Baltimore's Aerial Surveillance Program Has Logged 700 Flight Hours, One (1) Arrest

from the if-you're-not-going-to-get-much-band,-might-as-well-use-someone-else's-b dept

The Baltimore PD's eye in the sky program continues. First (inadvertently) introduced to the public in 2016, the camera/Cessna system, made by a company called Persistent Surveillance Systems, flew above the city capturing up to 32-square miles of human and vehicle movements using a 192-million-megapixel camera.

The only upside to the residents of Baltimore not being informed of this development is that they weren't spending their money on it. It was completely funded by a private donor, Arnold Ventures, LLC. The system, known as "Gorgon Stare" when deployed in war zones by the military, is referred to by the city and PD by the friendlier, if clunkier, name "Aerial Investigation Research Pilot Program."

The second run of this program began earlier this year. The latest take on persistent aerial surveillance survived an early legal challenge by the ACLU. A federal court judge said the system did not violate anyone's Fourth Amendment rights, mainly because of its technical limitations. The system is far from "persistent." The planes -- three of them -- are airborne around 11 hours a day at most and they're almost completely useless at night. They're also mostly useless during bad weather and, in especially inclement weather, unable to get up off the ground at all.

So, it may be Constitutional and it may have been run past the public the second time around, but is it actually useful? That's something no one seems to know. The initial run in 2016 didn't add much to the Baltimore law enforcement knowledge base, mainly because it involved Baltimore cops and their apparently shoddy work practices.

[P]oor record-keeping by the police department apparently hindered any real study of the 2016 surveillance effort. According to reporting by the Baltimore Sun two years later, the best anyone call tell is that aerial footage may, or may not have, played a role in closing one of the roughly 100 murder cases during the 2016 flights.

There's no telling what this deployment will do for crime stats. The flights are ongoing but very little of what's captured appears to be useful to investigators.

After more than 700 hours aloft over the city, just one arrest has been made with aid from the program’s imagery data, according to BPD.

Meanwhile, the city continues to see its murder rate climb. Of course, the persistent surveillance can't actually prevent crime. It can only help investigators track suspects as they move away from crime scenes. The planes spend most of the time flying over areas the BPD's other software tells them to fly.

Overall, the police department says, flights are scheduled over areas where BPD data indicates most homicides occur, and the images it records are used after a crime has been committed and an initial investigation determines aerial footage might be helpful.

The planes are also flying over ongoing George Floyd-related protests and, in some cases, wandering outside of the city itself to fly over nearby suburbs. While police officials have stressed they're not surveilling First Amendment activity, they're still recording it, even if they never plan to use that footage. All footage collected remains in the possession of Persistent Surveillance Systems. It turns over images the BPD requests and destroys everything not needed 45 days after it's recorded. It's also forbidden to sell the footage. But it is able to do whatever it wants with these images while they remain in the company's possession during that 45-day time frame.

If this is all residents are getting from this program, it's a good thing a philanthropist from Texas is paying for it. Persistent Surveillance Systems is trying to create a market for its goods, but its test runs with the Baltimore PD haven't been a ringing endorsement of their tech. The Police Commissioner, Michael Harrison, doesn't exactly sound enthused about what he's seen so far.

Harrison… admits the program likely is not worth taxpayers funding the hefty price tag, potentially as high as $8 million annually based on the pilot, after the privately-funded pilot program runs out. “It probably would not be supported publicly, because of the dollar amount and its outcomes thus far.”

Meanwhile, the spy planes keep circling Baltimore. The experiment -- one using Baltimore residents as test subjects -- continues.

Filed Under: baltimore, cost benefit, police, surveillance

Federal Court Says Baltimore PD's High-Powered Aerial Surveillance Program Doesn't Violate The Constitution

from the increase-resolution-to-violate-rights dept

Four years ago, the Baltimore Police Department unilaterally decided to put several eyes in the sky. The 192-million megapixel camera system capable of covering 32-square miles was sent skyward with zero public comment or input from the city. And why not? The city was barely involved. The BPD received the camera system courtesy of a private donor.

The head of the company, John McNutt, was contacted by some Texas-based philanthropists who offered to pay for the system if McNutt's company, Persistent Surveillance Systems, would put it up in the air. What the system lacks in depth, it makes up for in breadth. Humans and vehicles are reduced to mere pixels, but the system's ability to rewind recordings makes it possible for the PD to track movement of vehicles and people near crime scenes.

The aerial surveillance system is more re-purposed war tech. It was originally deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan under the name "Gorgon Stare." That's what Persistent Surveillance Systems is flying over Baltimore, this time with the city's official blessing. After a period of public comment, the surveillance system is no longer just a test project.

The ACLU sued to block the launch of the program, citing the Supreme Court's Carpenter decision, which adds a warrant requirement to the collection of cell site location data. It's not an exact fit, but the Carpenter decision has been read by some courts to cover more than just location data.

Unfortunately, the ACLU's attempt to secure an injunction has failed. The decision [PDF] doesn't find the Carpenter decision applicable to an all-seeing-eye that can only capture the movement of pixels, rather than identifiable human beings. That being said, the planes (three of them) will fly for a minimum 40 hours a week each, resulting in six months of 12-hour-a-day coverage of nearly the entire city. (h/t Munchkin at Law)

There's something more than a little dystopian about the program. But, despite the promise contained in the company's name, this surveillance isn't all that persistent.

