Al Franken Sexually Assaulted Sleeping Woman

[SAnd]

Touche! I think I'm gonna start using Snuckered... if we use it, that's how it'll take off. Look at the stupid millennial terms today: Fleek, bae, etc. Idiots came up with these mashing up of letters that sound ridiculous, and mean absolutely nothing, and now everyone knows about them. Just start using it, when asked, explain the definition, and it'll spread. Like "Mansplaining."

Maybe not-
snucked
To be punched in your face with no warning
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snucked
snuckered
When a person unknowingly screws you over.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...term=snuckered

[Gman]

This situation has turned into character assassination. Make allegations, there's no due process, and somebody is destroyed.

It's getting to the point that men don't feel safe being alone with a woman in a business context (not prostitution, smart alecks) due to what she might say.

[Irving]

In before first article of men wearing body cams at work.

[theGinsue]

In before first article of men wearing body cams at work.

I considered this sort of thing as a likely/inevitible result of all of these allegations. Problem is that you'll have terabytes of terabytes of recording you'll have to keep for the rest of your life because someone can make a claim decades after it supposedly occured (as has occured in at least one of these claims).

There needs to be severe penalties to anyone making an accusation found to be false and there is rarely anything done to the false claimants beyond mild shame.

We've seen many teachers and child care providers falsely accused who have lost their careers, their reputations, family, friends and lots of money. Most never recover any of the things they've lost. Once the accusation has been made, public perception rarely swings back into the favor of the accused no matter how clearly they are acquited of the claims. Once the mark is on you, it's essentially impossible to remove it completely.

[TheGrey]

Damn! ofc that is urban dictionary which has a "definition" for every inventable word a twelve year old has comprehended.

Ginsues post leads me to another point that loooooong predates this issue:

Rule #1: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS covertly record any planned hostile encounter. Colorado is a one party audio state, NEVER inform the other party you are recording, you are legal and well within your right so long as you are a party to the conversation (e.g. spoke at least one or two words). PS: You can use an app called "All Call Recorder" on most modern android phones to automatically record every call, with a dialog selecting after the conclusion of each call if you want to keep or delete the audio. You do not need to use speaker, this works like such an app should.

These include:
Firing employees
Communications with a hostile recent-ex
Evicting tenants
Confronting people about payments
Declining certain offers
Declining promotions
Performing employee evaluations
Dealing with interview candidates
Any kind of public election/selection result management (e.g. church, charity)
etc.etc.

Rule #2: When you get something GOOOOOOD don't fucking use it right away. Yes, that sounds insane. If you, uhm, blow your top to soon, you won't have the opportunity again. Keep collecting and wait until the last moment to reveal and use it - such as after they have sued you and after you have filed answer.

Why? When you use things too early, you lose the ability to gather more evidence, but more critically, they can adapt to try to make any BS explanation to override it. However, when you hold out as long as possible, sitting on your thumbs, they get confident letting you get even better evidence, and when you finally reveal it they are too committed to their story and ARE TOTALLY SCREWED. Only this latter situation can you confidently clear your name, recover all attorney fees, and even in some cases, successfully prosecute them.

So Rule #1: Record it. Rule #2: Wait, wait, wait to use it.

Someone won't make a BS accusation out of the blue., 99% of the time it is connected to one of these events.

PS: I've used audio in a loooot of cases. If someone has questions, just shoot.

Rule #1: Colorado is a one-party state. What this means is as long as the conversation is between you and one other person, you're golden and you can record without their consent. The MOMENT another party enters the conversation, you are now guilty of wiretapping. You may decide this will not matter, but if you introduce such a thing in court to defend yourself, the opposition will get it tossed and all of your careful planning will be for naught.

Let me offer a XX chromosome perspective, prefaced with the fact that I realize not every man is out to get something from women, just like every woman is not out to accuse guys of trying to do something sexual with them:

Your best bet, honestly, is to go old school with your efforts: do your best to never be alone with someone. Make sure there is someone that can act as an unofficial 'escort' (as in, someone you trust, not their friend/confidante); if that's not possible, then make sure the door is open (proverbial or metaphorical) to discourage potential for shenaigans. If you think that's impossible or highly improbable, remember this: women have been dealing with those situations for decades.

Eons-old accusations rising to the top to summarily bury the accused is a shocker- but it should not have been so unexpected. Let's look at the scandals in Hollywood, for instance. In a hypothetical situation, a young actress goes to meet a director about a role. This may be her first role; or it may be the role she's been desperately hoping will pull her out of the rut she's currently in (average job, school, no income- I don't need to go further, because we have all worked toward a goal that we have pinned our hopes on that has depended upon the graces of others in one form or another) and will open doors. Of course, the actress is met with the classical dilemma that is presented to her: either scratch the itch of the king in charge of the doorway to her goal, or leave and kiss her dreams goodbye (blackball, anyone?) I've seen what some of you have stated- she should have just kissed her dreams goodbye and went back to her waitressing job or cleaning the hotels or whatever, and be grateful for what she's got. Sure. I'm sure that's exactly what YOU did when faced with whatever dilemma stepped in your path to prevent you from reaching your goals, right?

Of course not. Sometimes you reach for the brass ring, and close your eyes to the unpleasantness. Let me tell you- this has not started with Hollywood. Many women's bosses have been proposing such things for about as long as they've been working outside of the home. You want a promotion? Bend over that desk. Promotion time comes around, and she's passed over- what's she going to do? That extra promotion money goes elsewhere. Nobody will listen to her. She's a disgruntled employee of little import. If they do listen to her, she's a homewrecker, a slut that sleeps her way to the top.

