NYPD Commissioner Blasts NSA Secret Monitoring For Being Secret

from the half-right dept

In the wake of the NSA scandal leaks, there have been several examples of government officials and law enforcement coming out to state both that the program is necessary and that its existence ought never have been revealed. Those who espouse the latter often indicate that, as a result, Edward Snowden is some measure of a traitor, and in some cases so are members of the press that reported on the revelations. Not all former and current government folks are in that camp, of course, but those that are not typically argue the polar opposite: that the NSA program is either unconstitutional or unnecessary. Those are sentiments I happen to agree with, but there is a refreshingly original third course of thought.

That comes from NYPD police commissioner Ray Kelly, who has managed to blast the secret NSA program...but only for being secret.

“I don’t think it ever should have been made secret,” Kelly said yesterday, breaking ranks with other US law-enforcement officials. “I think the American public can accept the fact if you tell them that every time you pick up the phone, it’s going to be recorded and it goes to the government. I think the public can understand that. I see no reason why that program was placed in the secret category. Secondly, I think if you listen to Snowden, he indicates that there’s some sort of malfeasance, people . . . sitting around and watching the data. So I think the question is: What sort of oversight is there inside the [National Security Agency] to prevent that abuse, if it’s taking place?”

Now, the easy reaction to this is to write off Kelly's opinion that the majority of Americans would be okay with data surveillance as long as we were well informed about it. After all, stop and frisk is fairly above board, and people still hate it. But the point is an important one with real implications on how democracy is supposed to work versus how it actually does work in America today.

By that I mean whether secretive programs run by the government that impact the majority or all of Americans can be undertaken without the consent of the governed. Step back a moment from Kelly's assertion that the public would be on board with the program if we had known about it all along. Isn't the better point to be taken from his statement that we should at least have been given the opportunity to find out? As a member of a representative democracy, if my fellow Americans were indeed informed and signed off on this program, I have to accept it, whatever my dissenting views. If the government was above board on the checks and balances in the program, they might have a good PR case. But that process was never given a chance to incubate. Instead, broadly worded, vague legislation birthed secretive policies, subject to secretive committees and secretive courts, and it was only by the providence of a humanitarian leaker that the public had any inkling of what was going on. That isn't how the American concept is supposed to function.

And now we'll never know whether Kelly is right or not, because the experiment that could have occurred has been foiled. Any complacency by the public now can be written off as apathy born of anger and mistrust. Any dissent is tainted by the same as a result of the secrecy of the program. The method by which the NSA spy program was both initiated, continued, and finally revealed is almost a perfect counter example to the democratic process. I fear that our founding fathers, those men of the enlightenment so often referenced by the career politicians of the day, would be calling for revolution once more.

Filed Under: nsa, nsa surveillance, nypd, ray kelly, secrecy, transparency

Eric Holder Wants To Stop And Frisk The NYPD

from the competition:-who-can-abuse-civil-rights-more? dept

The NYPD really loves its stop and frisk policy. The prospect of randomly stopping exclusively minorities a random selection of New Yorkers really excites the department. And why not? The practice has done wonders to prevent crime in the city. Well, if you define “crime” as pot possession. Because the policy hasn’t accomplished much of anything else.

Now the constitutionality of the policy is in jeopardy, awaiting a decision from Judge Shira “Don’t Call Me Judy” Scheindlin, the judge the City decided to embarrass by commissioning a report accusing her of bias because the City is incredibly stupid.

When and if (OK, “when”) Judge Scheindlin strikes down the current iteration of the policy, Eric Holder has a suggestion for how to remedy the violation. And Mayor Mike Bloomberg is none too pleased…

The Attorney General’s office filed a brief yesterday outlining one option Judge Scheindlin might consider in awarding injunctive relief:

The News reports that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s office filed a brief yesterday requesting that if the NYPD loses the case and its stop-and-frisk policies are found to be illegal, “the court has wide discretion to enter injunctive relief,” which “may include the appointment of an independent monitor.” … Mayor Bloomberg is reportedly “outraged.”

And we all know what an “outraged” Michael Bloomberg looks like.