The AIR [Aerial Investigation Research] program's observational capabilities are limited. PSS [Persistent Surveillance Systems] cannot provide real-time surveillance. The on-board technology does not have zoom, telephoto, night vision, or infrared capabilities. The imagery is limited to "1 pixel per person" -- essentially a single dot on the map. Accordingly, an individual's characteristics are not observable in the images. As the planes will not fly at night or during inclement weather, significant gaps in the imagery data will emerge. These gaps in the record prevent the monitoring of a person's movements over the course of multiple days.

Footage related to criminal investigations will be separated and held for up to 45 days. Suspicious pixels' movements will be analyzed by investigators -- a process the PD says will be "labor-intensive," requiring up to one hour of investigators' time for every two hours of movement observed.

But it won't just be pixels moving around PSS's 32-square-miles of footage. This system will be integrated with surveillance tech on the ground, including the city's multiple CCTV cameras, Spot Shotter systems, and automatic license plate readers. Combining all of these elements will allow the PD to de-anonymize pixels and continue tracking of now-identifiable humans and vehicles.

Despite the concerns this integration of the city's surveillance equipment raises, the court says it will not issue a permanent injunction against the use of PSS's spy planes.

The record presently before this Court indicates that images produced by the AIR pilot program will only depict individuals as miniscule dots moving about a city landscape. The movement of these dots cannot be tracked without significant labor. Gaps in the imagery foreclose the tracking of a single person over the course of several days. This limited form of aerial surveillance does not constitute a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, nor does it burden First Amendment speech activities.

Even if it were a closer call, one feels the court would still have arrived at the same conclusion: the end justifies the means.

In a City plagued with violent crime and clamoring for police protections, this Court is loath to take the "extraordinary" step of stopping the AIR program before it even begins.

A bit more usefully, the court points out that not everything that identifies a person or their movements is a Fourth Amendment search, even if the Carpenter decision applied that to the collection of cell site location data.

The Plaintiffs' argument, seeking to lump together discrete surveillance activities as one Fourth Amendment "search," is simply without merit. Using a combination of resources and activities -- including police interviews, CitiWatch cameras, license plate readers, and public records -- the Baltimore Police Department may be able to reconstruct a detailed account of a person's activities and associations. The addition of one more investigative tool -- in this case, aerial surveillance -- does not render the total investigatory effort a Fourth Amendment "search."

Baltimore citizens and activists are right to be concerned about the PD's use of near-persistent aerial surveillance. But the limitations of the system prevent it from being considered a threat to Fourth Amendment protections -- at least as it's configured now. This second pass by PSS and the BPD will be subject to far more oversight than its test run. The decision notes that the program's efficacy will be tracked by two independent research groups and the public's perception of the program monitored by the University of Baltimore. The program will also be subject to a "civil rights and civil liberties audit" by the New York University School of Law. And, finally, the entire program is subject to the contours of a consent decree signed with the DOJ -- something that has been in place since early 2017.

At some point, the Fourth Amendment may be implicated by hours of aerial surveillance. But until the tech reaches the point where persistent tracking of individuals across an entire city is feasible, it seems unlikely any court will declare the PD's program a violation of Constitutional rights.

Filed Under: baltimore, baltimore pd, john mcnutt, surveillanice 4th amendment
Companies: persistent surveillance systems

Appeals Court Tells Baltimore PD To Start Coughing Up Information About Its Cell Site Simulators

from the no-more-hanging-around-in-the-shadows dept

The Baltimore Police Department was an enthusiastic early adopter of cell site simulator technology. In 2015, a Baltimore detective admitted the department had deployed its collection of cell tower spoofers 4,300 times since 2007.

The best estimate on how many of those 4,300 deployments ever showed up in court documents remains near zero. The Baltimore PD hid its deployments behind pen register orders, ensuring judges and defendants never knew the departments was using cell site simulators to track down suspects.

A little bit of information has reached the public domain in recent years, showing the Baltimore PD was more willing to toss cases than expose its use of Stingray devices. Judges were willing to toss cases too, once it was determined these secret deployments violated the Fourth Amendment.

There are now three Supreme Court rulings that directly affect Stingray deployments, with the most recent being the Carpenter decision. If the government needs a warrant to obtain historical cell site location info, it stands to reason a warrant should be required to engage in real-time tracking using Stingrays, even if the court did not specifically address this.

There's also the Kyllo decision, which found the use of an infrared device to search a house for occupants violated the Fourth Amendment. An intrusion in which the government never actually enters the house is still an intrusion. Cell site simulators force phones inside houses to give up certain identifying information even if officers never approach the residence.

Finally, there's the Riley decision that implemented search warrants for cellphones. A Stingray device searches cellphones, even if the search is "limited" to identifying info and location data. (Stingrays can also be used to intercept communications, but there's been no confirmed use of this particular configuration by US law enforcement agencies.)

All of these are in play in this recent decision [PDF] by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court does not explicitly find that a Hailstorm deployment by the Baltimore PD in 2014 was unconstitutional. But it does find that the lower court did not do enough fact-finding to determine whether it fell on the wrong side of the Fourth Amendment.

