Police Departments Skirting Public Accountability By Using Private Foundations To Obtain Controversial Surveillance Technology

from the what-the-public-doesn't-know-will-probably-irritate-them-to-no-end dept

Thu, Oct 16th 2014 3:50am — Tim Cushing

The less the public knows about law enforcement surveillance technology, the better. That's the thought process governing the purchase and deployment of technology like Stingray devices and automatic license plate readers. In the case of the former, even the nation's top cops (the FBI) actively discourage talking about the cell tower spoofers through the use of restrictive non-disclosure agreements.

Being public entities, it's sometimes hard to keep the public and local law enforcement's new tools and toys separated. FOIA requests and a whole lot of persistence have managed to uncover details about surveillance tech, but what's turned over is often heavily-redacted or several months out of date. The purchasing process should run through local governing bodies, but many of those are only too happy to defer to law enforcement and rubber-stamp purchases sight unseen or keep discussions of purchases off the public records.

If the normal routes -- as deferential as they are -- seem to be a bit too "leaky," many law enforcement agencies have a third option available to keep the public in the dark about their technology acquisitions: private funding.

Across the nation, private foundations are increasingly being tapped to provide police with technology and weaponry that -- were it purchased with public money -- would come under far closer scrutiny.

In Los Angeles, foundation money has been used to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of license plate readers, which were the subject of a civil-rights lawsuit filed against the region's law enforcement agencies by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (A judge rejected the groups' claims earlier this year.)

Private funds also have been used to upgrade "Stingray" devices, which have triggered debate in numerous jurisdictions because they vacuum up records of cellphone metadata, calls, text messages and data transfers over a half-mile radius.

These private foundations have been useful in the past, supplying cops with needed equipment like bulletproof vests and office equipment during times of budget shortfalls. Unfortunately, they've now stretched far beyond funding to fill in budgetary gaps to become the checkbook of choice when purchasing controversial surveillance technology.

Not only do these foundations help law enforcement sidestep public accountability, but they also serve as convenient recipients of private contractors' largesse. The LAPD avoided creating a paper trail when Palantir and Target Corp. teamed up to donate the former's surveillance software to the department through the Los Angeles Police Foundation.

These foundations are also used a lobbying proxy. Contractors hoping to receive city contracts grease the wheels by donating funds or products to the private foundations, again skirting accountability by taking advantage of looser disclosure requirements.

The NYPD's citywide surveillance hub uses software from IBM, which gave between $10,000 and 25,000 to the foundation. According to its website and tax documents, the foundation helped fund creation of the hub. IBM did not respond when asked about its relationships with New York's police foundation and police department.

DynTek Inc. made a contribution of similar size to the foundation and has won more than $47 million in technology contracts with New York City since 2008. It lobbied the police department for more business as recently as this January, according to disclosure records. DynTek officials also did not respond to questions.

Defenders of these accountability-skirting foundations portray them as nothing more than more efficient ways to get police departments the tools they need.

"There's very little discretionary money for the department," said Steve Soboroff, a businessman who is president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the civilian board that oversees the LAPD's policies and operations. "A grant application to the foundation cuts all the red tape, or almost all of the red tape."

And, hilariously, they portray the generous donations by private contractors (with eyes on securing city contracts) as nothing more than pure, unstoppable acts of charity.

Soboroff said he had no concerns that companies were donating to the foundation to improve their chances to do business with the city -- donors were typically driven by "an insatiable appetite to help," he said, not self-interest.

Some of this "insatiable appetite to help" more closely resembles straight-up lobbying combined with the infamous governmental "revolving door." Motorola, vying for a $600 million city contract, donated more than $164,000 to the Los Angeles Police Foundation and placed former chief Bill Bratton (now New York City's police commissioner) on its board of directors, a position that paid $240,000 a year. Motorola ended up with the contract, despite a good showing by its main competitor Raytheon, which dumped $311,000 into the foundation over the same period.