Alex Pareene of Salon notes:

The NYPD obviously needs a monitor. The city argues that the department’s own internal affairs bureau is oversight enough, but the IAB has failed to uncover or prosecute an array of recent examples of police misconduct and IAB veterans and plenty of cops who’ve dealt with the bureau say it’s slow, incompetent, and bordering on corrupt. New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board is independent and thorough, but it also has no authority beyond issuing recommendations to the commissioner. A complete lack of accountability and oversight is part of Bloomberg’s governing philosophy, which holds that he should be able to appoint people who answer only to him, and then those people should be in charge forever.

Not only is New York’s IAB suspect, there are rumors (which I’ve been unable to confirm) that the Manhattan District Attorney is moving the office of the prosecutors assigned to these cases from an undisclosed location back to the main office. Placing prosecutors looking into police misconduct back in a building where multiple cops can watch potential informers enter and exit seems like foolhardy.

For all the flack that Eric Holder is taking (and all the flack Assistant AG Thomas Perez is about to get in his Secretary of Labor confirmation hearings), Holder’s handling of civil rights has been aggressive and commendable:

Holder’s Justice Department has actually had a very impressive record on civil rights cases. His Civil Rights Division, led by Thomas Perez, has not hesitated to investigate police departments for misconduct, and it has forced reforms in cities like in New Orleans. In March of this year, Perez announced an investigation into Cleveland police focusing on excessive force. Thomas Perez is decidedly one of the best things about the Obama administration. That he’d push the Justice Department to weigh in on the NYPD case, over the strong objections of Mayor Bloomberg, is laudable, especially because Obama himself has a strange obsession with winning the mayor’s favor.

If she rules against the City, Judge Scheindlin may not accept the DOJ’s offer, but it looks logical on paper. Federal agents pulling rank all over town is sure to make Bloomberg and the NYPD even angrier.

I guess the City doesn’t like being singled out and subjected to humiliating spot searches to guarantee that it’s in full compliance with the law. Go figure.

Filed Under: civil liberties, doj, eric holder, michael bloomberg, nypd, stop and frisk

Stop & Frisk Accomplishments: Barely Any Illegal Weapons Recovered, But Tons Of Weed Smokers Jailed

from the high-crimes dept

We've already discussed the abomination NYC Mayor Bloomberg has unleashed on his own people in the form of random searches of scary dark-skinned people, more commonly known as stop and frisk. The justification of a blatantly racist policy that nonetheless undermines the civil liberties of an entire city's population has taken a couple of turns. They started by assuring us they had a checklist, because that apparently means something to someone, somewhere. Then His Honor weighed in on the matter himself, saying:

"Look at what's happened in Boston," Mr. Bloomberg said. "Remember what happened here on 9/11. Remember all of those who've been killed by gun violence and the families they left behind."

Got it? We need to let police rummage around in people's pockets because of terrorism and gun violence. Ah, the old simultaneously playing on fear and concern for victims trick. Nicely played, Mr. Mayor. Or, it would have been nicely played if the statistics bore out even a portion of what he said. Unfortunately, thanks to the folks as the NYCLU, the true impact of the stop and frisk program has been revealed in all of its glory, and it essentially amounts to a blip in the gun seizure statistics and a whole lot of people being arrested for marijuana.

Last year, the NYPD stopped and interrogated people 532,911 times, a 448-percent increase in street stops since 2002 – when police recorded 97,296 stops during Mayor Bloomberg's first year in office. Nine out of 10 of people stopped were innocent, meaning they were neither arrested nor ticketed. About 87 percent were black or Latino. White people accounted for only about 10 percent of stops.

The NYCLU analyzed the NYPD's full 2012 computerized stop-and-frisk database, which contains detailed information not included in the quarterly stop-and-frisk reports the Police Department provides the City Council. The analysis examines multiple aspects of the 2012 stop-and-frisk data, including stops, frisks, use of force, reason for stop and recovery of weapons. The analysis provides detailed information at a precinct level and a close examination of race-related aspects of stop-and-frisk.