The Baltimore PD has pretty much conceded some of these points already.

Defendants concede that the Hailstorm simulator searched, at minimum, Andrews’s phone, and that its use thus required a warrant. Nor do Defendants controvert Andrews’s assertion that the Hailstorm simulator searched other cellular devices in the vicinity, or that it searched nearby homes by transmitting spoofed cell tower signals through the walls.

But the PD is still arguing that its use of a pen register order was the Constitutional equivalent of a search warrant.

Defendants instead argue that the Pen Register Order satisfied the warrant requirement and that any intrusions on third parties’ privacy interests are irrelevant to Andrews.

Those "third parties" would be everyone else in the vicinity of Andrews whose phone connected to the PD's fake cell tower and coughed up identifying info.

Andrews prevailed in the state court, resulting in the suppression of evidence. However, his federal civil rights lawsuit hit a wall when the lower court inexplicably decided "possibly relevant to an ongoing investigation" = "probable cause."

The federal district court found that the Pen Register Order constituted a warrant authorizing use of a Hailstorm simulator.

Pen registers do not require probable cause. If the judge had been informed that the PD was going to deploy a device that would search dozens of phones to find the one possessed by Andrews (and locate him that way), they would likely have demanded a higher standard than this bare minimum.

The Appeals Courts says there's not enough on the record to reach a conclusion about the Constitutionality of this cell site simulator deployment. So, it's handing it back to the lower court with a long list of questions that need to be answered before a decision can be reached.

Specifically, on remand, the district court is directed to conduct factfinding into the following characteristics of the Hailstorm cell site simulator:

(1) The maximum range at which the Hailstorm simulator can force nearby cellular devices to connect to it.

(2) The maximum number of cellular devices from which the Hailstorm simulator can force a connection.

(3) All categories of data the Hailstorm simulator may collect from a cellular device, regardless of whether such data is displayed to the Hailstorm simulator’s operator in the course of locating a target phone, including by way of example and without limitation: cellular device identifiers (such as international mobile equipment identity (“IMEI”) numbers, international mobile subscriber identity (“IMSI”) numbers, and electronic serial numbers (“ESN”)); metadata about cellular device operations (such as numbers dialed or texted, or webpages visited); and, most especially, the content of voice or video calls, text messages, emails, and application data.

(4) What data in (3) may be stored by the Hailstorm simulator.

(5) What data in (4) are accessible by law enforcement officers.

(6) All means by which the Hailstorm simulator was configured to minimize data collection from third party cellular devices not belonging to Andrews.

We'll see what the Baltimore PD chooses to do on remand. That's a lot of info it's not in any hurry to share with the general public. It may be able to keep some of this out of the public hand's with sealed filings but it can't keep all of this buried. It may decide it's time to settle. I hope it doesn't. This info should have been made public years ago. The PD spent years hiding this from everyone. It's time to open the books.

Filed Under: baltimore, baltimore police, cell site simulator, stingray, transparency

Another Baltimore Cop Facing Criminal Charges, This Time For Stealing 3 Kilos Of Coke From A Drug Bust

from the know-thy-enemy-or-whatever dept

All hail the mighty drug warriors! The War on Drugs is being fought by people who like cash, easy busts, and imagined traffic violations. The "soldiers" in the "trenches" literally believe they're soldiers in the trenches, fighting a war at home -- not as protectors and servants, but as a conquering army sent in to control the local populace.

The Baltimore PD has problems within its drug enforcement units. Several. Enough that the DOJ stepped in and forced the city and the PD to sign a consent agreement in which the PD would be forced to do what it always should have done: respect the Constitution and the rights of the people the PD serves.

Dozens of cases were dismissed after a cop was caught by his own body camera appearing to plant drugs at the scene of an arrest. It turned out he was just doing a dramatic reenactment of his own discovery earlier, but forgot about the rolling 30-second buffer which caught him shoving drugs into a coffee can and then pretending to have just discovered it the second time around.

But that's only one tip of the PD's garbage floe. Hundreds of cases are up for dismissal now. Misconduct appears to be the rule, not the exception. And it has resulted in the city's drug warriors being exposed as no better than the perps they went after. Here's Justin Fenton reporting for the Baltimore Sun:

It was billed as the biggest cocaine bust in Baltimore Police Department history: officers from the elite Violent Crimes Impact Division conducting surveillance on a West Baltimore drug trafficker a decade ago found 41 kilograms of cocaine in the back of a truck.

“Just good old fashioned police work from the ground up," read the commendation awarded by the department to officers in on the bust.

[...]

Detective Ivo Louvado was charged Thursday with lying to the FBI about participating in a scheme to sell cocaine from that bust. Prosecutors said in court records that he and two others conspired to sell 3 kilograms that were not reported as seized, giving the drugs to a confidential informant to sell and dividing the proceeds among themselves. Louvado’s alleged cut: $10,000.

