Chicago Mayor Says City's Police Officers Will Be 'Stripped Of Their Powers' If They Turn Off Their Cameras

from the much-much-more-of-this-please dept

Civic leaders are finally at least talking tough about reforming the police departments they've barely overseen for years. Protests -- some of them violent -- have erupted all over the nation, ensuring very few law enforcement agencies can consider themselves above the fray… or above reproach.

We'll see how much of this talk remains tough (or turns into action) once the heat dies down a bit, but for now, it's good to see political leaders stepping up to call out their law enforcement agencies as part of the problem.

Chicago has one of the nation's worst police forces -- one that has taken full advantage of the historically-corrupt political system in that city. Add to that another problematic entity that's found almost everywhere -- police unions -- and you have a bunch of officers who fear no reprisal, no matter what behavior they engage in.

The internal investigation process for cops accused of criminal acts and misconduct is a black hole where complaints go in but almost nothing comes out, even years after the investigations have closed. This lack of accountability is enforced by the city's contract with police unions, who have fought every minimal reform effort with gusto.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot knows this. She headed the Chicago Police Board, another oversight effort made mostly toothless by union interference and the police department's lack of interest in allowing anyone to police it.

So, her comment to NPR doesn't exactly tell anyone what they're not already aware of. But it does show Mayor Lightfoot is willing to directly address the root cause of multiple accountability issues.

"Unfortunately, in history in our city, and I think the history of other cities, unions are extraordinarily reluctant to embrace reform and that's a current state of affairs here," Lightfoot said in an interview Saturday with NPR's Weekend Edition. "We have had to take them to arbitration to win very modest reforms, and that's a shame of the history of collective bargaining where there hasn't been an emphasis on reform and accountability."

She also pointed out there needs to be a change in culture if any reforms are going to take hold. That's a key element that sometimes gets overlooked. Chicago cops have long disliked being watched by anyone, even their own recording devices. The killing of Laquan McDonald by a Chicago police officer could have been observed by any number of dashcams, but it was only captured by one of the four responding vehicles and that recording had no sound. Public records requests uncovered the fact that 80% of the PD's dashcams did not record sound due to "operator error or intentional destruction."

The Mayor's next public statement addressed this history directly. And it adds a level of accountability the Chicago PD has never placed on its own officers.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called out police officers who turn off their body cameras Friday, stating they will be stripped of their "police powers."

There's more. Officers who make other efforts to exempt themselves from recognition or responsibility will be similarly professionally disgraced.

"Officers who choose to do those things, or to tape over their badges, or to turn off their body-worn cameras – all things that violate very clear directives of the Chicago Police Department – if you are one of those officers, we will find you, we will identify you, and we will strip you of your police powers. Period," Lightfoot said.

The police union has yet to respond directly to Lightfoot's commandeering of officer discipline procedures. When it does finally respond, it won't offer any contrition on behalf of the officers it represents or agree that officers need more discipline. After all, it's headed by a thug cop who was elected to his position by officers presumably supportive of his career.

[John] Catanzara is one of the most frequently-disciplined officers in the history of the Chicago Police Department. He is believed to be the first police union president ever elected while stripped of his police powers.

Any incremental increase in accountability is almost always greeted by officer resistance, usually led by their union reps. This will be no different. But if Lightfoot can get it to stick, there are going to be a lot of cops with no cop powers. This will keep them from abusing the power they no longer have, but this corrective action apparently won't harm their budding police union careers.

The head of the union represents the body. This is who Chicago PD officers wanted representing them. That says a whole lot about why the Chicago PD is in the shape it is today. A few small changes won't reverse its course. But it may provide a foothold for bigger changes in the future.

Filed Under: body cameras, chicago, chicago police, lori lightfoot

Court To Cops: No Expectation Of Privacy In A 'Beer-Drinking, Nap-Taking Hideout'

from the try-doing-some-work-sometime dept

Everyone has rights, even the people who often disrespect the rights of others. But those rights can only be violated in certain, specific ways and the two cops, who sued over alleged rights violations, didn't actually have their rights violated.

Officers Denis Lawlor and Daniel Varallo once worked for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) in Chicago. They were fired after some of their candid comments about their work ethic and coworkers were inadvertently publicly broadcast on a Illinois State Police channel. These comments were recorded and turned over to the officers' employer, which correctly decided these two officers should find somewhere else to work. (via FourthAmendment.com)

Lawlor and Varallo arrived at work and set about doing what they apparently normally did: nothing. This isn't an assumption. It's what they admitted to during the conversation they thought they were having privately. However, the officers' expectation of privacy isn't the same as the Fourth Amendment's expectation of privacy, even if they were safely (or so they thought) ensconced in a "break room with a lock in a secluded area… during the sparsely manned night shift."

But first comes the First. The fired cops claimed they were retaliated against unlawfully for their protected speech. The court doesn't think much of this argument, especially since the plaintiffs did all they could to avoid discussing the content of the speech they claimed was protected. From the decision [PDF]:

[T]he evidence before the Court suggests that the speech was not a matter of public concern. Plaintiffs characterize their statements as “street vernacular and non-politically correct language.” But Plaintiffs avoid pleading the actual contents of their conversation or any specific statements that prompted the adverse employment action. Some of the specific statements that prompted Plaintiffs’ termination, however, were contained in the Decision of the MWRD Civil Service Board setting out the reasons for Plaintiff Lawlor’s termination.

