Popular Wiretapping Tool Used By Law Enforcement Includes Backdoor With Hardcoded Password

from the i'm-sure-that-won't-be-abused dept

One of the major concerns that people have raised about the increasing pervasiveness of surveillance tools from not just the NSA, but various law enforcement agencies, is that all of this is making us significantly less safe. That's because if law enforcement and intelligence employees can use these tools, so can those with malicious intent. Driving home that point is the news from some security researchers that a popular tool used by law enforcement to wiretap communications has "a litany of critical weaknesses, including an undocumented backdoor secured with a hardcoded password." Because, surely, no "bad guys" would ever figure that out. The details are fairly damning.

Attackers are able to completely compromise the voice recording / surveillance solution as they can gain access to the system and database level and listen to recorded calls without prior authentication.

Furthermore, attackers would be able to use the voice recording server as a jumphost for further attacks of the internal voice VLAN, depending on the network setup.

As for the root backdoor, it's like the whole thing was created by security amateurs:

The MySQL database table "usr" contains a "root" user with USRKEY / user id 1 with administrative access rights. This user account does NOT show up within the "user administration" menu when logged in as administrator user account in the web interface. Hence the password can't be changed there.

As a side note: Password hashes are shown in the user administration menu for each user within HTML source code.

The people who make these things often seem to assume that they can get away with security by obscurity, since they never consider that non-law enforcement types will get access to their systems. That seems hopelessly naive.

Filed Under: vulnerabilities, wiretapping

Finally, Someone Acts Like An Adult: District Attorney Drops Charges Against Bullied Teen Who Recorded His Tormentors

from the and-to-think,-this-all-could-have-been-prevented dept

South Fayette School in Pennsylvania, along with a complicit criminal justice system, recently made headlines with its groundbreaking anti-bullying program, which apparently deters bullying by punishing bullied students.

Here's a short recap:

A bullied student used an iPad to make an audio recording of other students abusing him. He brought this to school administration who a) called in a police officer (after being advised by its legal team that this might be a violation of the state's wiretapping law) and b) deleted the recording.

The police officer, unable to actually bring a felony charge against the minor, settled for disorderly conduct. This charge brought him before a judge, who first stated her firm belief in the school's inability to do wrong before finding him guilty.

Throughout the entire debacle, not a single person involved even considered the possibility that the student had committed no crime or the fact that he had followed all of the school's prescribed steps for reporting bullying incidents. Instead, the desire to punish someone was obliged every step of the way.

Finally, someone within the justice system has chosen to act like an adult, rather than a bunch of clique-y, vindictive children.

Stanfield (the student) had announced that he and his attorney would file an appeal to that ruling but his fight may already be coming to an end. Today, Benswann.com has been told by Stanfield’s attorney that the District Attorney will allow the appeal to go forward but will no longer pursue this case.

More specifically, both the wiretapping charge (which was apparently still brought despite the involved officer's statement otherwise) and the disorderly conduct charge (which the judge found the student guilty of) were dropped.

A wiretapping charge against a South Fayette High School student who recorded two classmates bullying him has been dropped by the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office.

Mike Manko, a spokesman for District Attorney Stephen Zappala, said Judge Robert Gallo signed an order Thursday to withdraw the citation against 15-year-old Christian Stanfield.

"No one in our office who is authorized to give advice on wiretap issues or school conduct issues was ever contacted in this matter. We have made multiple attempts to contact the officer who wrote the citation and (the) results have been unsuccessful," Manko said in a written statement. "We do not believe this behavior rises to the level of a citation."

Odd that a police officer wouldn't talk to a district attorney. Unless, of course, a little bit of hindsight made him realize his every move fell between vindictive and buffoonish. Lt. Murka, who apparently considered both wiretapping and disorderly conduct to be appropriate "remedies" for a bullied student recording his tormentors, seems to have recused himself from the public eye. Manko, speaking for the DA, hits the heart of the issue -- one simple sentence that any of those involved could have deployed to call an end to this ridiculous situation before it ended up in front of a judge: "We do not believe this behavior rises to the level of a citation."