The glowing commendation that has been tarnished by this discovery can be seen here. It lauds seven members of the PD's violent crime unit for their bust of "five violent traffickers" along with the recovery of 44 kilos of drugs. Or 41, as it was reported at the time:

"These [drugs], wherever they were destined, whether Western Maryland, the Eastern Shore or East or West Baltimore, they are affecting our communities," [Police Chief] Bealefeld said at a news conference. "Forty-one kilos of cocaine will not reach the streets of our city. All of us can take some comfort in that."

All seven of the officers were given Bronze Stars for their anti-drug work "along the I-95 corridor." But at least three of those officers decided a commendation and a paycheck wasn't enough appreciation for their hard work. All of this escaped notice for nearly a decade.

Now that someone outside of the department is paying attention -- specifically the US Attorney's office -- things like this are no longer going unnoticed (or deliberately being ignored). Louvado's indictment makes him the 14th officer charged in this investigation.

All of this stems from the PD's Gun Trace Task Force, which ran pretty much unsupervised for years. It's former leader, Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, is serving a 25-year sentence on federal racketeering charges. And its former members are the reason prosecutors are dropping hundreds of cases and opening up belated investigations into its strike force's tactics.

Fourteen cops facing criminal charges is absurd and should be shocking. This just means 14 cops were finally caught, not that the PD and federal prosecutors have actually rid the department of most of its bad cops. Any department that finds itself under a DOJ consent decree has allowed enough misconduct to go unpunished it has managed to alter almost every aspect of day-to-day police work to the detriment of those asked to fund the PD and pay for substandard, abusive policing. There's a small chance this will result in a better police department, but history has shown us bad cops -- and those who enable them -- are incredibly resilient.

Filed Under: baltimore, drug bust, drugs, ivo louvado, police, stealing

Lawyer With Neo-Nazi Ties Loses Defamation Lawsuit Against SPLC For Calling Him A Neo-Nazi

from the guess-it's-one-way-to-stay-busy-when-you're-unemployed dept

People keep suing the Southern Poverty Law Center and they just keep losing. More specifically, certain types of people keep suing the SPLC and losing. The type suing most frequently are individuals with bigoted beliefs who aren't too thrilled the SPLC considers them to be bigots.

The key word is "considers." The "Hate Map" the SPLC compiles lists individuals and entities the Center considers to be spreaders of hate. It includes litigants like Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and Truth In Action Ministries, the latter of which has made it clear it hates both the sinner and the sin when it comes to anyone veering from the sexual straight and narrow.

The latest lawsuit trying to turn protected opinion into defamation involves a Baltimore city lawyer who claimed it was defamatory for the SPLC to say he had links to white supremacist groups when he had links to white supremacists groups.

The case dates back to 2015 when the SPLC got a tranche of documents from an accountant who worked for alleged white supremacist group National Alliance, according to Wednesday’s ruling.

[...]

Among the names published was Glen K. Allen, a contractor in the city of Baltimore’s legal department. The group published a picture of him alongside the words, “When the City of Baltimore recently hired Glen Keith Allen, a neo-Nazi, nobody knew of his involvement with the white supremacist group, except for us.”

An August 2016 article from the SPLC reported on Allen’s ties to National Alliance, including receipts for dues payments, and also claimed that a political party he donated to, the American Eagle Party, was “racist.”

Allen was seeking $6 million for damage to his reputation supposedly caused by the publication of this collection of facts and inferences, which ultimately resulted in him being fired by the city. Oh, and there's a RICO claim thrown in there for good measure because supposedly SPLC's purchase of "stolen" documents is evidence of racketeering. (The court points out a single allegedly-criminal act does not show the "pattern" of illegal activity needed to sustain a RICO claim.)

Doesn't really matter how much this lawyer threw at the wall in his 85-page complaint. Sandwiched between his glowing autobiography and editorializing on the SPLC are some questionable allegations. The court doesn't appear to be a fan of Allen's complaint in general according to the first footnote of the opinion [PDF]:

The complaint is 85 pages long, with multiple pages devoted to attacking the fundraising and "enormous headquarters" ("The SPLC uses the word 'Poverty' in its name but in reality is fabulously wealthy,") and describing Allen's early life, extracurricular activities, and accolades ("[Allen] was a diligent student and did well in law school, finishing near the top of his class and serving as Executive Director of the law review,"). This section summarizes only the relevant parts of Allen's complaint.

The court isn't much more impressed with Allen's legal arguments. Allen's attempt to bypass First Amendment defenses by attaching a bunch of random, non-speech related torts doesn't work. As the court points out, clearing the First Amendment bar comes first, prior to any discussion about other allegations stemming from the SLPC's publication of the leaked files and its corresponding "Hate Map" updates. Allen can't clear the first hurdle.

As explained below, the August 17, 2016, article and 2016 Hate Map are protected by the First Amendment. First, Allen does not allege the factual statements in them are false. Second, the statements he objects to are non-actionable opinion or hyperbole.

Allen's complaint doesn't complain about anything but protected speech.

Allen does not dispute the underlying factual assertions namely, his ties to NA and the American Eagle Party in the article. Allen alleges that the article contained the false implication that he would act unethically in litigation he was. involved in. While the article noted that the "hiring of a known neo-Nazi to litigate [for Baltimore] surely raises questions" it cannot be said that the article implies that Allen would act unethically.