The problems here are numerous. These foundations allow police departments to acquire controversial surveillance technology with very little transparency. There appears to be no oversight on the spending -- something that is to be expected when a public entity decides to start making purchases using private funds. As the ProPublica article points out, there will be more of this in the future. What used to be something only available to the nation's two largest police forces (NYPD, LAPD) is becoming more common elsewhere. Foundations like these are popping up around the country and are being used similarly. One foundation in Atlanta, Georgia paid for the citywide network of surveillance cameras as well as the communication center where these feeds were viewed.

There's likely no simple fix to this problem or at least, not one that won't do considerable collateral damage. The default mode should be that if a public entity is spending money, it needs to be accountable for the expenditures, no matter where the funds originated. Even if city officials can't prevent the purchase of items with private funds, they should be able to force the creation of a paper trail that can be accessed by the public.

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Filed Under: accountability, police, private funds, surveillance

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 4:16am

What used to be something only available to the nation's two largest police forces
Don't you mean taxpayer-funded gangs? This reliance on private money is just a symptom of the fetish to privatize everything gov-related.
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lucidrenegade (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 4:43am

It should be simple
If the cops use it, it's subject to FOIA and other open records laws. Doesn't matter who paid for it.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 4:50am

Re: It should be simple
Except that he who pays the piper calls the tune.
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Chris-Mouse (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 5:08am

One possible solution is to require that records of any and all donations to the police be posted where the public has free access to them. This would include money donations, as well as equipment and services donated.

That would have to be at least state level laws, possibly forced, or backed by federal laws, so I'm not gonna hold my breath until it happens.
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DannyB (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 5:45am

Re: Re: It should be simple
But those who pay the piper are still not getting everything they want.

They need to figure out a way to avoid public accountability about which laws the police enforce!

Also, they need to 'work with' legislators to avoid public disclosure of what the laws actually are.

Having all this information in the public would only help the terrorists. And pirates.
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DannyB (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 6:27am

Re:
> possible solution is to require that records of
> any and all donations to the police be posted

What! Are you trying to help the terrorists? Sensitive information like this needs to be kept private.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 6:50am

LE's comtempt for the public interest would be outrageous if it weren't so commonplace. If a police dept. bought it, the public should be able to know what was bought.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 6:51am

Re:
What I meant to say was, If a police dept. owns it, the public should be able to know about it.

Editor, need one.
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Booze!, 16 Oct 2014 @ 7:26am

Now with text!
Accountability is for people that can be harmed, violated and murdered, not cops, accountability is for victims.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 7:53am

Most people don't realize it, but an awful lot of these "non-profits" are really the hidden tentacles of for-profit corporations, used as a tool to quietly slip in the back door when the front door is guarded or even locked.

Donating money and equipment is an easy way to establish a relationship with a government entity. Then once that relationship is established, it becomes the logical next step to recommend the still-hidden parent company that made the free equipment that is now applying for a major contract.

It's a very pervasive problem because these 501(c)(3) entities, set up correctly, can effectively dodge any transparency requirements. To make things even more confusing, many nonprofits donate to or purchase from other nonprofits, making it even harder to track the original source of funding.

Much was made of Obama's IRS targeting conservative non-profit groups. The reality was that it was indeed proper to question their non-profit/non-tax eligibility. The problem was the cherry-picking Obama admisistration didn't go nearly far enough, as many, if not most, non-profit entities in the US operate with a non-charitable motive, a hidden agenda which exploits the system so pervasively that no elected official dares challenge the status quo, as this is an intregral part of the machinery that both elects and keeps the government in power.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 9:50am

This reminds me of the private mercenary armies being setup under the guise of law enforcement councils, or LECs.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140627/09052427701/mass-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-cor porations-to-get-out-transparency-requests.shtml

These new 'foundations' are being setup to fund these private mercenary armies on US soil, controlled by the rich elite of this country.