The Civil Service Board noted that Plaintiff Lawlor:

• “informed [Varallo] how to drink alcohol” while on duty,

• explained how he slept on duty by saying “I just set the alarm on my phone (inaudible) for every F***ing hour and fifty-eight. So I call in at fifty-nine, go right back to f***in’ sleep. After you call in at five o’clock, set that motherf***er for six o’clock, you know so you get up to come and do your f’**ing trunk checks,”

• referred to Martin Luther King Day by saying “White guys should call it James Earl Ray Day,”

• Saying of African American co-workers that “It was the n***er laborers that f***in’, that f***ed us,”

• and, in referring a specific African American co-worker, saying “So that stupid Alabama hill n***er is going to think I’m the one that’s trying to bring in relief people who cut down my overtime?”

Yes, this speech is protected. But it's not without consequences. The issue here is retaliation and only certain speech is protected under this element of the First Amendment. The stuff said here just doesn't cut it.

Plaintiffs cite no authority—and the Court is not aware of any—establishing that admissions of drinking and sleeping on the job, or using racial slurs towards co-workers, meet the first requirement for stating a First Amendment retaliation claim.

As for the Fourth Amendment claims, they're no better. The court says the arguments raised by the plaintiffs are ridiculous, not reasonable.

The question before the Court is whether society is prepared to recognize as reasonable an on-duty police officer’s expectation of privacy in a room used to sleep and consume alcohol on the job without his supervisors’ knowledge. Common sense says the answer is “no,” and Plaintiffs cite no authority to the contrary.

The room that supposedly held the officers' expectations of privacy was actually accessible by other MWRD officers seeking to while away the workday not doing any work.

Plaintiffs do not allege that this “break room” was given to them by the MWRD for their “exclusive use” or that no one else had access to the room (rather than that it was unlikely anyone else would access the room). In fact, it was a secret room hidden from MWRD supervisors, and Plaintiff Lawlor named several other employees who had access to the area.

The court reiterates its point about reasonableness and the Fourth Amendment.

[E]ven if Plaintiffs had subjective expectations of privacy in their beer-drinking and nap-taking hideout, society does not appear ready to recognize them as objectively reasonable.

So, what have these officers (hopefully) learned? Several things. First, protected speech can be protected and still have negative consequences. The Fourth Amendment doesn't cover "private" conversations that are inadvertently publicly broadcast. And, if you insist on suing the manufacturer of the handsets that supposedly malfunctioned -- resulting in your termination -- you might get hit with sanctions.

Unsurprisingly, Motorola suggests that Plaintiffs violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b) and seems to be considering a motion for sanctions under Rule 11(c)(2).

Cops have rights. But their rights work like they work for us. They don't get extra First or Fourth Amendment rights just because. They already have extra rights, like qualified immunity -- something that compounds the defeat suffered here as the court also grants qualified immunity to the State Police and the MWRD for their actions in this case. Maybe if these officers spent more time working and less time drinking, sleeping, and making racist statements about their coworkers, they'd still be employed.

Filed Under: chicago, daniel varallo, denis lawlor, expectation of privacy, illinois state police, mwrd, police, privacy

Chicago PD's Gang Database Is A Horrific Mess Compiled By Horrific Public Servants

from the when-all-you-really-want-is-a-shitlist-filled-with-minorities dept

The easiest way to control a certain percentage of the populace is to strip it of its humanity. It happens in prisons and jails every day. It happens to immigrants all the time. For the Chicago Police Department, dehumanizing the citizens they serve makes it that much easier to minimize their complaints and avoid treating them with any level of respect.

The City of Chicago's Inspector General has released a hefty, disturbing report [PDF] on the Chicago PD's gang database. This collection of people -- all lumped together as gang members or associates -- is shared with over 500 government agencies. Given this alarming fact, you'd think the CPD would be a bit more professional when compiling it. But you'd be wrong. The thing that leaps out immediately is how demeaning the database is, thanks to officers' input.

[S]ome entries raise serious concerns about how CPD officers perceive and treat the people with whom they interact. OIG found that CPD officers entered occupations for individuals on gang arrest cards that included "SCUM BAG," "BUM," "CRIMINAL," "BLACK," "DORK," "LOOSER [sic]," and "TURD."

This epitome of community policing is being turned out on every governmental street corner. 500 agencies have made nearly one million inquiries of this finely-sourced database over the past decade. Whatever they were looking for was most likely black, male, and residing in certain Chicago neighborhoods. Not because that's what these other agencies were actually searching for, but because that's all the Chicago PD had entered into the database.

Of the 134,242 individuals designated as gang members in Gang Arrest Cards over the past 20 years, Black or African American and Latinx males comprise 91.3%.

[...]

Thirteen of the City's 77 community areas account for over 50% of Gang Arrest Cards produced.

GIGO at scale. And with zero avenues of redress for those the officers have arbitrarily declared "gang members."

Over 15,000 individuals designated as gang members by CPD had no specific gang membership listed and no reason provided for why the individual was listed as a gang member. Individuals designated as gang members are not notified of their designation and have no ability to appeal the designation. CPD does not regularly review, correct, or purge inaccurate gang information; those with inaccurate designations have no opportunity to clear their name and mitigate the impact of incorrect or outdated gang designations. Ultimately, CPD's gang designations are permanent and inescapable. Once designated, an individual is listed as a gang member in CPD's system forever.