Allen's other allegations concern statements that are not actionable. He objects to the defendants' characterization of him as a "well known" neo-Nazi lawyer. Although he argues that the sources the article cites do not support that he is "well known," it is not clear whether he asserts the statement is false. To the extent he does, that he is "well known" is not a provably false factual connotation. Further, the characterization of the American Eagle Party as "racist" is opinion "that cannot be proven as verifiably true or false" and is not actionable.

And that's even when the court has considered Allen's "but I have black friends!" assertions.

In his brief, he argues that the defendants should have included in the article Allen's pro bono work on behalf of African Americans, as "Neo-Nazis do not do such things, let alone 'well known neo-Nazi lawyers.' The SPLC Defendants knew this. But portraying the truth about Allen would undercut the message that the SPLC constantly sends in order to fundraise[.]" These statements do not directly dispute the characterization as false; therefore, to the extent that Allen objects to the "neo-Nazi" label, he has not shown falsity.

[...]

[A]llens' pro bono work does not prove or disprove the documents showing Allen's payment of dues and donations to National Alliance, which was the basis for the defendants' characterization of him as a neo-Nazi.

The lawsuit is dismissed. It seems that the best course of action Glen Allen could have taken to avoid being portrayed as a neo-Nazi would have been to not associate with an avowed neo-Nazi organization. That he was outed via exfiltrated documents does not change his connection with neo-Nazis, nor does his pro bono work for African Americans. The best defense against defamation claims is the truth and the SPLC's portrayal of Allen was based on underlying documents Allen didn't even attempt to claim were false.

Fortunately for Allen, he won't be out much for legal fees since he incapably represented himself throughout these proceedings. Truth is fatal to defamation claims, as are statements of opinion, and inferences based on disclosed facts. But Allen moved forward anyway with his DOA lawsuit, with allegations that were never going to be greeted with anything more than a time of death declaration from a judge.

Filed Under: baltimore, defamation, glen allen, libel, neo-nazi
Companies: splc

The City Of Baltimore Blew Off A $76,000 Ransomware Demand Only To Find Out A Bunch Of Its Data Had Never Been Backed Up

from the nice-work-if-you-can-get-paid-to-do-it-and-then-not-do-it dept

The City of Baltimore was hit with a ransomware attack in May of this year. Criminals using remodeled and rebranded NSA exploits (EternalBlue) knocked out a "majority" of the city's servers and crippled many of its applications. More details didn't surface until September when the city's government began reshuffling the budget to cover the expenses of recovering from the attack.

The person in charge of the city's systems was Frank Johnson, who went on leave (presumably permanently) after a post-attack audit found the IT director hadn't done much IT directing.

Johnson, who also serves as the city's chief digital officer, received significant criticism from local authorities for the response to the May 7 attack. City council members alleged a lack of transparency and communication in the wake of the incident, as well as an inability to maintain a functional organization "during an emergency event." He also also never drafted a continuity of operations plan for an IT attack of the kind that occurred.

It looks like the list of stuff Johnson was being paid to do that he never did. Hence the catastrophic outcome when the city refused to pay the $76,000 ransom. Given the fact that $6 million has already been pulled from parks and public utilities funds to "harden" city systems, the $76,000 demand now seems like a bargain.

City residents should be asking WTF their tax dollars are being spent on. The city's audit of its compromised system rolls on, delivering even more embarrassing details about the city's IT skill set. (via Ars Technica)

A new audit of Baltimore’s information technology department says the agency lost key data during May’s ransomware attack because some in the agency used an outdated method for storing files: the hard drives on their individual computers.

[...]

“Performance measures data were saved electronically in responsible personnel’s hard drives,” [Baltimore City Auditor Josh] Pasch reported. “One of the responsible personnel’s hard drive was confiscated and the other responsible personnel’s selected files were removed due to the May 2019 ransomware incident."

Bureaucracies are prone to understatement and the assessment of the ghastly state of affairs by Pasch was no exception. According to Pasch, the permanently-missing data resulted in a "loss of confidence" in the city's IT department's ability to do its job.

This understatement brought the hearing to a halt as council members expressed their disbelief that city data was not being backed up. Their comments were less understated.

Hearing that, City Councilman Eric T. Costello, a former government IT auditor himself, stopped the hearing.

“That can’t be right? That’s real?” Costello asked.

It's apparently real. City data needed for an audit cannot be recovered because the IT department never made an effort to express the dangers of storing the only copy of data locally. It also apparently never made a push to create cloud backups of important files. When the ransomware struck, the stuff locked up was -- in far too many cases -- to only copy of that stuff.

The tragically hilarious postscript to this is the city's response to Ars Technica's request for info on the city's cyberattack recovery plans.

Ars has requested information from the city regarding the contracting details for the recovery, but the city has thus far provided no data. Requests for data on the status of patches and disaster recovery plans were refused because the documents do not exist as a result of the ransomware attack.

It's easy to mock governments for their inability to properly handle the massive amounts of data they collect, create, and retain. And so we shall. The city figures it will cost $18 million to recover from a rejected $76,000 ransom demand. I guess if you're going to play chicken with extortionists, you might want to make sure your backup plans at least meet min spec.