That is, until now.

Long memories and resentment go hand-in-hand. Now that these women are stepping up and finding power in numbers of accusations, let the bodies hit the floor. There's been a LOT of abuse of power; a LOT of men in charge practicing droit du seignuer as though it were their god-given right. It's draining the Hollywood swamp.

Will there be abuse of this? Yep. That's an unhappy fact, and I can't figure a solution. Maybe someone else can.

Clearly, there are innocent men that will be dragged through the mud. That's not good.

Men, keep yourselves in groups if you can. Witnesses are your friends. If you work with a woman that strikes you as someone that could be vindictive or is an activist feminist, you must not give them anything they can hang their hat on. In case this is news to you, women barely tolerate society's rules, because it is easier to get along in life with them. Until it isn't. Once the rules are discarded, that game of chess you think you're playing turns into Calvinball.

Complacency is not your friend when you are in the company of a woman that can accuse you of anything. Rail about the injustice of it another time. Be pleasant to her when you must be in contact with her, be very, very careful of what you say to her - when in doubt, agree with her, or make some noncommittal noise that implies she's right. Never, ever give her an opening that she might exploit- either now, or later. Be inoffensive.

Those rules are the rules I had to learn when working in a male-dominated field. I was never raped, but I was harrassed and dealt with "unwanted sexual contact" often. I was young, and the only female in the shop. I had no friends to speak of. Let me tell you something- I didn't give a crap what the proper phrase (sexual harrassment, contact, etc. Men were touching me and grabbing me and scaring me and I knew they could hurt me) was- when I went to the shop supervisor with the issue, he didn't know what to do about it. These were people he had worked with for years. A good ol' boys network. His solution was to tell me, "You are responsible for your own morale." BOOM.

In my situation, words were never more freeing. And that, I think, is what is happening with all of the accusation. Do I find some of them suspcious? Do I find some of them unlikely, or silly? Yes. But then again, we're only privy to that whch the media brings us. I think Irving is correct when he said that the pendulum will swing in the other direction for a while before heading back toward the center.

I feel badly for the men that are innocent of the things they are/will be accused of. And I'm sure there will be more. I give a fist-pump for those brought down because they thought they could play grab-ass or snatch a little on the side because they happened to be the very big frog in that pond. And if any women were false accusers due to whatever reasons and they get caught? I'll rejoice in their downfall as well.

[TheGrey]

Good post. And I don't disagree on the unwanted contact perspective nor that people deserve it. I just wanted to elaborate a bit as to where the ECPA line is:



How it correctly works - as long as you are present and a participant in any conversation, you can covertly record it in Colorado (and most other states) regardless of how many other people are also participating - even if we are talking about an office board meeting. Even if people poke their head in and out, if you are participating in the board meeting, it is entirely legal.

when something transcends into wiretapping, e.g. ECPA violations is when you slide a recorder under a door, or slip it into your spouses purse/briefcase, or install an app on someone elses phone without their knowledge, etc.

People often get confused by the party labeling (as if one party implies only a two party conversation) but it literally only means you are a participant; e.g. you are still within your rights to record a "ten party" conversation if you are a participant.

Where multiple-party conversations can become an issue in a court is when all the other participants of the party are not either a Defendant or a Plaintiff; then it can be objected on certain grounds under hearsay and other issues [because all the other people are not simultaneously witnesses on the stand to be impeached]; normally that can be overcame with a skilled attorney but it is always at the discretion. Still, there's many tricks to pull it off under varying circumstances to achieve what you need if your counsel doesn't suck.

In my experience, false accusations always come out of those anticipated hostile experiences in life and there are not many of them. Protecting yourself is a wise choice; around 5% of the population are pathological in nature, even more will do things out of anger. Bringing other people with you is a good idea - especially to avoid the suggestion of "sexual" impropriety as nobody will credibly believe it just because you have a second person with you so you are correct there, however my post was a little off topic to expand waaaay beyond that. Normally the bigger risk is allegations of racism, homophobia, transphobic, sexism, etc. etc. especially in a hostile employment situation. In those cases, the witness does little good as it's still he said- she said IF the witness is willing to help (many don't when it comes right down to it) because they can just allege the witness also participated in the homophobia/transphobia,racism, etc. [but not sexual impropriety, nobody believes that]

Another hostile encounter where you should be recording:
Officer at your door, or traffic stops.

No matter how many friends may testify for you, the ONLY surefire way you will catch violation of the 4th/5th is by audio recording. Courts defer credibility to officers, always. The vast majority of officers are great and respect the lines. However, there is that percentage that doesn't. There are cases that I've participated in that would have been lost if it wasn't for audio recordings (with many people participating) including ones involving officers. When bullshit happens, they will stack the deck so hard against you and they all support the brother-in-blue even when he's that small percentage of shitbag.

Well, to say that it 'correctly' works isn't quite complete, because there are also employer policies to consider. Clearly, Foxtrot's experiences and my experiences with one-party recording encmpass different situations that we have each experienced- and yet they illustrate just how hairy this type of situation really can be. I wish there were a sure-fire solution, but as with most things, it's a boggy mess.

I have no experience invoving the recording of contacts with LEOs.

If anyone is considering recording at work - and keep in mind that recording a meeting or phone conversations (especially across state lines) is a different situation from one-on-one meetings - you'll want to look at the company policies, and do some research on your own. Your situation may reflect something that hasn't been touched on in this thread.

As always, this is not legal advice. Contact a lawyer for legal advice.