Since the CPD certainly isn't informing other agencies of the multiple, self-induced flaws in the data, the million searches returned highly-questionable intel these outside agencies likely believed was the result of actual investigations, rather than biased policing.

Needless to say, the gang database has done a significant amount of damage to the CPD's reputation and its relationship with the communities it serves. Residents view the gang database as just another way for cops to target minorities and make their lives miserable. This impression isn't wrong. The database is a confirmation bias machine, allowing cops to believe most minorities are gang members because the database says most minorities are gang members.

No one outside the CPD has the power to vet the information contained in the database and the CPD hardly seems worried about the inaccuracies it contains, much less the slurs listed as "occupations" or the fact that it's 91% minorities. The Inspector General's review of records noticed a ton of discrepancies, including multiple entries for the same people (thanks to clerical/paperwork errors) and individuals listed as being under the age of ten, despite other records showing them to be nearly a decade older than the gang database said they were.

The sloppy handling of data would be concerning on its own. The fact that this database tells over 500 outside government agencies a person is a gang member makes this inattention to detail horrific. The CPD is shrugging thousands of people onto a gang list with zero care for the collateral damage it's causing.

6,233 individuals designated with multiple race classifications, and 903 individuals designated with multiple gender classifications.

21,380 individuals designated with multiple dates of birth, approximately 15.9% of the total number of individuals, and 922 individuals of the 21,380 had dates of birth that could not be determined. This includes two individuals in the Gang Arrest Cards data whose ages were listed as 6 and 7 respectively however, both individuals had multiple dates of birth listed.98

15,174 individuals with no specific gang designation, despite being listed as gang members approximately 11.3% of the total number of individuals.

15,648 individuals designated as gang members never had a reason provided by CPD for this designation in any Gang Arrest Card, approximately 11.7% of the total number of individuals. Further, 24,151 Gang Arrest Card records had no reason provided for the designation.

The IG offers a list of recommendations, but no one should hold their breath waiting for the CPD to implement them. Unsurprisingly, the IG suggests the CPD try to approach adequate competency when gathering info on suspected gang members and entering it into the system. More importantly, the IG says the CPD needs to ensure the accuracy of what it already has, purge everything that isn't (or is outdated), and provide a way for citizens to challenge their addition to this database, which means adding a notification method.

Anyway, re: your breath:

CPD's response and proposed measures diverge from the OIG's recommendations in several critical ways. The Department's response indicates that CPD will not engage with community stakeholders in the fashion that OIG recommends.

In other words, thanks for all the help, but we'll take it from here and possibly make it even worse. There's nothing in these reforms the CPD wants or needs, so it will slow-walk its minimal improvements while proceeding with the gang-tagging business as usual. And why should it change? The city is filled with people officers don't consider people.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago pd, gang database

Chicago Tried To Justify Not Informing ACLU Of Social Media Monitoring Partner By Saying ACLU Is Really Mean

from the the-chicago-way dept

My home city of Chicago has built quite a reputation for itself to date. It wouldn't be entirely unfair to suggest that the city's government is run by very silly people who think its citizens are quite stupid, while also managing to build something of a kleptocracy centered around professional corruption. With any such hilariously corrupt institutions, the corruption itself is only half the frustration. The other half is the way the Chicago government thumbs its nose at virtually everyone, so secure is it in its knowledge that its corruption will never result in any serious penalty.

An example of this can be found in the way the city government responded to an ACLU FOIA request to disclose the vendor Chicago is using to monitor the social media accounts of its own citizens. If you're thinking that such a program sounds dystopian, welcome to Chicago. If you're thinking there's no way that the city should be able to hide that information from its citizens and that it was obviously disclosed publicly somewhere, welcome to Chicago. And if you thought that a FOIA request must surely be all that it would take to get this information to the public, well, you know the rest.

The ACLU of Illinois today called for an end to an invasive program that allows Chicago police to monitor the social media accounts of the City’s residents. The call comes after the City finally released records Wednesday revealing the name of the spying software that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has used to covertly monitor Chicagoans’ social media profiles.

The release was through litigation filed by the ACLU last June in Cook County Circuit Court seeking to force the City to produce documents in response to a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The ACLU was represented by Louis A. Klapp at Quarles & Brady LLP in this request. Previously, CPD acknowledged that it spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on social media monitoring software, but refused to provide the name of the software company.

Now, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a platform to monitor the social media activity of its own citizens is bad enough on its own. After all, this isn't the first go around with Chicago doing this very thing. In 2014, Chicago contracted with a different company, Geofeedia, to do exactly this sort of social media monitoring. After the ACLU learned of that relationship and disclosed that Geofeedia marketing materials targeted "activists" and "unions" as "overt threats" for which its platform should be used for monitoring, the reaction of the public was severe enough that many social media sites simply disallowed Geofeedia access from their platforms, rendering them useless to Chicago government.

In fact, it was that very occurrence that Chicago used to justify hiding its vendor relationship from the ACLU currently.

Social media sites then subsequently cut off Geofeedia’s access to their users’ data. The City claimed that this public reaction justified hiding future vendors from public view.