Filed Under: backups, baltimore, frank johnson, ransomware

Hundreds Of Cases Dismissed Thanks To Baltimore PD Misconduct

from the perp-walkers dept

After years of listening to tough-on-crime legislators and the tough-on-crime lawmen that love to hear them talk about filthy criminals beating the system by getting off on technicalities, it's somewhat funny to discover lots of what's complained about is nothing more than good old-fashioned due process and/or the collateral damage of crooked, inept, or lazy cops.

We've seen a lot of en masse criminal case dismissals recently. Thousands of convictions and charges were dropped in Massachusetts as the result of a state crime lab tech's years of faked drug tests. All over the nation, cops are letting perps walk rather than discuss law enforcement's worst-kept secret: Stingray devices.

Add to that list several hundred cases being dropped by prosecutors in Baltimore -- all thanks to officer misconduct. [via Scott Shackford at Reason]

Hundreds of criminal cases are impacted by the questionable conduct of Baltimore police officers, the city's top prosecutor announced in a statement.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby's office released the updated numbers Wednesday. She said the actions of eight officers indicted for racketeering have affected 295 cases, and three more incidents of questionable use of body-worn cameras have impacted a total of 569 cases. Overall, she said up to 338 cases have been or could be dismissed.

The body camera footage at issue was discussed here earlier. What looked like an officer planting evidence turned out to be an officer performing an improvisational reenactment of "discovering" evidence he had actually discovered earlier (but without his body camera turned on). While less malicious than framing someone, the end result is no less questionable: a cop stuffing drugs into an object for recorded "discovery" later. Either way, it's something no cop should be doing, especially when they're wearing body cameras they can activate at any time.

The numbers of dismissals will likely continue to grow. Moby's office counts up to 338 possible dismissals so far, but characterizes these totals as "preliminary." The Baltimore PD, however, is spinning these dismissals in a different -- but wholly expected -- direction. While promising to "work to address the concerns" raised by the racketeering and footage-faking, police spokesman T.J. Smith claims these multiple cases of footage manipulation (there are four in total) are not indicative of larger, unaddressed problems with officer accountability.

Smith pointed out the importance of separating the four incidents, as they are "unique and independent of each other," adding that while eight officers are in federal prison for their criminal conduct, "the cases involving body-worn camera footage is still being investigated and no criminal wrongdoing has been proven."

Well, "unique" and "independent" except for the fact they all involved members of the Baltimore PD. Only a fool (or a police union spokesman) would believe these are the only times Baltimore officers have massaged camera footage and that the hundreds of cases edging towards dismissal will be the end of the prosecutorial bleeding. Misconduct of this type -- especially misuse of recording equipment -- tends to be a department-wide problem, rather than a few "bad apples" rising to the top of the barrel to be plucked and tossed by prosecutors.

Filed Under: baltimore, charges dropped, police

Body Cam Footage Of A Cop Planting Evidence Leads To Dozens Of Dismissed Cases

from the giving-(drugs)-back-to-the-community dept

It seems as though a Baltimore police officer forgot about one key feature of his bodycam: the fact that it saves the previous 30 seconds of video recorded before the camera is activated. Most bodycams record and dump constantly. The moment it's activated, the 30 seconds preceding the activation become part of the recording.

What was apparently inadvertently captured by the camera was the officer planting drugs in a can and hiding them in an alley. All three officers then retreat to the sidewalk outside the alley before heading back in to "discover" the drug stash.

If it wasn't for the fortuitous discovery (in the legal sense) of the video, the officer might have gotten away with it.

There's controversy over a Baltimore City police body-camera video and whether it shows an officer tampering with evidence.

The 90-second clip led to the dismissal of a drug case, and 53 other cases that involve the same officer might be under review.

The clip is a snapshot of what appears to be an officer mishandling evidence. The video, which was used in connection with a drug arrest in January, was released Wednesday by the Public Defender's Office.

The term "mishandling" downplays what appears to be happening in the video: a cop generating probable cause for an arrest. There's a small possibility the drugs were discovered earlier but no recording existed, so the officers "reenacted" the discovery and hoped no one would notice their subterfuge. Either way, it's something you just can't do, not if you want to keep your conviction.

As for the other 53 cases under review, many of them appear to be headed for dismissal. And the original estimate of 53 was incredibly low.

Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby identified 123 cases associated with the officers mishandling evidence as seen on the body-camera video. Mosby said 34 of the cases will be dismissed, and 77 others remain under review.

[...]

"The cases that have been dismissed thus far or are scheduled to be dismissed are felony drug cases or free-standing possession of firearm cases. And we made a decision in every one of those cases after a very thorough review of the facts, that we did not have a case to prosecute without the testimony of one or all of the three officers," said Antonio Gioia, chief counsel at the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

Note that the attorney's office is ready to let suspects walk if any of the three officers might be involved in the prosecutions. This is the right way to handle this. The cop who planted the evidence isn't the only problem. It's also his fellow officers who did nothing to stop him. All three are culpable for this act -- whether it was the deliberate framing of an arrestee or a one-act play performed for the camera to make up for the lack of footage during the original find. In a little more than 90 seconds, three cops destroyed their credibility, possibly forever.

