inside my house. That the camera was able to record his conversation was no miracle considering how loud he was about it.

 

When he was arrested a few weekends before he was told by the police that he has no expectation of privacy when he is outside in his front yard and that my cameras were absolutely legal and that he had no possible complaint.

 

My cameras record audio for the purpose of protecting me from him, so that I will have a legal leg to stand on when he harasses me and or assaults me.

And of course they are there to prove just cause in the event he attacks me and I have to shoot and kill him. There are there to CMA.

 

In the course of passively protecting me they happened to record his very public performance in the public street.

 

Now in the course of reviewing the video I discover that he has made death threats against a teenage girl that he's in big trouble over, possibly he raped her. He has intentions of either murdering her or witness intimidation to scare her into changing her testimony against him. He also made a death threat against me and I have done nothing to him.

 

I WANT to turn this over to the police because this person is dangerous and he's terrorizing me and the rest of the neighbors. My friends and family are afraid to come visit me and they are who I have been depending on for transportation. My friends and family drive me to the store to but food, pay bills, etc.. If they are afraid to come over anymore I'll run out of food and my utilities will be shut off. He has no right to terrorize me or anyone else and he certainly has no right to make death threats against anyone. That's illegal and that alone can get him some prison time.

 

I want to give this to the police but I'm afraid to because I am unsure if I legally can or not. I don't know what to do.

[tube tech 1]

you need advice from a real Texas lawyer, not some random internet shmoe

 

It is not unlawful ( it's legal )

 

for an individual who is a party to or has consent from a party of an in-person or electronic communication ( for a dude )

 

to record ( to record ) and or disclose ( and play back to other dudes )

 

the content of said communication ( what people say )

 

unless the person is doing so for the purpose of committing a tortious or criminal act. ( if you are not doing it to do a crime or something you could get sued for )

 

An individual may also disclose the content of any electronic communication that is readily accessible to the general public. ( you can record and play back stuff you heard on the scanner, CB, FRS, GMRS, ham radio )

 

it's legal to record and play back to other dudes what people say if you are not doing it to do a crime or something you could get sued for. you can record and play back stuff you heard on the scanner, CB, FRS, GMRS, ham radio in Texas

[Dee_Ann 0]

Since I last posted my psychopathic neighbor has ramped up his harassment to the level of terroristic death threats which I have recorded.

 

The narcotics police raided his house, unfortunately they didn't find anything and didn't arrest him.

Naturally he blamed this raid on me. After the cops left and as soon as they had turned the corner he came back out on his porch and went into a rage of cursing and theatrics that include him standing on his porch, clasping his hands as if he is holding a handgun then aiming (his pretend gun) at my house, acting as if he is shooting while saying "BLAM BLAM BLAM". The intent of that action being to intimidate and terrorize me, to send me the message "I'm going to shoot you b*tch".

 

Here is a short clip of him doing that, with audio so be warned this video clip is NSFW !!

 

https://youtu.be/Vs-7bNsuGZo

 

He did that right after the police left, literally, just less than one minute after they were out of view.

 

When I saw him doing this I panicked and I called 911 on him. The regular beat police then came in two cars. Some cops went over to talk to him and his wife (who also is an active participant in the harassment) and a few cops came over to talk to me to take my complaint. I told the police I am tired of him terrorizing me and that I want to press charges against him. So they had me fill out a report to file and he told me he would turn it over to detectives. THEY DID NOT ARREST HIM. They told me to get my videos compiled onto DVD and take them to the detectives. (I am working on that now). And after the police left for the second time he sat outside in front drinking beer cursing loudly and shining a Q-beam into my windows until 3am.

 

A few days later a detective called me to get more details. He told me that they won't charge him with terroristic threats but instead a trivial misdemeanor charge of something like public cursing. Now at this point none of the police have seen the videos of what this guy has been doing to me. All they know is that when they get here they find a distraught woman that's having panic attack and having trouble making sense. So they just roll their eyes at me like "B**** please....." and seem to be annoyed that I've taken then away from coffee and donuts.

 

Another thing this guy is doing it using a Q-beam light that he shines into my windows and cameras on a nightly basis.

 

Here is a video of him using his light to harass me.

 

https://youtu.be/ulgL6EsM4XY

 

This stuff goes on DAILY and NIGHTLY. Around the clock this guy harasses me and does every thing he can think of to scare me.

The day he did his "BLAM BLAM BLAM" thing on the porch then harassed me all night, my Fitbit showed that my heart rate ran at more than TRIPLE it normal rate of 52bpm.

For almost 8 hours that night my heart rate went from it's usual 52bpm to 168bpm for EIGHT HOURS! I lost 5 pounds that night just from the sustained heart racing.

That's extremely dangerous as I have bradycardia (abnormally slow heart rate). My dad told me this guy is going to kill me just by making me have a heart attack.