What the ACLU was able to get out of the city is that it used another company, Dunami, for surveillance through 2018. The ACLU has filed another FOIA request to get any information on a current contract, if one exists. Meanwhile, the above reasoning -- that Chicago should shield the vendor it uses to monitor the social media habits of its own citizens because the last time the ACLU got that info people didn't like it -- is the kind of reasoning only the most brazenly corrupt regimes could possibly make.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago police department, foia, social media, social media monitoring
Companies: aclu

Federal Court Approves Reforms Targeting The Chicago Police Department

from the but-there's-no-federal-backup-to-come-to-the-rescue dept

It's not much but it's a start. Chicago's police force has spent several years vying for the title of "Worst PD in America." Between its routine deployment of excessive force to its off-the-books "black site" where arrestees are separated from their humanity and their Constitutional rights, the Chicago PD has been a horrific mess for several years.

A federal judge has approved a consent decree that would enact reforms aimed at repairing the trust the PD has damaged for decades.

In a 16-page motion, U.S. District Judge Robert Dow stated that while it’s not perfect, the historic decree is “an important first step toward needed reforms of the Chicago Police Department and its policies.”

“As noted above, the Court is under no illusion that this will be an easy process,” Dow wrote. “It took a long time to get to this place, and it may take a long time to get out of it. With that said, there are good reasons to think that the conditions and incentives may be in place to start making progress right away.

The consent decree contains a long list of reforms that cover everything from enhanced use of de-escalation techniques to breaking the PD's unofficial "code of silence." The numerous changes will be overseen by a federal monitor to ensure they're being followed.

The consent decree was met with the expected resistance from the Chicago PD and its union. A bit more unexpectedly, the consent decree was met with very vocal opposition from the federal government. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions repeatedly claimed the decree would result in more dead bodies piling up in Chicago, pointing to a single study with questionable findings of increased violent crime following the imposition of consent decrees. Sessions termed this violent crime increase the "ACLU effect," attempting to portray greater respect for communities and their residents' Constitutional rights as the flash point of upticks in criminal activity.

The City of Chicago disagreed with Sessions and stated it was uninterested in rolling back the proposed changes. It pointed out the DOJ agreed with the proposed consent decree all the way up until Sessions took office and didn't see any reason to back out of it just because the new AG was more enthralled with locking people up than respecting their rights.

Opponents of the consent decree claim the city can't afford to have better cops. In his order [PDF], Judge Dow says this is nonsense.

Other commenters have focused on the financial burden of the decree going forward, as evidenced by the $2.85 million maximum annual budget for the monitoring team. This is a large expenditure of public money by any measure. Yet is is a tiny fraction of what the City has spent paying out judgments and settlements, not to mention lawyers (both outside and inside counsel), for civil rights litigation over the past few decades. See [158] at 9. Indeed, had a monitoring team been billing the City at the rate of $2.85 million per year since 1790, when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable first set up camp at the mouth of the Chicago River, the total bill of $652.65 million would not equal the City’s litigation-related payouts in civil rights actions since 2004.

Will these changes be sustained and result in better policing in Chicago? That's tough to say. The people it affects most (police officers) want it the least and, historically, PD brass has been slow to roll out changes and extremely reluctant to hold officers accountable for violating internal policies, much less federally-ordered consent decrees. This time around, the city will have zero support from the DOJ, which, as a matter of policy under this administration, will not act as an enforcer for federal consent decrees or open investigations of law enforcement agencies found to be perpetually violating the rights of the people they're supposed to be protecting.

Filed Under: chicago, chicago pd, chicago police, civil rights, consent decree, doj, jeff sessions, robert down

We Brought Our Election Simulation Game To Chicago... And Learned The Chicago Way

from the russians-in-a-dimly-lit-shipping-container dept

You may recall that, back in June, I wrote about a bizarre situation in which an election simulation game, that I helped co-design, called "Machine Learning President," somehow had some of the rules sheets leaked to Rebekah Mercer, from which they were leaked once again to Jane Mayer at the New Yorker, who wrote up an article there, not knowing the provenance of the game. This caused many, many people to assume that the Mercers had somehow made up this game to "relive" the success of the 2016 election. This resulted in a ton of angry headlines and tweets -- including the host of NPR's comedic news-based "game show" Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Peter Sagal, who alerted his friend, Cards Against Humanity designer, Max Temkin, who tweeted angrily about the game.

The next day, when I wrote up my post explaining what the game really was about -- we had a lot of people reach out to ask if they, too, could play the game. Unfortunately, it's a ton of work to put on, and the crew who designed the game -- lead by Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath from Scout.ai and Guardians.ai, who initially conceived of the game, along with Randy Lubin (who is our partner in our CIA game project), and science fiction writer, Eliot Peper -- are all super busy. However, by far the most aggressive in getting us to play the game were Max Temkin and Peter Sagal.

It finally happened two weeks ago in Chicago, and Charlie Hall at Polygon has a brilliant write-up about how the game went:

Inside a warehouse on Chicago’s North Side, within the thin strip of industrial property between Bucktown and Lincoln Park, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pandering to a small group of powerful evangelicals. Just a few feet away, near a bowl brimming with 20-sided dice, Vice President Mike Pence is honing his next batch of TV and radio ads. Meanwhile, within a dimly lit shipping container, Russian oligarchs are desperately trying to funnel money to Sen. Kamala Harris through Black Lives Matter.