The school has now gone on record to declare it's everyone else who's wrong:

The South Fayette Township School District wishes to address recent reports in the local and national media concerning a student of the South Fayette Township School District. It is to be noted that certain information being disseminated by the media is inaccurate and/or incomplete.

Rather than clear up what exactly was "inaccurate and/or incomplete" about the reporting, it instead has chosen to hide behind "confidentiality."

The School District is legally precluded from commenting specifically in regard to these reports as the issue involves a confidential student matter.

Considering the story has been all over the news, it seems a bit weak to claim the matter is still "confidential." It would seem it could comment on any of the specifics already in the public domain. The story has gone nationwide, so it's disingenuous to pretend it's still a "confidential" matter.

While it's nice that the DA has dropped the charges and allowed the student to proceed through school without criminal charges hanging over his head, one wonders if this same outcome would have forthcoming without the attendant public outcry. Any adult can start acting like one with enough public shaming. But the application of a little common sense would have averted this incident completely.

A bit more troubling is one of the suggestions that escaped the lips of a local politician who showed up to the teen's "not a criminal" celebration.

State lawmaker Jesse White joined the rally, telling Stanfield he wants to name a law after him. He said it would close the loophole in the wiretapping law and allow victims of bullying to record it as proof for police and school officials.

His opportunistic heart's in the right place, but naming laws after people often indicates the new law is a bad one. This isn't an issue where a new law will fix things. This is an issue where no one in this chain of events showing the courage (and common sense) to stand up and ask why they were punishing a bullied kid for recording bullies.

Filed Under: bullying, recording, students, wiretapping

Bullied Student Records Bullies, Gets Threatened With Felony Charges For Violating Wiretapping Law

from the hammers-all-the-way-down dept

Here comes another story highlighting the danger of schools "outsourcing" their disciplinary problems to law enforcement. As we've stated before, this does nothing more than turn routine misconduct into criminal behavior, which is a great way to derail a student's future.

A Pennsylvania teen, who claimed to have been bullied constantly (and ignored by school administration), made an audio recording of his tormentors using a school-supplied iPad. He brought this to the school's attention, which duly responded by calling the cops… to have him arrested for violating Pennsylvania's wiretapping law. (h/t to Techdirt reader btr1701)

[The student's mother, Shea] Love says that upon fielding her complaint, Principal Scott Milburn called South Fayette Township police Lieutenant Robert Kurta to the school to interrogate her son in the presence of Associate Principal Aaron Skrbin and Dean of Students Joseph Silhanek. The defendant testified before Judge McGraw-Desmet that he was forced to play the audio for the group and then delete it. Love says by the time she arrived at the school, her son was surrounded by school officials and the police officer and was visibly distraught. She says Milburn defended the teacher's response to the classroom disturbance.

The administration, rather than consider targeting the recorded bullies, instead called the cops believing (on advice from district lawyers, no less) that they had a felon in their office.

Kurta testified before the magistrate that Milburn requested his presence at the school on February 12 at 8:20 a.m. The officer said, “He believed he had a wiretapping incident.” Upon his arrival, Kurta said Milburn advised him that Silhanek fielded a call that morning from Love notifying him “that she planted a recording device in her son’s backpack to record the activities in one of his classes.” According to Kurta’s testimony, after Milburn consulted with the school district’s attorney, he advised reporting the incident to the police and treating it as a crime.

As Scott Greenfield points out, calling a cop in to handle a school disciplinary problem doesn't leave the officer with many choices.

At that moment, it was certainly within Lt. Kurta’s ability to pull the principal aside and tell him, “hey, you scared the crap out of the kid, which should do the job. You realize that this isn’t a crime of any sort, and so I’m just going to back away slowly, not embarrass you for bringing me here to waste my time, and you can go back to doing whatever it is you do in this big building. Have a nice day.”

That's one option. But as these things go, that's rarely, if ever, the option chosen. The officer, having been summoned, needed to find something to charge the bullied student with.