 

So now that I've compiled the videos onto DVD I'm taking them to the police and I don't care if I'm not allowed to record audio, I did and I did it because this guy is terrorizing me and this is my proof of it. I want him arrested and prosecuted and I want his life ruined forever. I want him to get his fair serving of karma.

 

NOW. I am preparing for the coming storm. This guy IS going to retaliate against me. I found his name, where he used to live, all his social media accounts, photos of him passed out drunk on the floor, where he works, what he does, his phone number, his work number, names of all his family members, etc... On his faceborg account I found that he has "liked" numerous faceborg pages for firearms and ammunition makers so I am ASSUMING that he owns one or more handguns and maybe long guns.

 

That's fine because I now openly wear two pistols at all times and I'm using SERPA CQC holsters and some very nasty hollow point hydra shock ammo.

I've told the police that if he attacks me I will kill him. The local district attorney was on TV yesterday telling the whole world that NOTHING WILL HAPPEN to anyone that kills an intruder into their home. I have no intentions of wounding an attacker, I will shoot to kill.

 

https://youtu.be/MelCmm4NRtE

 

And under the Texas "Castle Doctrine" that extends into my yard as well.

 

Anyway, so now I'm needing to upgrade my camera system. I'm using old analog cameras. Several years ago I bought a bunch of used cameras cheap and they served me well for the money I spent on them. Then earlier this year my dad's friend gave him 6 old eyemax cameras and an 8 channel eyemax DVR to match it.

 

I have an OLD 8 channel Q-See DVR. The Eyemax DVR only records in CIF but the Q-See records in D1.

I use the Q-See as my primary DVR but I've got more than eight cameras so I've moved lower priority cameras over to the Eyemax and I have to run two screen to watch them.

I also DO NOT TRUST these DVRs because they are, like all of them are, from China. I want to put cameras in my house but there is no way in the world I will do that using off the shelf Chinese made DVRs. Not gonna happen.

 

I want to replace my analog cameras with HD cameras and I want some method of recording and managing them without using a Chinese made DVR.

It seems that most DVRs have problems recording above D1 at normal frame rates. From what I understand the BT chips only handle about 4 video streams per chip so you have to have one BT chip per four cameras but then you need a powerful CPU to process all that. Blah blah blah.. Ok, so analog has major bottleneck problems.

 

IP cameras are where it's at, I believe. I want HD cameras. And I need some way to overcome or work around the problem of bug swarms, fog and idiots with Q-beams and lasers.

I don't like the Eyemax cameras having the IR lights inside of them, bugs and fog render them almost useless. So I need something else but I need to see at night. I have to see at night because this guy is going to come back to retaliate against me in the future. He will, I know he will.

 

The other problem I have with the current cameras is the motion detection in them is GARBAGE. Absolutely and utterly worthless. Bugs set it off. Fog sets it off. Dancing pixels in the dark sets it off. The rings of Saturn sets it off. It's such complete and absolute garbage that I can not use it at all, period. Even set to the lowest possible sensitivity it still goes off.

And that's on both the Eyemax and the Q-See.

 

So what I would like to do is build my own system to monitor and record my cameras. I need to be able to add as many cameras as I want. I plan to have 16 cameras right off the bat and will probably double that over the next year with cameras inside.

 

I have a server that basically sits and does nothing, it's a PC-BSD server running as a NAS server by my desk. Is there video DVR software for PC-BSD?

I can't covert that machine to Linux because it's running ZFS and it backs up my three Macs and acts as additional storage for them. So it has to stay as is.

I don't want to spend more money to build another machine if I can avoid it.

The only operating systems I use are OS X, BSD and Linux. I will not use microsoft, not under any circumstances, period.

 

So what would be good affordable HD IP cameras to use? And can I run DVR software on my PC-BSD machine?

 

Thanks.

[Mweston 0]

Quite frankly, I think you need to delete this thread and try to move on with your life. You're letting him get to you and that means he wins.

 

Be prepared to protect yourself, if the best way to do that is with a gun then make sure you are well trained. There's lot of classes around for that, find a reputable training school and take some classes.

 

Reinforce your door and door jamb. Look up door jamb armor if you just have a wood door frame.

 

If you need legal advice, find a lawyer, you won't get good legal advice here.

 

Stay in constant contact with the police and keep track of case numbers to build a file against him.

 

This guys is clearly an asshole but your not helping your case by publicly putting this out there and saying you will "shoot to kill". He may be all talk but in the unfortunante situation that you do have to defend your life with deadly force, you will be investigated and you don't want anything out there that can be misconstrued.

 

I have a friend that recently shot and killed someone who kicked his door down, it was a clean case of self defense but still took a year of his life in anxiety, news reporters knocking on his door and crime reports labeling his house a murder scene. It's not something to take lightly.

 

He'll get what he has coming to him and hopefully eventually end up in prison for a long time or move.

 

 

And side note: the descriptions of your YouTube videos are also a bit strange. You sound angry at google for putting ads on their videos that they host for you for free. Video hosting is expensive, if you don't want ads use another service that you pay for.