GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A lawsuit has been filed in Brown County Circuit Court over Green Bay’s use of audio surveillance at city hall.
The Wisconsin State Senate and Senator Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) are listed as plaintiffs, along with Green Bay resident and former city council member Anthony Theisen and Jane Doe, “on behalf of (themselves) and others similarly situated.”
The City of Green Bay and Mayor Eric Genrich are the defendants in the 30-page document.
A complaint states “the Mayor of Green Bay, Eric Genrich, or a group of Green Bay City officials, secretly installed highly sensitive audio listening devices in the hallways of City Hall that have intercepted and recorded countless private communications for years (“Hallway Bugs”), including conversations between common council members, conversations between members of the public and common council members, privileged attorney-client communications, and other personal conversations.”
Last week, when the Senate’s attorney claimed Green Bay’s microphones were illegal, the city issued a statement saying “the Senate mischaracterizes the audio devices as “extremely sensitive audio-recording devices” in order to raise questions about its legality. The security cameras are limited to public spaces in City hall without any continuous monitoring by City staff.”
In Wisconsin, state law requires one party consent to a private conversation being recorded.
A memo from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council states the law’s factors for reasonable expectation of privacy are volume of statements, proximity of individuals to the speaker, potential for the communication to be reported, actions taken by speaker to ensure privacy, need to employ technological enhancements to hear the speaker, and place or location where statements are made.
Green Bay’s use of microphones as part of its surveillance system at city hall has been an issue since Alderperson Chris Wery confronted Genrich about it at city council meeting on February 7.
Genrich’s administration confirmed the microphones were put in between winter 2021 and summer of 2022, saying they were installed for safety reasons.
A summons states the city and Genrich have 45 days to respond with a written answer to the complaint filed.
When Attorney Walsh, for the State Senate, initially asked the city to disable the microphones and delete any recordings, he said the legislature was making the requests as the body from which the city gets its authority from.
The mayor’s administration put up signs at the end of this past week, warning city hall visitors of audio recording.
City council members have said they were never consulted when the microphones were put in or whether to disable them amid the recent controversy.
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