Kurta said, “After I left the school, I wasn’t sure what charge to file so I contacted the district attorney’s office. This would fall under a wiretapping violation, which is a felony.” He later answered as to why he thought the disorderly conduct charge applied to this case by saying, “Because his (the student’s) actions — he engaged in actions which served no legitimate purpose.” He then read the statute as, “Creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by acts which serve no legitimate purpose.”

Because capturing evidence of bullying "serves no legitimate purpose," apparently.

As Greenfield puts it, the officer was a hammer. Therefore, the bullied student must be a nail. This brought the student in front of yet another authority who could finally apply some common sense to the situation -- the magistrate judge. But that was not to be. The judge dragged in her own faith in the malfunctioning system as justification for nailing the student for disorderly conduct. In fact, Judge Maureen McGraw made her statement in defense of the school before the student could make his statement.

“Normally, if there is — I certainly have a big problem with any kind of bullying at school. But normally, you know, I would expect a parent would let the school know about it, because it’s not tolerated. I know that, and that you guys [school administrators] would handle that, you know [...] Because it’s not tolerated, but you need to go through — let the school handle it. And I know from experience with South Fayette School that, you know, it always is. And if there is a problem and it continues, then it is usually brought in front of me.”

Greenfield again, pointing out just how wrong the judge's statement is:

While this may not be a unique reaction, whether with school officials or police, it is decidedly flagrant. Where a judge’s function is so fundamentally undermined from the outset, that an accuser is so virtuous that it cannot be wrong, the prejudice can neither be ignored nor excused. The die was cast by dint of the school having “brought [the student] in front of” the judge.

The last part of the "unholy trinity" was the final hammer, coming down on the "nail" placed in front of it by school administrators (who can do no wrong) and a police officer (who is beyond fault). Guilty as charged.

The judge's statement is particularly egregious, considering the situation in front of her. First off, the judge's faith in the school's ability to combat bullying is obviously misplaced. She saw no fault in her reasoning and, using that as her platform for the rest of her statement, she went on to act on her own information and beliefs.

But further than appealing to her own authority, the judge stated how these things should be handled, apparently completely unaware (or unwilling to recognize) that following the prescribed steps is what resulted in a bullied child standing in front of her, facing a BS "disorderly conduct" charge.

The judge said that bullying victims should first bring the problem to their parents -- which this student did. Next, she says the parents should let the school administrators know -- which she did. Finally, she says, let the school handle it -- which it did. And now, the student faces her -- having followed all the proper steps -- charged with disorderly conduct. And yet, despite this, she asserts that the system works and, indeed, has always worked in regards to this particular school. Logical fallacy piled on top of logical fallacy until a bullied kid is charged with a crime while his recorded tormentors remain unpunished.

The judge refused to believe that any one of these esteemed administrators could have screwed up, failing to believe that they, too, are human and as prone to failure as anyone else. If they've never screwed up in the past, all future misdeeds are forgiven (and forgotten) in advance. This is the sort of rationale that should never be deployed by a supposedly impartial overseer like a judge, because it's just as wrong as assuming every authority figure involved here is an irredeemable monster.

[P]eople are not so one-dimensional that they are horrible in every instance, to every person, under every circumstances. The cop who beats a man one day may have saved a kitten in a tree the day before.

Maybe the school has had an admirable track record on curtailing bullying. Maybe Officer Kurta doesn't always seek to find something to charge a person with when put in this position. But everyone here came together to make a string of regrettable decisions that led to a bullied student being punished, rather than the aggressors. Maybe the future holds better outcomes, but for right now, everyone involved had a chance to stop this from reaching this illogical conclusion, but no one -- from the administrators to their legal team to local law enforcement to the presiding judge -- was interested in reining this in. In the end, it looks as though an innate desire to punish someone was satisfied every step of the way.

Filed Under: bullying, discipline, law enforcement, pennsylvania, schools, wiretapping

Australian Attorney General Wants To Make It A Criminal Offense To Not Turn Over Private Encryption Keys

from the a-disaster-waiting-to-happen dept

The Attorney-General's department in Australia is apparently pushing for new laws down under that would force anyone who's asked to hand over their private encryption keys -- and that covers both end users and service providers. Buried in the middle of a submission concerning revising Australia's wiretapping laws, the AG's office notes:

The Department is also advised that sophisticated criminals and terrorists are exploiting encryption and related counter-interception techniques to frustrate law enforcement and security investigations, either by taking advantage of default-encrypted communications services or by adopting advanced encryption solutions.