No, it’s not the fever dream of some political wonk stranded here along the nation’s third coast. It’s a 40-person live-action role-play of the 2020 presidential election. Formally, it’s called a “scenario planning game.” In motion, it’s a vehicle for some of the most engaging political theater that I’ve ever seen.

This was really only the second time we've run the full game (there have been a few playtests of part of the game). The first time was back in San Francisco in February and then this time in Chicago. The San Francisco game was incredible, but the crew that Max and Peter brought out to play in Chicago took it to the next level in terms of truly inhabiting their roles... and learning from the experience:

For Sagal, who every week tells jokes about political figures set against the backdrop of real NPR News stories, Machine Learning President was an educational experience.

“I make my living reading the news,” Sagal said. “All that shit is real, but it’s not important. The important shit we never find out about, and I honestly think this game illustrates that.

“Look at it this way: All of the candidates tonight got to make speeches, and these speeches were important. [...] But what was also interesting was that there was no attempt on anybody’s part to use those speeches to convince anybody of anything. That all happened during the 15-minute rounds. The speech was just about signaling. The speech was not making the deal or convincing anybody to do anything. It was just about delivering on something and positioning yourself to confirm a deal you’ve already made. There was no persuasive aspect to any of the things that any of us said, because the persuading had already been done. Or, as in our case with the Evangelicals, not done.

“What the game teaches you,” Sagal continued, “is that the shit that we get to see, as citizens who watch the speeches and get the emails [...] is nonsense and not important. The stuff that’s really important is happening behind the scenes.”

That may be the best endorsement we've seen of the game yet -- and the article only barely touches on some of the crazy alliances, use of technology, dealmaking, events, and backstabbing that played out over the course of a truly frantic evening. As the article notes, a big part of the point of the game is to get people to better understand how politics and tech and money intersect, and we heard from multiple people who played in Chicago saying they couldn't stop thinking about it after playing (we also had a few veterans of actual political campaigns note that it hit a little too close to home). Chicago has a reputation in politics, and I will say that the folks who showed up to play demonstrated that quite effectively.

Either way, we're still hoping to set up additional events for the game, even though it's quite a bit of work to run, and all of us are pretty swamped with other stuff. However, since people keep asking for it, we're trying to figure out ways to run it perhaps a bit more often.

Filed Under: chicago, election, election game, elections, games, machine learning president, max temkin, peter sagal, politics, scenario planning, simulation

DOJ, Trump Decide The Federal Government Needs To Give Chicago The Police Department It Doesn't Want

from the Judge-Dredd-appointed-to-advisory-role dept

In a move that's tone deaf if nothing else, the DOJ is going to court to block a consent decree put in place to overhaul Chicago's unconstitutional policing. This announcement comes days after a jury convicted Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke of second-degree murder for killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. He was also convicted of 16 counts of aggravated battery -- one count for each bullet he fired at the teen as the teen walked away from him.

This also follows more tone-deafness from the "law and order" presidency. Trump's speech to a law enforcement convention contained several comments about Chicago and its perceived police problem. But the problem Trump sees is police not policing hard enough. Trump wants stop-and-frisk brought back -- one of the key modifications contained in the consent decree.

Stop-and-frisk programs encourage unconstitutional stops. Just ask the NYPD, which saw its program changed drastically following a lawsuit brought against the city. Police officials and then-mayor Mike Bloomberg promised a dramatic spike in crime if officers weren't allowed to engage in suspicionless stops/frisks. This never materialized. Crime went down across the board.

Trump thinks a return to unconstitutional practices will solve Chicago's violent crime problem, but there's no evidence out there that provides a basis for this belief. Violent crime is already declining in Chicago, even without unconstitutional stops. What Trump wants is something people in Chicago don't want. And that includes the people who matter -- like Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he welcomes federal reinforcements — in the form of more ATF, DEA and FBI agents — to “take down gang leadership” and stop the “drug trade.”

But that’s not the kind of help Donald Trump is offering. Returning to the more intensive “stop-and-frisk” procedures would run contrary to Chicago’s ongoing effort to repair shattered public trust between citizens and police, the mayor said.

“The failed policies he’s talking about have no place for a city that’s working together with communities about how to build — not only trust, but a collaborative and cooperative relationship,” the mayor said Monday.

“So, while resources are always welcome, the idea of what President Trump is talking about is not only not welcome — it’s antithetical to what we’re working on, and that is about a strong, pro-active, professional police department.”

Nonetheless, the DOJ will try to block the consent decree that might rebuild some of the trust the Chicago PD has thoroughly destroyed over the past several years. Why? Because the president said so.

Following an order from President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions today announced that he is providing more resources for law enforcement in Chicago and filing a brief opposing a proposed consent decree on Chicago police.

The rationale is even worse. According to AG Jeff Sessions, the spike in violent crime in Chicago (which, again, has declined 20% over the last year) is due to police being hampered by the Constitution and not enough respect being shown by the general public.

There is one government institution, and one alone, that has the ability to make Chicago safer—that is the Chicago Police Department. Our goal should be to empower it to fulfill its duties, not to restrict its proper functioning or excessively demean the entire Department for the errors of a few. Make no mistake: unjustified restrictions on proper policing and disrespect for our officers directly led to this tragic murder surge in Chicago.