Law enforcement is no longer about protecting and serving the public, as Ferguson has shown us. Quite the opposite, it's about using these privately funded mercenary armies to oppress the public with no accountability or paper trail.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 10:27am

Re:
This is the way that government has always operated. Every time the people force a mechanism on the government that increases transparency and reduces corruption, the government will find some way around it, and go right back to business-as-usual.

Pass a law like the FOIA that requires disclossure of all government records, then have V.P. Dick Cheney open an email account at Republican Party headquarters to conduct all his shady business that he knows will be outside the reach of the FOIA.
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John Fenderson (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 11:04am

Re:
It should be illegal to operate a US-based mercenary outfit, or for any mercenary outfit to operate in the US, period. That we use them at all, in any capacity, is despicable.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2014 @ 11:26am

Re: Re:
But when police do something, isn't it legal by definition?

No, you say? Then go right ahead and make a citizen's arrest!
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John Fenderson (profile), 16 Oct 2014 @ 12:26pm

Re: Re: Re:
You joke, but there are numerous examples of the police getting slapped down for breaking the law. It's usually the FBI that does this.
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Ninja (profile), 17 Oct 2014 @ 3:03am

These private foundations have been useful in the past, supplying cops with needed equipment like bulletproof vests and office equipment during times of budget shortfalls.

But much like anything that may be good but is open to abuse by those in power it has become widely abused. If I were in an absolute power position today I would actively try to strip it from myself. Because even if I don't abuse it today I may do it tomorrow (remember Batman and his surveillance thing?) or the ones after me will.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2014 @ 12:34pm

Sounds like "terrorists" to me, yet, i highly doubt they'll go after themselves
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Oct 2014 @ 12:37pm

More than just "mildly interesting," wouldn't you say? PTL that we KNOW that it is God who rules in the affairs of men, not "agents of fear" malice in the hearts of those in power.
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George, 19 Oct 2014 @ 5:27pm

Re: Re: Re: It should be simple
There is only one domestic terrorist, and it's not a group at odds with the government, but the members of the government who can only satisfy their lust for power by supporting existing controlling laws, while enacting more oppressive laws to control the people as if they did not have enough control over the people already, not me, not you, but the people, out people. We're drowning in laws. Many are injust and unnessessary, others power grabbing, others so redundant that they result in multiple charges for a single offense. Politicians spend billions every election to get that job to serve the people and the letter of the U.S. Constitution, an instrument intended before it was written, to define the privileges of loyal citizenship, and the limits of rule, to limit the rule of those empowered in the government. It will become so, far more than presently, oppressive that only an event of extraterrestrial origins can staunch the flow of our blood.

The Bible tells us that governments were created by God to rule over us for good. Therein lies the conflict. God has ordained the laws, but men have corrupted them. My belief in Him will not be diminished by your assaults, so save them.

Great evil has been loosed upon the earth. The harvest of souls has begun. Our struggle has also begun. Choose your allegiance, and your destiny.

We're now fighting a spiritual war with metal and weapons.
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Niall (profile), 20 Oct 2014 @ 1:14am

Re: Re: Re: Re: It should be simple
So you support sharia law? Wait, that wasn't the set of deity-given laws you meant?

No thanks, I'll keep my laws secular, thank you. There's more than enough corruption and nastiness already around without bringing religious hysteria and hypocrisy to the table.
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Niall (profile), 20 Oct 2014 @ 1:17am

Re:
I still think the IRS didn't go nearly far enough. How many tax-free churches got heavily involved in politics in the Presidential election? How many of them breached the letter of their tax-free exemptions, if not the spirit?

And don't get me wrong. If there is corruption or over-partisanship on the other side, they should be smacked down too.
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Niall (profile), 20 Oct 2014 @ 1:19am

Re:
Oh well, if it's all God's fault...

If god rules, what are men but puppets in a sick puppet show?

How about taking responsibility for your own crap?
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