The Department’s current view is that law enforcement, anti-corruption and national security agencies should be permitted to apply to an independent issuing authority for a warrant authorising the agency to issue ‘intelligibility assistance notices’ to service providers or other persons. The issuing authority should be permitted to impose conditions or restrictions on the scope of this authority.

[....]

Under this approach, the person receiving a notice would be required to provide ‘information or assistance’ to place information obtained under the warrant into an intelligible form. The person would not be required to hand over copies of the communication in an intelligible form, and, a notice would not compel a person to do something which they are not reasonably capable of doing. Failure to comply with a notice would constitute a criminal offence, consistent with the Crimes Act.

The above approach is consistent with the approach taken by the United Kingdom, which permits officials of law enforcement and national security agencies to, where authorised under a warrant, issue a notice requiring a person to provide assistance in connection with accessing encrypted communications. Similarly, South African law permits agencies to apply to a judicial officer for a direction requiring a person to provide information to the agency to enable the agency to decrypt lawfully intercepted communications.

The Orwellian nature of "intelligibility assistance notices" is fairly striking. Basically, this says if you don't make encrypted communication "intelligible" upon request, you would have violated criminal law. It's kind of funny how it claims this doesn't require anyone to hand over communication in an intelligible form... because it just asks for the encrypted content and the key to decrypt them. Which, you know, is basically the same damn thing.

Meanwhile, at the same time as part of the same discussion over wiretapping laws, there's an effort under way in Australia to force service providers into a big data retention scheme, forcing them to hold onto all sorts of data for law enforcement purposes. Incredibly, Australian officials seem to be using the NSA/Snowden leaks as the impetus for this.

Intelligence agency ASIO is using the Snowden leaks to bolster its case for laws forcing Australian telecommunications companies to store certain types of customers' internet and telephone data for a period of what some law enforcement agencies would like to be two years.

ASIO also, like the AG's office, seems quite concerned about you damn kids and all your encrypting:

"Since the Snowden leaks, public reporting suggests the level of encryption on the internet has increased substantially," ASIO said.

"In direct response to these leaks, the technology industry is driving the development of new internet standards with the goal of having all web activity encrypted, which will make the challenges of traditional telecommunications interception for necessary national security purposes far more complex."

So, even if everything's getting encrypted, certain law enforcement interests seem hell-bent on having everything collected and easy (forced) availability of private keys. If you happen to live in Australia, you might want to speak up about what's about to happen to what you thought were your private communications and browsing activity.

Filed Under: asio, attorney general, australia, data retention, encryption, privacy, wiretapping

Boston PD Drops Ridiculous Felony Charges Against Carlos Miller And Taylor Hardy

from the the-power-of-public-shaming dept

As we recently covered, First Amendment activist/photographer Carlos Miller was facing felony charges for witness intimidation after posting the public phone number of the Boston Police Department's public relations officer on his website and encouraging readers to call and try to get wiretapping charges dropped against Taylor Hard, another PINAC photographer.

Apparently, the BPD didn't care for the deluge of calls and Detective Moore took it upon himself to make contacting the department's public relations number a crime. Miller responded by posting all of this publicly and hired a Boston-area lawyer to represent him at the hearing.

Miller finally has some good news to report.

The Boston Police Department agreed to withdraw the felony complaints against myself and PINAC associate Taylor Hardy on the condition that readers stop flooding their phone lines with calls demanding that they withdraw the complaints.

As if I would have any say in that.

But to paraphrase my attorney: Please. Stop. Calling. They get the message.

Here's his lawyer's statement:

“I am happy we were able to resolve this to Carlos’ and Taylor’s satisfaction, with criminal charge applications dropped by BPD, so that Carlos and Taylor can continue their work fighting for lawfulness, openness and transparency in police work across the country. Going forward they will not let up on their vigorous defense of citizen freedom. They understand that the law in Massachusetts is that they have to tell people if they are recording a conversation, and they have assured BPD that they will always announce that they are recording when asking for recorded comments, which has always been their practice.”