And the survey says? Well, it says that the program has been an absolute failure, unless its intention was always about filling up prisons for non-violent crimes. The analysis shows a complete lack of uniformity in how the program is utilized across precincts, that it is overwhelmingly used to stop minorities (who were found to be innocent at the same 90% rate as everyone else), that the total number of weapons recovered in 2012 increased by a total of 96 guns compared with 2003 when there was no stop and frisk program (a 0.02% increase), and that 26,000 people were stopped for offenses related to marijuana. Arrests due to marijuana possession were the most common reason for arrest resulting from stop and frisk.

What does this mean? Well, it means Mayor Bloomberg is either a liar or he simply doesn't know what he's talking about. To say that stop and frisk is all about combating terrorism and illegal guns, despite the program's lack of success doing either, shows a frightening level of incompetence and/or malice. All of this on top of the fact that violent crime is on a decline in New York City. Keep in mind that all of this comes at the cost of distrust of police by citizens, distrust of government by citizens, and the disenfranchisement of the minority population. Oh, and unless you've been sleeping the past year, you probably know that the laws surrounding marijuana in this country are becoming more lax by the minute.

With nearly nothing to show for it, how does His Honor continue to defend such a deplorable policy?

Filed Under: failures, michael bloomberg, nyc, nypd, racism, stop and frisk

NYPD Chief Ray Kelly And Mayor Bloomberg Still Think Privacy Is A Good Thing -- Just Not YOUR Privacy

from the reaching-hypocritical-mass dept

When NYPD Chief Ray Kelly said "privacy was off the table" following the Boston bombing, we all knew this was a one-way "exchange." It was always going to be average citizens losing out on their privacy. The NYPD would remain unaffected and continue to operate the way it has for years: behind the thin thick blue line of opacity.

Salon's CJ Ciaramella takes a detailed look at the NYPD's track record on Freedom of Information requests. The results are unsurprising. The public entities that demand the most from their constituents are often the most reluctant to give anything back.

The city’s Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who is running for mayor, recently released a report asserting that a third of all Freedom of Information records requests to the police department were ignored. The numbers are no surprise to journalists who cover the department, such as Leonard Levitt, a veteran cops reporter who now writes at NYPD Confidential.

“All I can tell you is that the NYPD does whatever it wants to regarding FOI requests,” Levitt said. “Which means they never turn anything over, at least not to me. The only time they did respond was after I got the NY Civil Liberties Union involved.”

Levitt's case isn't unique. Others have run into the same officious stonewalling and found it often takes a lawsuit (or the threat of one) to shake anything loose. All Levitt was looking for was Ray Kelly's daily calendar. The department cited "security reasons" when rejecting his request. By this logic, protecting Ray Kelly is more important than protecting the President of the United States, whose calendar is public.

What isn't rejected outright is simply ignored. Those making the requests are left to decide whether the requested information is worth the time and expense of a lawsuit. The NYCLU has found itself in court time and time again in attempts to pry info loose from the NYPD's grip.

Ciaramella had his own experience with the NYPD's FOI recalcitrance when he sought access to gun discharge reports that might shed some light on the "hail of gunfire" unleashed by the NYPD in the course of bringing down the Empire State Building shooter.

Back in October 2012, this reporter submitted a public records request for the discharge reports filed by NYPD officers over the previous year.

I filed the public records request on Oct. 1. And then waited. On Jan. 11, I received this response:

In regard to your request, for all weapons discharge reports filled [sic] by officers between January 1, 2012 and September 26, 2012, I must deny access to these records on the basis of Public Officers Law section 87 (2)(g) and 87 (2)(e) as such records/information, if disclosed would reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, and or are intra-agency materials. Furthermore, these records are also exempt from disclosure as these records on the basis of Public Officers Law section 87 (2)(e) and Public Officers Law 87 (2)(a) in that such records consist of personell records of a Police Officer and are therefore exempt from disclosure under the provisions of Civil Rights Law section 50-a.

Now, stop and consider this for a second. The NYPD said the public interest of how, when and why its officers use deadly force against the citizens it’s sworn to protect is outweighed by the need to protect the privacy of those same officers. Not only that, the public interest was outweighed by the need to protect its investigative techniques.

