A Florida appeals court ruling that phone calls with law enforcement officers can be recorded with or without an officer’s consent has the man at the center of the decision calling it a “huge win” for police accountability. In Florida, it’s illegal to record a phone call with someone else against their knowledge, but the same rule doesn’t apply to on-duty law enforcement officers conducting “public business,” the Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled in a decision last week. The panel of judges made that ruling while dismissing wiretapping convictions against 63-year-old Michael Waite of Floral City. Waite lives on a tucked away parcel of property in southeast Citrus County where 10 Tampa Bay talked with him Thursday. The canal he lives on has been at the center of his sometimes contentious run-ins with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office dating back to 2018, when he says wildlife officers began spraying herbicides in his pond. “They ripped out my no trespassing signs, came on the property and sprayed the pesticides killing the back pond area,” Waite said. He then began documenting the run-ins, filing complaints about the perceived trespassing and calling 911 when deputies were on or near his property. In 2021 he recorded a phone call with a Citrus County Sheriff’s sergeant after another incident of what he perceived as trespassing. MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/citruscounty/phone-calls-police-florida-man/67-3cae2637-fb02-46df-b24b-31e5e3259ce3 ►Subscribe: https://on.wtsp.com/youtube ►Website: https://www.wtsp.com/ ►Facebook: https://facebook.com/10TampaBay ►X: https://twitter.com/10TampaBay