The Boston PD also had a few other requests. It also asked that Taylor Hardy remove his video of his conversation with the public relations officer (something he had already done) as well as asking that anyone recording phone calls with Boston public officials inform them that they are recording, something PINAC has always done.

Between the heat generated by the story's spread through the media and Miller's retention of one of the best lawyers in Boston, the ridiculous "witness intimidation" charges never even made it to the hearing.

Only hours after we had retained Duncan, he received a call from a police attorney asking to mediate, which is why Thursday’s hearing was postponed.

And as the attorneys mediated, the call floods continued, and the media exposure increased.

And there was pretty much nothing left for them to do but to lay their fiddle down because they knew they had been beat.

The BPD doesn't come out of this looking good. But it also doesn't come out this looking chastened either. All appearances indicate Detective Moore would have followed through with his witness intimidation charges and was only forced to relent in the face of mounting criticism. This suggests that whatever lessons were learned here will swiftly be forgotten when a citizen without such robust backing attempts to record police officers and other public officials. Officers might be more hesitant to simply shut down photographers knowing the info might make its way back to PINAC and places beyond, but the number of concessions the PD asked for before dropping the charges shows it's still trying to hold onto as much power as possible.

The letter from the Boston PD's legal counsel is even more troubling in its implication.

"As we discussed, I have notified the court that the probable cause hearing regarding the application for criminal complaints against Mr. Miller and Mr. Hardy is no longer necessary as the parties have reached a mutually agreeable resolution."

This letter gives no indication that the BPD felt that the witness intimidation charges were bogus. All this says is that the BPD will drop bogus charges when faced with large amounts of public criticism and a solid lawyer. There's nothing anywhere that suggests Det. Moore is rolling back his claims that contacting the public relations numbers isn't a crime. Instead, it looks as though Moore will still be able to selectively decide which phone calls are fine and which are "witness intimidation" and that the BPD will attempt to prosecute those not fortunate enough to generate media heat or secure a good lawyer.

PINAC's win does create some breathing room for citizen photographers, but the only thing that will be holding BPD officers back from bringing wiretapping charges will be the underlying threat of public humiliation, rather than legal precedents like the 2011 Glik decision.

Filed Under: boston, carlos miller, eavesdropping, police, taylor hardy, wiretapping

Boston Police Department Claims Contacting Its Public Affairs Number Is A Criminal Act

from the well-thank-fuck-these-people-are-in-charge-of-'enforcing-laws' dept

Most long-term Techdirt readers will be familiar with Carlos Miller, the man behind the Photography Is Not A Crime blog (usually shorthanded to simply "PINAC"). Miller, along with several other citizen photographers, have challenged local law enforcement officials repeatedly on their baseless claims that recording them is a crime.

Miller himself has been repeatedly arrested, harassed and charged with various dubious misdemeanors in an effort to curb his First Amendment rights. Now, Miller is being charged with something much more serious, thanks to the Boston Police Department's uncontrollable urge to silence critics and shutdown photographers.

Ken White at Popehat has this handy summary of the events leading up to the BPD's decision to charge Miller with "witness intimidation," a felony that carries with it a possible 10-year sentence.

The story begins typically for Photography Is Not A Crime with a story about a Boston Police Department sergeant thuggishly assaulting a photographer recording a traffic stop. A PINAC fan and journalism student named Taylor Hardy called the Boston PD's Bureau of Public Information on its public line to ask about the story. Hardy spoke with Angelene Richardson, a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department who provides information to the media and public. When Hardy published a recording of that call, the Boston Police Department arranged for him to be charged with wiretapping. Hardy claims that he informed Richardson that he was recording the call (though he did not successfully record that part of the conversation), apparently Richardson claims that he did not.

Boston's PD has received a lot of PINAC attention lately thanks to its officers' insistence on ignoring the outcome of the 2011 Glik decision, which saw the city pay out $170,000 to a citizen after the police wrongfully arrested him for violating the state's wiretapping statutes by recording them in public. The decision sent a message to citizens and citizen photographers, but apparently that message has yet to reach the ears of the city's police officers.

