See the "Supe Snoop" Footage for Yourself

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Orange County - See the "Supe Snoop" Footage for Yourself - Navel Gazing - OC Weekly

See the "Supe Snoop" Footage for Yourself

Thursday, Mar. 26 2009 @ 4:19PM
By Matt Coker in A Clockwork Orange, Moxley

Surely by now you've heard about the latest scandal to rock the Orange County Sheriff's Department: "Supe Snoop." If you haven't heard about it, you owe it to yourself to read R. Scott Moxley's cover story on Sheriff Sandra Hutchens this week. The footage above that opens over the shoulder of county Supervisor Chris Norby is referenced in this paragraph:

On Jan. 13, Hutchens sent more than 20 armed deputies to a Board of Supervisors public meeting, reasoning that protesters of her CCW policy posed a potential threat of violence. The gun-rights crowd, reporters and most supervisors were outraged by the show of force. Norby sized it up as "a militaristic response to a political situation." Register opinion writer Steve Greenhut and Red County blog editor Matt Cunningham, among others, accused the sheriff of trying to intimidate her critics from exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. The public-relations nightmare only got worse when it was discovered that a deputy at that meeting invaded the privacy of supervisors. He used ceiling-mounted surveillance cameras to spy on Norby and Supervisor Janet Nguyen, both vocal critics of Hutchens' CCW policy. Footage shows the deputy zooming in to read Norby's papers, handwritten notes and computer screen. He also focused on Nguyen's Blackberry screen while she was using it.