At a fundamental level, there is a misperception that police are the problem and that their failures, their lack of training, and their abuses create crime. But the truth is the police are the solution to crime, and criminals are the problem. The results of the ACLU settlement in November 2015, as revealed by Judge Cassel’s study, established this fact dramatically, conclusively, and most painfully for the City of Chicago. When police are restrained from using lawfully established policies of community engagement, when arrests went down, and when their work and character were disrespected, crime surged. There must never be another consent decree that continues the folly of the ACLU settlement.

"Unjustified restrictions on proper policing" apparently includes the Fourth Amendment. That's just the beginning of this garbage. From there, Sessions moves on to cite the only study on policing he agrees with -- one that decides correlation equals causation and ties increases in violent crime to a civil rights lawsuit settlement. The study has nothing to say about similar cities undergoing similar modifications to police programs that have not experienced violent crime increases. It's almost as if its authors started from their conclusion and worked backwards.

Sessions loves this faulty study and thinks it provides some sort of scientific basis for encroaching on civil liberties under the guise of making the city safer. But he's wrong about this, just like he's wrong about everything else in his statement.

Zachary Fardon, a former US attorney working in Chicago, says the DOJ's plan to block the consent decree will make things worse for the city and the Chicago PD. The problem isn't Constitutional restraints on policing. The problem is the relationship the PD has with the people it's supposed to protect.

What’s at stake here is not just constitutional policing. Lives are at stake. People are dying. Children are dying. Our city suffers, year after year.

Law enforcement is not the entire solution, but it’s a big part. A consent decree will give our cops support, training and the credibility they need to engage in effective and constitutional policing. A consent decree will give our South and West side citizens greater trust in our officers and institutions, and greater safety in their neighborhoods.

If Sessions spent more time in violence-afflicted neighborhoods, he would know that we still have kids who are growing up more afraid of police than of gangs. When that changes, we mark the beginning of a new Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune's editorial board is even more scathing in its assessment of Jeff Sessions' bumptious interloping:

Thank you for your interest in Chicago’s police consent decree, now in its final stages of development. We are confident your “statement of interest” will be given due consideration by U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr., who will hold public hearings on the draft agreement later this month.

We have just one question: Where were you in early 2017, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to follow through on the consent decree prescribed by the U.S. Department of Justice you took over when the White House changed hands?

Oh, now we remember: You wanted no part of it. You believed then, as you do now, that worrying about the civil rights of suspects gets in the way of fighting crime. Instead of doubling down on the hard work that had been done in Chicago, you tried (unsuccessfully) to torpedo Baltimore’s consent decree, which was then at this same public hearing stage.

If citizens don't trust the police, they won't report crimes, provide testimony, or supply evidence. All of this exacerbates the city's violent crime problem. When they see officers unwilling to do their jobs at all, let alone Constitutionally, they see there's no point in asking them for help. And when they see officers routinely escape punishment for misconduct and excessive force deployment, they begin to believe the cure might be at least as bad as the disease.

As the editorial points out, if Sessions really wanted to solve Chicago's problems, he wouldn't be trying to block a consent decree crafted with an eye on rebuilding destroyed trust. It ends with this extended middle finger.

Chicago doesn’t need or appreciate your drive-by assessment.

Trump and Sessions both believe the problem with American policing is that officers aren't being given the respect that is their God-given right. That's the beginning and end of it. The Constitution is just standing in the way of enforcing the law. Both are telling law enforcement agencies what they want to hear: that they're persecuted and misunderstood. Not a single member of this administration is willing to tell them what they need to hear: that destroyed trust takes time to rebuild and it can never be restored by engaging in the same behavior that destroyed it.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, chicago, consent decree, doj, donald trump, jeff sessions, policing, stop and frisk

Aloha Poke Co. Rewarded For Trademark Bullying With Protests Outside Its Headquarters In Chicago

from the poke-in-the-chi dept

On the matter of trademark bullying, we typically talk about these cases as matters of legal outcomes and courtroom repercussions. Less discussed is the power of the masses in the form of protest and public shaming in order to combat trademark bullies. And, yet, that appears to be part of the equation trying to solve the irritation that is Aloha Poke Co.'s trademark bullying of actual Hawaiian poke joints out of their own culture.

You will recall that we recently discussed Aloha Poke Co., the Chicago-based poke chain that doesn't count any actual Hawaiians among its founders, firing off cease and desist letters to all manner of other joints that use some version of "Aloha" and "Poke" in their names. Most of these other entities are owned and operated by actual Hawaiians, from which both words and their cultural relevance stems. With so many entities out there using what are fairly generic terms in the realm of anything Hawaiian, the suggestion for public confusion made by Aloha Poke Co. seems spurious at best. Perhaps as importantly, if the company thought that the public wouldn't get wind of its bullying, it appears that it was very, very wrong, as protests at its Chicago headquarters have been organized.

The first protest is 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday in front of Aloha Poke Co.'s corporate headquarters at 303 W. Madison St. Another one is scheduled 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Aug. 15 in front of the company's Lincoln Park location at 818 W. Fullerton Ave. A march in the Loop is also being planned for Monday, though details are still being confirmed.

Lanialoha Lee, who founded Aloha Center Chicago, is spearheading the Aug. 15 protest. She first became aware of the controversy after watching the video from Dr. Kalama O Ka Aina. "Everybody I know messaged me about it," says Lee. "It was all over my Facebook. I was really stunned." Lee hopes that the protests open "more eyes on the corporate level and at the restaurant level."

