I'm considering getting a phone number that is solely used for voicemail. The voicemails would be emailed to me where I would download them. Why would I want to have such a thing? Well, I'm hoping to set it up for people to call and record encounters with police or whatever. I got the idea from a similar thing some free staters had set up in New Hampshire. I decided to put it into effect when I realized a couple things: my voice recorder in my phone is too difficult to navigate to, it only records two minutes, and even if I got to it and recorded, the phone could be taken with my information going with it (and possibly being deleted). So with a voicemail box, someone could put it in their speed dial, it would go straight to voicemail and it would be recorded. Then I could download the messages to an encrypted drive (or three). So here are some of my questions:

-Would anyone else use this besides me?
-How much redundancy and security would you think I need?
-If a person illegally recorded (say like in a two party consent state where everyone being recorded has to be informed) would I be held liable for possessing the recording (assuming they could get to it on encrypted drives)?
-Would anyone be interested in donating (BTC or otherwise) to help defer some of the costs?

I've already set up Google Voice. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't want calls coming to my cell phone, I don't want a voice mail greeting, and I don't want the limitations on voice message time imposed by my carrier. Lightbox will give me a Canadian number (which I can connect to Google Voice, so Americans can dial the American Google Voice number), and email me my voice mails. That way, I could unplug the VoIP adapter (taking someone straight to voice mail) and not have a voice mail greeting. The only thing I don't know is their limit on voice messages. If they only allow one or two minute messages, it won't work, as an encounter with any government official could easily last an hour or more.

I would be doing this mainly so people have evidence from their interactions during traffic stops and similar instances. But what you're suggesting is a really good idea. I don't know if DropBox would work like that, because I don't know a lot about how DropBox works.

They're using wiretap laws for everything. http://fwd4.me/z9N That's an article from Time. That picture, if you're not familiar with the video, was from a helmet cam on a motorcycle. That guy in the picture is a cop who jumps out of the car wielding a gun telling him to turn his motorcycle off. Finally, he says, "state police." He still doesn't show a badge. The guy posted the video on Youtube later, so the cops were embarrassed and decided to go back later and charge him with wiretapping. They went into his house, took all of his computers and locked him up. Of course they were wrong (but who cares if a cop is on the wrong side of the law? It's not their job to know it). He was released, but things like this happen a lot.

As for Google Voice, yes, but they only allow three minute voice messages. Lightbox only allows five minutes. I'm going to either have to figure something else out (an answering machine maybe?) or just drop it. I really like the idea of having an exchange recorded remotely.