Now, as to the more problematic issue as to whether or not Hardy informed the BPD's public relations person that the conversation would be recorded (Massachusetts is a two-party consent state), it ultimately shouldn't matter.

A public relations person, whose sole purpose is to interact with the public, should assume that each and every conversation it has with citizens and journalists is being recorded -- especially the latter. There's no "expectation of privacy" inherent to public relations. Also, as Miller points out, the BPD is likely recording the calls on its end (the detective charging Miller has threatened to do the same to other callers, meaning someone's gathering info in Boston) which would make the two-party question moot.

After being informed that the BPD was pursuing Hardy on wiretapping charges, Carlos Miller posted the following to PINAC.

Maybe we can call or email Richardson to persuade her to drop the charges against Hardy considering she should assume all her conversations with reporters are on the record unless otherwise stated. Her listed number is (617) 343-4520.

Maybe we can build up an entire collection of recorded conversations with her. After informing her, of course.

The BPD's response to this action -- Miller posting a publicly available contact number (something Miller has done dozens of times previously without issue) -- was to charge him with a felony.

[T]hat led to Detective Moore filing a criminal complaint against me for witness intimidation, which I received Friday and is posted below, claiming that I caused Richardson all kinds of pain and grief because I posted her publicly available work contact info on my blog.

He also threatened to charge any readers who called her, making me think that perhaps the Boston Police Department is recording all incoming calls because how else would they gather the evidence to charge my readers for witness intimidation?

Ken White says there's some intimidation happening here alright, but not the way the BPD imagines it.

Indeed — an act of intimidation is involved. But it's an act of intimidation by the BPD, which is sending a clear message about how it will handle citizen dissent.

What an accomplishment: the Boston Police Department has discovered a way to make it a crime for citizens to contact the person it designates to talk to citizens.

The BPD has managed to dig itself a colossal hole in a very short period of time and it looks as if it has no interest in relinquishing its many shovels. Ordering someone from Miami (where Miller lives) to face charges in Boston over something so legally specious as declaring the posting of publicly available numbers to be "witness intimidation" is a prime example of how far some police officers will go to avoid having to admit they screwed up.

The Boston cops featured in PINAC's multiple stories all share the same attitude -- the law is whatever they declare it is, judicial decisions and the Constitution be damned. And when forced to confront the fact that they have it completely wrong, they simply ratchet up their intimidation tactics.

Defending yourself against clearly bogus charges isn't cheap. Carlos Miller has set up an Indiegogo campaign to pay for his legal representation. He's only seeking $2,200 ($2k for the lawyer plus $200 for indiegogo fees). Two bits of good news: 1) he's cleared that with several hours left to go and 2) he seems to have found himself an excellent attorney.

David Duncan, a partner at [Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP], will take on both Taylor Hardy’s case of illegal wiretapping and my case for witness intimidation for that price, which is much lower than he would normally charge for two felony cases.

He was referred to us by my friends at the Digital Media Law Project, which is a site every one of you should become familiar with because it contains a wealth of legal information regarding media law, which in this day and age, applies to every single one of us who uses the internet…

$2,000 is good start but expenses could increase significantly if Duncan is unable to get the case tossed.

But Duncan doesn’t come cheap. Most good attorneys don’t. He is charging $2,000 to attend the hearing on our behalf. Then he will charge $6,000 to attend three hearings after that if it does continue.

And that might not even include the actual trial, if it comes down to that. Nor does it include travel expenses.

Now, some people can find Carlos Miller's tactics to be a bit on the aggressive side. But even those who find he somehow crosses the line in his pursuit of strengthening the First Amendment rights of American citizens have to find the above ridiculous, at the very least. This all began with BPD officers intimidating a photographer using false claims that his actions were illegal. Now, due to the BPD's insistence on compounding its errors, a blogger in Florida is facing felony witness intimidation charges in Massachusetts.