And it certainly appears that these aren't the only three Baltimore cops doing this kind of evidence planting. As I was finishing up this post, we got some more breaking news of... more Baltimore cops faking evidence:

Public defenders in Baltimore say charges against a client have been dropped because police body-camera video "appears to depict multiple officers working together to manufacture evidence."

Oh, and that's not all:

Separately, seven other Baltimore officers on a gun crimes task force are accused of faking reports and false detentions.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think this might not be just one or two "bad apples."

Filed Under: baltimore, planted evidence, police, trust

Paul Levy Hoping To Wake Up Maryland Courts To The Numerous Fraudulent Libel Lawsuits Filed There

from the so-far,-very-little-interest-in-performing-actual-judge-work dept

Something's rotten in Maryland. Not conspiracy-level rotten, but rotten nonetheless. As we've discussed recently, Paul Alan Levy (along with Eugene Volokh) have done a ton of legwork to flush out the perpetrator of several bogus libel lawsuits filed in Baltimore courts, designed for the purpose of "reputation management" (i.e., convincing Google to stop linking to posts someone doesn't like). The man behind many of these appears to be Richart Ruddie, who runs a reputation management company called Profile Defenders.

As we discussed earlier this week, one of the judges in Baltimore handling one of those cases has refused to fix things and overturn his rubber-stamped order. But there are other, similar cases in front of other judges there as well, and they seem equally unwilling to make proactive efforts to deter this sort of abuse. Because of this, Levy has worked with Myvesta (a company indirectly affected by a bogus libel lawsuit, thanks to bogus delisting orders targeting one of its websites) to file an amicus brief detailing Ruddie's fraudulent reputation management efforts.

We had several reasons for filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs’ motion to vacate. First, it seemed to us that the motion to vacate understated the extent of the fraud that had been perpetrated on the court — it did not frankly admit that Bryan Levin was an invented name created for the purpose of justifying the consent order, and it did not admit that the consent order sought the plaintiffs’ objective — suppression of critical articles — by the device of suing over allegedly defamatory comments. The motion did not admit that in additional to victimizing the court by the fraud, the person who arranged for the case to be filed was actually victimizing a speaker whose rights are protected by the First Amendment, and the motion did not call the consent order by its proper name — a prior restraint of protected speech.

But the problem goes much deeper than the case Myvesta's involved in. Ruddie had a lot of extremely sketchy irons in the court's fire. Levy wants to ensure this case isn't seen as a one-and-done.

A second reason for submitting the amicus brief was to ensure that the judge not hear this motion to vacate judgment in isolation – we know of a raft of other cases like Smith v. Levin that were filed in the Maryland courts and, in particular, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Some of these other cases also sought relief suppressing other articles on the Get Out of Debt Guy blog, in the apparent interest of other debt relief companies that the blog had criticized. Our brief identifies several other such cases, and Professor Volokh’s research has identified several more.

The filing [PDF] reveals many more details about Ruddie's scamtastic lawsuits, as well as lawyer Bennett Wills' apparent participation in the fraudulent filings. (Wills, who works for Ruddie client Rescue One, has claimed he never knowingly engaged in fraudulent behavior.)

[I]t has come to Myvesta’s attention that Bennett Wills has filed two additional “fake lawsuits” in Maryland circuit courts that are comparable to this case. Visionstar, Inc. v. Perez, No. 24C15005743 (Cir. Ct. Balt. City); Cohen v. Wilkerson, No. 06C15070022 (Cir. Ct. Carroll Cy). (Copies of these two complaints are attached). The papers use very similar language, and an investigation conducted by a private detective retained by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh to assist in his investigation of the phenomenon of fake litigation established that, as in this case, neither of the two individuals who were named as defendants and whose signatures appear on the consent orders live at the addresses shown for them. See attached Declaration of Giles Miller. Moreover, both cases show obvious signs of being fake: the signatures of defendants “Mark Wilkerson” and “Daniel Perez” appear to have been written by the same hand; and the very carefully handwritten signature of “Mark Wilkerson” spells his name as “Wilerkson.”

And in the Visionstar case, the allegation in paragraph 13 about the IP address from which the supposedly defamatory reviews were posted to the Ripoff Report website is a highly implausible. Generally speaking, a subpoena can be issued in connection with a case seeking to identify the poster of an anonymous comment, but that is something that happens after the complaint is filed, not something that can be listed in the complaint. Undersigned counsel has contacted inside counsel for Xcentric Ventures, the company that operates Ripoff Report, and ascertained that his client has never received any subpoena to identify the anonymous author of the reports cited in the Visionstar complaint; that attorney also represented that he checked the IP addresses for the reports cited in the complaint, and that none of them was associated with the address 12.4.33.71 as the complaint alleges.

Levy points out Ruddie's preferred legal venue is likely due to the fact that his business (what's left of it) is located in that area. It would be very unlikely for so many defendants to be located in the Baltimore area, given the worldwide nature of the internet, but somehow these plaintiffs keep finding anonymous commenters right in Ruddie's backyard. (And with record speed, too. In Ruddie's faux lawsuits, commenters are usually unmasked within a few days of a lawsuit's filing, all without subpoenas or court orders demanding the identifying info behind IP addresses and pseudonyms.)