This is par for the course and not unique to the NYPD. Police forces all over the nation (and the word, for that matter) are notorious for protecting their own. This insular attitude tends to result in the sort of ridiculous arguments detailed above. Protecting officers from public scrutiny always outweighs the public interest because it's the "home team" making the call.

But this reflexive "cops-first" rejection of Ciaramella's request was particularly brash, seeing as it completely contradicted a previous judicial ruling.

A New York judge ruled two years ago — in response to a NYCLU lawsuit, naturally — that discharge reports are subject to disclosure, do not violate officers’ privacy and do not compromise the department’s investigative techniques.

The NYPD at least tried a different tack with Ciaramella's next discharge report request, denying it because it was insufficiently descriptive of the files requested -- even though it was nearly identical to the previous filing.

This is a systemic problem. FOI requests are ignored, rejected or put on the back burner until someone gets a lawyer involved. If any answer arrives, it's usually months or years down the road and, in many cases, redacted to the point of uselessness.

New York's FOI problem goes all the way to the top. Bloomberg's office has spent significant amounts of time and money battling FOI requests as well.

ProPublica's Sergio Hernandez spent nearly two years trying to obtain emails related to the 2010 appointment of Cathie Black as School Chancellor. (Black was a controversial pick who stepped into the position with no relevant experience after her predecessor suddenly resigned his post.)

When the emails were finally released last week, after a two-year legal battle, they revealed a desperate public relations campaign in which city officials tried to rally support from prominent women — including Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Caroline Kennedy, and Bette Midler — to champion Black's appointment. (I'll admit: never in a million years did I expect my work to result in stories containing the sentence, "Ms. Winfrey couldn't be reached for comment.") In the end, the emails were amusing, slightly enlightening, but largely innocuous.

Hernandez points out that much has been made about the last-minute attempt to persuade female celebrities to show their support for the new chancellor, but much less ink has been spilled questioning why the city fought this request for so long, racking up a total of 180 staff hours and costs of over $25,000.

In the very limited defense of the NYPD, all FOI requests are funneled through a single office. This inefficient design can partially be blamed for the extensive delays. But it doesn't excuse the general attitude that citizens need to be an open book while those in charge continue to operate in near opacity. And the inequity keeps getting worse, according to Robert Freeman, executive director of the NY State Commission on Open Government.

“I’ve been here since 1974,” Freeman said. “The track record of the police department, particularly in the last decade, indicates in so many instances a failure to give effect to the spirit and letter of the freedom of information law."

“I look back at various mayoral administrations, and my feeling is that there was more of an intent to comply with the law in the era of Mayor [Ed] Koch than there has been since,” Freeman continued. “My sense has been that the downward slope began in Giuliani’s administration.”

There's little hope of any immediate change. Entities like the two discussed are naturally resistant to transparency and sudden movement. The fact that the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg have formed a mutual admiration society over the years indicates that it will remain "business as usual" until a mayor willing to stand up to the police department (and stand up for his constituents) is elected. The last two office holders have been more than happy to indulge the PD's excesses, all the while further isolating themselves from the demands of transparency laws and the people they're supposed to be serving.

Filed Under: foia, freedom of information, michael bloomberg, nyc, nypd, privacy, ray kelly, stalling

NYPD Sergeant Says 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' Is Just The Price We Pay For A 'Free Society'

from the nothing's-more-'secure'-than-a-jail-cell dept

We've been dealing with the New York police department lately, thanks to the mayor and the police chief using the recent Boston bombing as an excuse to increase surveillance efforts and enact other policies to further encroach on New Yorkers' civil liberties. Whenever something terrorist-related occurs, it seems as though the NYPD's reps can't keep their opinions to themselves, even as the department itself drifts further and further away from being a sterling example of How Things Should Be Done.