The longer this bizarrely wrongheaded crusade against the First Amendment continues, the longer the Boston Police Dept. will have to deal with irate citizens from all over the nation contacting its public phone numbers to complain about its intimidating actions. A simple apology and an offer to drop charges would have done wonders for the PD several days ago, but now, it's far too late. Detective Moore's actions -- basically declaring that contacting BPD's public numbers is a criminal act -- have put him and those involved in a position that only allows them to actively make things worse. The bells have been rung and no amount of additional LEO blustering will un-ring them.

Filed Under: boston, carlos miller, civil liberties, police, public relations, taylor hardy, wiretapping, witness intimidation

Lancaster Cops Still Unclear On Public's Right To Record; Harass Same Citizen Who Recorded Them Last Week

from the there's-a-culture-problem-here dept

Apparently, the statement from a Lancaster, PA police spokesman that citizens are allowed to film on-duty police officers hasn't made its way to the entire staff yet. Carlos Miller at PINAC reports that Paul Dejesus, the same man who had an officer walk away from taking an accident report because he was being filmed, was again approached by a police officer who demanded he stop filming because recording his voice "violated" Pennsylvania's wiretapping laws.

Less than a week after a Pennsylvania man posted a video showing a Lancaster cop refusing to take an accident report because the man insisted on his nephew recording the interaction, a story that was picked up by a national technology site as well as the local newspaper, another Lancaster police officer threatened to arrest the man on wiretapping charges, indicating a clear pattern of abuse of authority when it comes to the Constitutionally protected act of recording cops in public.

Fortunately, Paul Dejesus knew his rights and was not afraid to assert them, even after the cop gave up on the wiretapping threat and began threatening him with disorderly conduct, which is the usual catch-all charge for contempt of cop.

But Dejesus slapped that threat down by pointing out he was recording from his own yard.

But if he was recording from a public sidewalk, he still wouldn't have been guilty of disorderly conduct in that state.

The officer tries a little ad hoc prior restraint by shining his flashlight at Dejesus' camera, a tactic that's deployed frequently by cops wishing to stay unrecorded.


These actions directly contradict the statement given by police spokeman Sgt. William Hickey.

"It is not illegal to film police in the course of their duties, as long as you are not interfering with them doing their job..."

City officers are instructed during ongoing in-service sessions that citizens are allowed to film them doing their jobs, Hickey says.

Case law has established that right, and officers should not inform a citizen otherwise, Hickey says.

"It's reasonable to expect, at any given time, anybody could be filmed," Hickey says. "There are traffic cameras, cameras at ATMs, even most of our patrol vehicles are equipped with dash cams.

"You are under surveillance no matter where you go."

Hickey's not lying about the surveillance. Lancaster is somewhat infamous for the number of surveillance cameras it has installed, which surpasses the number installed by many larger cities like San Francisco and Boston. Not only that, but the system is manned by volunteers including, at one point, someone who had been convicted of stalking, harassment and impersonating a public official.

The fact that everyone in Lancaster is "under surveillance" (from the mouth of the PD PR himself) means that the police, who "benefit" from this camera system, are the last people who should be granting themselves an "expectation of privacy" in order to wave off pesky citizens and their recording devices.

These cops backed off when the usual stuff didn't work, but there's obviously still a disconnect between the PD spokesman's calming statements and the actual attitude of the rank-and-file.

Filed Under: harassment, lancaster, police, recording police, surveillance, wiretapping

How Is Consumer Watchdog 'Helping' When It's Trying To Destroy Services Consumers Find Useful

from the get-away-from-my-email dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about a troubling ruling by Judge Lucy Koh, in which she accepted the argument pushed by a group called Consumer Watchdog (which is basically an anti-Google organization focused on misrepresenting Google at every opportunity) that Google's Gmail conducted some sort of illegal wiretap when its computers scanned incoming emails to put relevant ads next to it. As we noted, if having a computer scan your email is illegal wiretapping, then pretty much any anti-spam software is also an illegal wiretap. The whole concept is really ridiculous. If you send me a mail, you are granting permission for me to view that mail however I wish to view it -- and if that includes reading it via Gmail and having its automated computers put ads next to it, then that's the price you pay.