Most of those involved in organizing the protests are setting their aim on educating the restaurant as to how important these words and dishes are to Hawaiian culture, not to mention how those terms have been shared without incident across many businesses and restaurants. While that is exactly the right tone to take, it seems likely that the press surrounding the Chicago company being protested by Hawaiians and those interested in protecting Hawaiian culture will play a role as well. That will be all the more the case given some of the incendiary language choices the restaurant has engaged in when responding to the first news reports on its bullying, such as calling it all "fake news."

That kind of public exposure and shaming can have as profound and a far speedier impact than any legal proceedings. Aloha Poke is in the business of making money, after all, and this kind of exposure and coverage carries no positive public relations weight at all. If trademark bullies can be defeated in the court of public opinion rather than in actual courtrooms, all the better.

Filed Under: aloha, chicago, hawaii, poke, trademark
Companies: aloha poke

Chicago Poke Chain Sends C&D To Hawaiian Poke Joint Demanding It Not Be Named 'Aloha Poke'

from the poke-in-the-i dept

Usually a trademark bully bullying over a mark that is fairly generic is enough to get the hair on our backs to stand up. When you add in a little irony in the form of the bully engaging in fairly blatant cultural appropriation for that generic mark, things get even more salty. But when you then have the bully spout off thinly-veiled political language of the most annoying variety in response to the backlash, you have something of a unique dish of hatred.

Which brings me to Aloha Poke Co. of Chicago. Aloha Poke Co. is a chain of restaurants cashing in on the poke craze. It is not owned by Hawaiians, the language from which the word "Aloha" is quite famously taken. It does not operate in Hawaii. And, yet, it has seen fit to fire off a cease and desist notice to the Aloha Poke Shop in Honolulu, demanding that it immediately change its name and branding.

The lawyers with the firm represented a company from the city, the Aloha Poke Co., that had jumped on one of the latest food trends - selling the Hawaiian staple poke, made from raw marinated ahi tuna - in 2016 and quickly expanded their reach to more than a dozen locations in Chicago and cities such as Milwaukee, Denver, and Washington D.C.

Sampson also operated a poke shop, a luncheonette of 20 seats that he had opened with three friends in downtown Honolulu that shared little in common with the Chicago chain besides the dish and, coincidentally or not, given the commonality of the Hawaiian word, the name. When Sampson and friends opened the luncheonette about a year and a half ago, they had named it the Aloha Poke Shop, using the traditional Hawaiian greeting and word of welcoming. Now the lawyers, with the firm Olson and Cepuritis, Ltd., were demanding that he change the business's name, website, logo and materials to cease using the words "Aloha" and "Aloha Poke" immediately.

Now, Aloha is a multi-meaning word of Hawaiian origin that is also used as a greeting on the island. Famously so, in fact. In connection with anything Hawaiian, it's about as generic as it gets as a source-identifier. Poke is the name of the dish these restaurants sell. It is purely descriptive. Putting a generic term next to one that is purely descriptive ought to be fairly easy for the USPTO to have looked at and realized that it never should have been afforded trademark protection. But, since it did, the end result is that Aloha Poke Co. has been going around the country, including in markets in which it does not operate, and demanding that native Hawaiians stop using their own language for their businesses. That really is about as insane as it gets.

And the public backlash to all of this has been swift.

But the news that the Midwestern chain, which doesn't count any native Hawaiians among its founders, was sending cease-and-desist letters to threaten small poke restaurants not only in Hawaii, but around the country, has set off an even deeper round of anger, touching on longstanding wounds left from Hawaii's long history of colonialism and commodification at the hands of outsiders.

The disclosures about the cease-and-desist letters have resulted in calls to boycott the Chicago chain, including a petition to urge the company to drop the words from its name. A congressional candidate from Hawaii has issued a sharp rebuke on social media. And hundreds of angry commenters have flocked to the chain's social media pages to express their displeasure, accusing the company of cultural appropriation, of bullying small businesses, of disrespecting Hawaiian culture and well, not even making real poke in the first place.

To be honest, the emphasis on cultural appropriation doesn't impact me all that much as to the validity of the trademark. Such appropriation may be gross, but as a matter of law it should be clear that the better argument is that Aloha Poke Co.'s trademark is far too broad and generic to serve to identify the source of its product to the public. Frankly, I was somewhat inclined to ignore all of the consternation about cultural appropriation entirely, until the Aloha Poke Co. and its founder decided to speak up using barely-coded language to, ahem, poke its detractors in the eye.

"First, we want to say to them directly how deeply sorry we are that this issue has been so triggering," the company said. "In the rare instance where we have needed to send notices to those using our trademark in the restaurant industry, we have done so in a cooperative manner, and all have complied with our request to rebrand without any resulting legal action. Not a single business has closed as a result of this."

Triggering? Cool PR you guys have there. And, from the founder, Zach Friedlander, who is no longer with the company but has supported its efforts at trademark bullying.

The company's founder, Zach Friedlander, who left it earlier this year around the time former Potbelly executive Chris Birkinshaw was brought on as CEO, according to Eater, defended the company's actions on Facebook as "efforts taken to protect, as any business would, its brand" and labeled some of the criticism as "false news" and a "witch hunt."

