But they were not committing that crime during the recording. You seem to be overlooking the fact that there is another exception to the "all-party consent" law. That exception is that it ok to record a conversation which occurs where none of the parties to the conversation have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Such would be the case here.

See, that is where you are misunderstanding my initial post(assuming that you actually bothered to follow the thread of conversation). The presence of those other, uninvolved persons changes the situation so that, according to previous court rulings, you no longer have any expectation of privacy. In which case, as the courts have ruled, I am allowed to record you to my heart's content, even if you are NOT committing any crimes. In any situation where those being recorded have no expectation of privacy, such as when they are in a room full of random individuals (say, a school classroom).
Now, in the situation you described, there are all kinds of reasons why the recording would be legal. First, since you postulated that third-parties would be paid to not give consent, you are postulating that those present knew in advance that there would be a recording. Courts have repeatedly ruled that if you carry on a conversation which you know is being recorded, you are implicitly giving your consent to being recorded. Second, you are postulating that these people are being paid to cover-up your crime (being paid to not consent to being recorded is an attempt to prevent the acquisition of evidence to prove a crime is being committed), which is a crime.
So, to re-iterate: the exception to the all-party consent law of recording criminal activity does not apply because not all of those present were committing a crime. However, the boy was not guilty of violating the wire-tap law because he was recording the conversation in a place where people do not, and should not, have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

That was true until about 1 or 2 years ago, when a judge ruled against the police in cases in several states saying that there had been sufficient rulings against such an interpretation that the police could no longer claim that they thought they were following the law...either they were lying, or their training was criminally inadequate.

Not everyone in the classroom took part in the activity which could be defined as assault, conspiracy to commit assault, or even accessory to assault. So, not everyone being recorded without their permission was committing a crime during the recording.

I recently came across a story where it was stated that the Vice-Principal actually testified at the hearing that the mother had previously reported students bullying her son, which makes the judges confidence in the school doing the right thing even worse.

One of the stories I read contained a summary of the evidence presented at the hearing. The organization which published that story had their own court stenographer present to take down a transcript of the hearing.

According to the law in every all-party consent state that I am aware of. One of the exceptions to those all-party consent laws is when the action is in a place were the people involved have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

In every all-party consent state, courts have repeatedly ruled that it is legal to record police officers while they are carrying out their job because they have no reasonable expectation of privacy while they are carrying out their job.

Yes, we do. He was charged with disorderly conduct for recording what was going on in the classroom.

Actually, almost all all-party consent states have an exception for recording someone who is committing a crime. Of course that would not apply in this case since not all of those recorded were committing a crime (even if the bullying actions recorded crossed over the line into criminal behavior).

Oh, no, they understood and dealt with the actual issue here. They just dealt with it in a manner which is evil. These are the same type of people who covered up for Jerry Sandusky.

There are two things about this. Pennsylvania's "two-party consent" only applies in situations where those being recorded without their consent have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." I have a problem with the judge finding that people (teachers and students) have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the classroom. The other thing is that the Pennsylvania law also has an exception that states that you do not need to permission of someone who is committing a crime in the recording. That would not have applied in this case since not all of those being recorded were committing a crime. (I am not sure if any of the actions recorded crossed over into criminal territory, or not. Although if I was a judge, or on a jury, they are at a minimum close enough that I would be unwilling to convict the person recording them.)

A couple of points about this. My first thought when I heard this was that Pennsylvania law on recording someone requires their consent except in certain circumstances; one of those circumstances is when a crime is being committed. I thought that was the case here, except the boy recorded others as well as those committing a crime (terroristic threats, at the least). However, there is another exception to Pennsylvania law, when one does not have an expectation of privacy. The judge ruled that the boy recorded people when they had an expectation of privacy. Since everything I have read indicates that all of the recordings occurred in the classroom, I have a serious problem with the idea that anyone in the recordings had an expectation of privacy.
Further, the judge claimed that she was confident that if the bullying had been reported to the school, it would have been taken care of appropriately, the the school did not tolerate bullying. How the judge could reach that conclusion is a mystery to me, considering that the incident which was recorded occurred in the presence of a teacher.

Actually, the key is to eliminate anything which allows me to connect the majority of the comments by one individual as all being by that individual. All of those other things are only relevant if they combine with multiple comments to build a picture of one person who has more wisdom on the subject than everyone else. When I read comments by an Anonymous Coward on slashdot which claims the things which you reference, I always read the rest of their comment more critically. If I find their argument to use suspect logic, I am more likely to consider them to be acting in bad faith (even when I agree with their point of view on the topic) than if they do not make such appeals to having greater authority. I suspect that most people do something similar.

Except that the "expert" forecasters are influenced by the charisma* of certain individuals to produce the type of results those individuals desire. There have been studies that show that one of the most important aspects of "crowd wisdom" is eliminating the ability of individuals to use their force of personality to influence the decision reached by the crowd.


*I am using "charisma" here to sum up all of the aspects of force of personality and authority over those evaluating the data.