Ruddie's probably not filing any more bogus lawsuits -- at least not while he's under investigation by the US Attorney's office. But there are likely more fraudulently-obtained court orders out there still needing to be vacated. And, as long as the court appears inattentive, there's an open invitation for similarly-minded reputation managers to see if they can sneak a few bogus injunction requests past Baltimore judges.

Filed Under: baltimore, defamation, judges, paul levy, reputation management, richart ruddie
Companies: myvesta

City Officials Step Up After DOJ Told To Stop Worrying About Civil Rights Violations By Law Enforcement Agencies

from the bold-'us-vs.-them'-strategy-to-prop-up-flagging-LEO-morale dept

It appears the DOJ will no longer be in the business of policing the police. A memo issued by every cop's new best friend, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, states the DOJ will be doing more to empower police and will conduct fewer civil rights investigations of law enforcement agencies. On one hand, it makes sense to have the locals handle their own problems. On the other hand, the locals have repeatedly shown a willingness to ignore abusive policing until the feds are forced to step in.

It may be difficult to roll back DOJ agreements and oversight of investigated agencies immediately. It may, in fact, be impossible. Those consent decrees that have made their way through the court system on the way to being put into force would take some serious litigating to roll back. It's not clear the DOJ's interested in attempting an expensive clawback of police oversight and policy changes.

It's those that haven't been formalized through this process that are in danger of being scaled back, if not removed completely. The DOJ has filed a motion asking for time to review its proposed consent decree with the Baltimore PD in light of AG Sessions' memo. The DOJ also just finished wrapping up an investigation of the Chicago PD, but statements made by Sessions and President Trump indicate the White House and DOJ are more interested in solving Chicago's crime problem, rather than its police problem.

Sessions himself has no interest in police misconduct or systemic civil liberties violations and abuse the DOJ has uncovered over the past eight years. He claimed the lengthy investigation the DOJ's civil rights division performed produced nothing more than "anecdotal" evidence. He made this claim while admitting he hasn't read any of the investigative reports.

By not reading the reports, Sessions won't have to deal with contradictory thoughts while shifting the DOJ towards its new position as a law enforcement booster club. Adam Serwer of The Atlantic points out the vast amount of denial Sessions is swimming in.

As attorney general, Sessions said he read a summary, but not the full Ferguson report, which found that “95% of Manner of Walking charges; 94% of all Fail to Comply charges; 92% of all Resisting Arrest charges; 92% of all Peace Disturbance charges; and 89% of all Failure to Obey charges” were filed against black residents. But on the basis of the summary alone, Sessions concluded that the report was “pretty anecdotal” and “not scientifically based.”

The refusal to believe police abuse could be systemic rather than individual is, in the aftermath of all the data collected by the very agency Sessions now leads, a form of denial. Nor can Sessions’s decision be justified by the familiar excuse that police reforms lead to higher crime rates—the notion that “it is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage non-federal law enforcement agencies,” is a normative standard that would eschew federal oversight of local police regardless of the crime rate or the gravity of any abuse that might occur.

This is a problem that's going to be bigger than just the guy sitting at the head of the DOJ organizational chart. Sessions' memo made it clear he actually believes misconduct and discriminatory policing are the handywork of a "few bad apples." That cannot possibly be true unless it's just a "few bad apples" issuing 90% of the summonses and performing 90% of the arrests. Every investigation by the DOJ turns up systemic abuses. Not one has reached the conclusion that the problems would all go away with a handful of firings.

Sessions' memo is morale booster for bad cops. It states the DOJ will focus on everything but systemic police misconduct and every excuse will be made to clear cops of wrongdoing. The DOJ's civil rights division at least gave people hope that America's policing could be improved, possibly even rising to the level of "constitutional" most of the time. That hope is now gone. As Adam Serwer puts it, Sessions' DOJ is abandoning the public by turning a blind eye to misconduct by public servants.

Sessions’s memo reads as an announcement that it is no longer the business of the federal government if American citizens’ rights are violated by those sworn to protect them and empowered with lethal force to do so. When local governments violate the basic constitutional rights of citizens, Americans are supposed to be able to look to the federal government to protect those rights. Sessions has made clear that when it comes to police abuses, they’re now on their own.

For what it's worth, some cities whose consent decrees might disappear thanks to the DOJ's new marching orders are promising to carry on without the federal government's carrots and sticks. Baltimore officials are saying they're not interested in rollbacks or compromises in the proposed consent decree the DOJ wants more time to examine in light of Sessions' "law and order" memo. [Warning: ad blocker-blocking dead ahead.]

Any interruption in moving forward may have the effect of eroding the trust that we are working hard to establish," Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said in a statement.

The same goes for Chicago, where a consent decree may never be put in place by the DOJ.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police chief Eddie Johnson have also vowed to press ahead with reforms within the city's police department, noting that a plan has already been drafted in recent weeks.

This is encouraging, even if the statements may end up being more sincere than the follow-through. The discouraging fact is these cities would have likely done nothing about the problems in their law enforcement agencies without the DOJ stepping in. If the DOJ's no longer going to be pursuing investigations of local PDs, it's all in the hands of local officials, and most are willing to ignore issues until they become front-page news around the nation.

Filed Under: baltimore, chicago, civil rights, doj, jeff sessions, police