It seems Hawaiian language isn't the only thing Aloha Poke Co. appropriates from. Still, the end result of all of this should be sobering for the chain. Calls for boycotts, an infestation of negative comments on its social media pages, not to mention that Sampson has decided to stand his ground and not change a thing about his Aloha Poke Shop mean that the only move the chain has left is either to slink away or, worse, actually take a Hawaiian native to court over all of this. Either would serve as an own-goal for its business.

Filed Under: aloha, chicago, cultural appropriation, hawaii, poke, trademark
Companies: aloha poke

Artist Files Completely Frivolous Copyright Lawsuit Against The NRA For Briefly Showing Public Sculpture In Stupid Video

from the clenched-bean-of-truth dept

I apologize in advance, but this story is full of frivolous annoying things. Unfortunately, they are frivolous annoying things that hit at the very core intersection of stuff we talk about here on Techdirt: copyright and free expression. Last year, the NRA pushed out a truly ridiculous advertising video, referred to as "The Clenched Fist of Truth" or "The Violence of Lies." It was a stupid video from a stupid organization which served no purpose other than to upset people who hate the NRA. Trolling as advertising. It generated some level of pointless outrage and people went on with their lives. I'm not linking to the video because I don't need to give it any more attention and if you really want to see it, you know how to use the internet.

Now, let's move on to Anish Kapoor, a British sculptor who is also annoying. In the early 2000s, he made a silly sculpture for Chicago's Millenium Park that people from Chicago (and elsewhere) tend to love to mock. It's called The Bean. I mean, officially, it's called "Cloud Gate," but no one calls it that. Even Kapoor now now calls it the Bean.

However, copyright disputes over the Bean go way back. Back in 2005 there was an article about security guards evicting photographers for taking pictures of the popular tourist selfie photo opp, because the city said it had to enforce the copyright of the artist. No, really. They said that. There's been a long, and somewhat ridiculous, debate about the copyright on public sculptures. Many of us believe -- with pretty damn good justification, I'd say -- that if you agree to a commission from a public entity, in which you are creating a sculpture for the government, you should also give up your copyright with it. Barring that, any and all photography of that sculpture in a public place should simply be declared fair use. Unfortunately, courts have disagreed with this -- which is unfortunate.

Over the last year, Kapoor has been particularly up in arms over the fact that the NRA's silly video includes a ridiculous brief clip of the Bean. It appears for less than a second in a montage of clips. But it's there:

Kapoor has been unhappy about this for a while, and earlier this year penned an open letter to the NRA decrying its policies. This is good. This is what free speech allows.

However, this week, he took it a step further and filed a really, really dumb copyright lawsuit against the NRA (first noted by ARTnews).

The filing itself screams out how frivolous it is in repeatedly complaining about the political message of the NRA's video, rather than anything related to the actual copyright related rights at issue.

On June 29, 2017, NRA broadcast on television and the internet a video recruiting advertisement entitled variously “The Clenched Fist of Truth” or “The Violence of Lies”, denouncing the media and the “liberal agenda.” It warns of civil unrest and violence, and states that the only way to save “our” country from the “lies” of the liberal media and the “liberal agenda” is with the “clenched fist of truth,” i.e., with guns (obviously referencing NRA’s previous slogan by Charlton Heston that “I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”) It is a clear call to armed violence against liberals and the media.

I mean, yeah. But what does that have to do with copyright? Absolutely nothing.

The actual copyright claim is incredibly, laughably weak:

As a result of Defendant’s copyright infringement, Plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer actual damages in an amount according to proof at trial.

Oh come on. There is no one who is watching that video and thinking that Kapoor somehow supports the message and therefore won't work with him. Also this:

As a further result of Defendant’s copyright infringement, Defendant has obtained direct and indirect profits it would not have otherwise realized but for its infringement of Plaintiff’s copyrighted Work, including but not limited to increased membership dues following the publication of the Infringing Video. Plaintiff is entitled to disgorgement of such profits,

Nah. That's not how it works. First of all, if the NRA is profiting from the video, it's not because the Bean is in it. Take out the Bean, replace it with some other stupid statue and nothing changes at all. There is nothing about the Bean that makes the video. There is no profit because of the use of the Bean imagery.

But the larger point: this is so obviously fair use that it's not even worth going through the full four factor analysis. This is less than a second in a political video showing a public sculpture in a public location. It's not key to the video. It's used as part of commentary.

The nature of Kapoor's lawsuit, however, is quite obviously to stifle free speech he disagrees with. We can all agree that the NRA is an odious organization with an odious message, but let's not dismantle the First Amendment just because of that group's ridiculous and dishonest methods for defending the Second Amendment. The NRA has every right to use that snippet and all Kapoor's lawsuit is doing is getting the NRA's video that much more attention. The case seems likely to get tossed out quickly. The case was filed in Illinois, which has an okay anti-SLAPP law, which means the end result may actually be that Kapoor ends up paying the NRA's legal fees.

We've talked at length over the years about how copyright often conflicts with free speech. People often respond with some version of "but piracy isn't free speech." That's a silly claim, but there are still cases like this one where the intent obviously has absolutely nothing to do with the purposes of copyright law, but solely as a method to silence speech. The courts shouldn't allow it and seem unlikely to do so. Kapoor had every opportunity to exercise his First Amendment rights to speak out against the NRA. Filing a frivolous copyright lawsuit attempting to stifle speech, however, goes way too far.

Filed Under: anish kapoor, chicago, cloud gate, copyright, free speech, public sculptures, the bean
Companies: nra