Unfortunately, with Judge Koh unwilling to recognize this basic concept, it's now open season on email providers. A very similar lawsuit has now been filed against Yahoo, and I'm sure it won't be the last one.

The whole situation is screwed up beyond belief. Eric Goldman's comments on the original lawsuit against Google are completely on point here. Not only does this ruling show how totally screwed up ECPA (the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) is, but the whole thing may lead to making just about everyone a hell of a lot worse off. Goldman notes why Judge Koh's ruling is almost certainly incorrect under the law: algorithmic processing of content isn't considered interception under the law; the ruling could certainly apply to anti-spam/anti-virus/spell-checking services and more; email providers have been doing this for ages, so where's the statute of limitations; and what actual harm was caused to people who had their email scanned?

But he concludes it with this plea for sanity to the likes of Consumer Watchdog:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't take away my Gmail account. It has materially improved my life, and I hope and pray that I'm not downgraded into some second-rate email account due to this litigation.

Indeed. It leaves me wondering what "consumers" Consumer Watchdog is looking out for, because it's not me, and it doesn't appear to be the many many millions of people who use a variety of different webmail services quite happily -- because it improves their lives. I don't want a group (especially one prone to blatantly misrepresenting reality) to break email for me. That's not being a watchdog, it's being an authoritarian dipshit, arguing that millions of people around the world should be worse off because this one group thinks it knows best.

Filed Under: email, gmail, privacy, wiretapping
Companies: consumer watchdog, google, yahoo

IL County Attorney Seeking To Enforce Unconstitutional Law Draws The Attention Of The ACLU

from the lack-of-blanket-statement-meets-blanket-legal-decision dept

As was recently covered here, a Morgan County, IL state's attorney by the name of Robert Bonjean declared his intentions to selectively enforce a state law declared unconstitutional by the Seventh Circuit Court.

The law in question was the 1960 Eavesdropping Law that forbade recordings without the consent of both parties. The court stated that using this statute to prevent citizens from recording police was likely unconstitutional. Shortly thereafter, a citizen (Randy Newingham) was detained for doing exactly that. Bonjean said he wouldn't issue a "blanket statement" on citizens' recordings and would take it on a "case-by-case" basis.

The local police chief, Tony Grootens, added to the mess by declaring the detained citizen was ignorant of the law governing recordings, issuing a statement that showed it was actually the chief who misunderstood the law. Bonjean then issued a low-key threat, mentioning he had three years to toy with the recording citizen by holding a pending felony charge above his head. Grootens himself suggested he might arrest Randy Newingham if he continued to record on-duty police officers.

When officials start screwing around with the Constitution, they tend to draw the attention of parties very interested in preventing this sort of abuse. Bonjean's "I do what I want" statement drew the attention of the ACLU's Illinois branch, whose senior staff counsel, Adam Schwartz, fired off a letter to the state's attorney demanding some answers.

Mr. Newingham's action--audio recording an on-duty police officer in a public place--is protected by the First Amendment. See ACLU v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 651 (2012). The Illinois Eavesdropping Act violates the First Amendment as applied to such audio recording. Id. This decision is controlling throughout Illinois. For your convenience, a copy of the opinion is enclosed.

By August 23rd, please advise me whether civilians in Jacksonville will face arrest, and in Morgan County will face prosecution, if they audio record on-duty police officers.

Well, that clears that up, hopefully. It's tough to say how Bonjean arrived at the conclusion that a circuit court decision affecting the entire state somehow excluded his jurisdiction, but both he and Police Chief Grootens seem to be projecting an air of almost-deliberate obtuseness about the court's decision.

Or it could be they just didn't get the memo. (Schwartz has rectified that by sending a copy of the opinion.) Sure, the Supreme Court issued its kick to the curb back in November of last year, but maybe news travels more slowly when it's news you don't want to hear.

At this point, there has been no response from either Chief Grootens or Robert Bonjean, according to the Jacksonsville Journal Courier. I would imagine any further comments will be run by a legal team rather than directly from Bonjean's or Grooten's brains to their mouths.

Filed Under: eavesdropping, illinois, robert bonjean, wiretapping
Companies: aclu