In a recent Christian Science Monitor article dealing with "teenagers, terrorism and social media" (focusing on the recent Cameron D'Ambrosio arrest for making "terrorist threats" via some improvised rap lyrics posted to Facebook), Sgt. Ed Mullins of the NYPD shows up to make some very disturbing statements about your rights and responsibilities as a (mere) citizen. It starts with the worst kind of "policy" and goes downhill fast.

Using a zero tolerance approach to track domestic terrorists online is the only reasonable way to analyze online threats these days, especially after the Boston Marathon bombing and news that the suspects had subsequently planned to target Times Square in Manhattan, Mullins says. The way law enforcement agencies approach online activity that appears sinister is this: “If you’re not a terrorist, if you’re not a threat, prove it,” he says.

"Zero tolerance" is never "reasonable." It never has been and it never will be. In fact, it's the polar opposite. Zero tolerance policies simply absolve the enforcers of any responsibility for the outcome and grant them the privilege of ignoring mitigating factors. It allows them to bypass applying any sort of critical thinking skills (the "reason" part of "reasonable") and view every infractions as nothing more than a binary IF THEN equation.

Mullins goes even further than this, though, asserting that the burden of proof lies with the person charged, not the person bringing the charges. This flips our judicial system on its head (along with the judicial systems in many other countries) and, if applied the way Mullins views it, puts accused citizens in the impossible position of trying to prove a negative. This is just completely wrong, and it's a dangerously stupid thing for someone in his position to believe, much less state out loud. (Mullins also heads the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the second-largest police union in New York City.)

Believe it or not, Mullins is not done talking. What he says next doubles up on the "dangerous" and "stupid."

“This is the price you pay to live in free society right now. It’s just the way it is,” Mullins adds.

No. It isn't.

This is the price Mullins is charging to live in the NYPD's severely stunted version of a "free" society. The NYPD has been harassing young minorities at the rate of 500,000 impromptu stop-and-frisks per year for the better part of the last decade. For the past 10 years, the NYPD has been regularly trampling citizens' civil liberties simply because they attend a mosque. The NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg have worked ceaselessly to make New York the most-surveilled city in the U.S.

That's the price New Yorkers are paying. It has nothing to do with living in a free society. The NYPD takes liberties away and high-ranking cops like Mullins have the gall to suggest there's some sort of equitable exchange occurring. Mullins doesn't seem to understand (or just doesn't care) that if you take away freedom you no longer have a free society.

It has been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, but "eternal vigilance" isn't shorthand for oppressive surveillance and zero tolerance policies that make freedom less "free." "Eternal vigilance" isn't treating the Constitution like a relic too worn and tattered to serve any purpose in these "dangerous" times. And being an officer of the law isn't an excuse to shut your intellect off and allow your brain stem and broad policies to "work" in concert in order to treat loudmouth teens on Facebook like a guy with a trailer home full of explosives.

This "vigilance" is supposed to be put to use by citizens in order to prevent authorities like Mullins from encroaching on our liberties. It's not solely limited to a united military effort against foreign powers. There are plenty of people apparently willing to attack our freedom from the comfort of the home front.

Filed Under: civil liberties, due process, freedom, guilty until proven innocent, nypd

Bloomberg Defends Stop-And-Frisk, Decries Critics 'Pointing Fingers From City Hall' By Pointing Fingers From NYPD Headquarters

from the pot-decries-kettles'-blackness;-NYPD-books-same,-citing-'public-blacknes dept

Everything questionable that Bloomberg has overseen in his position as mayor of New York -- all the civil rights violations, all the increased surveillance, all the the dubious actions and policies that sent the message that Bloomberg was very interested in crafting a hybrid nanny/police state -- is coming home to roost.

With the police force under attack from multiple lawsuits and his soda ban overturned by a NY judge for being "arbitrary and capricious" (name a ban that isn't), Bloomberg is on the defensive -- and he sounds it. Rather than addressing concerns with thoughtful answers, the mayor has decided to respond by lashing out at his critics and backing up his dubious claims with even worse rationale.

Bloomberg pointed fingers and threw out the obligatory 9/11 card during his speech/diatribe delivered from the friendly confines of the NYPD headquarters. Bloomberg's comments hold everyone accountable for the current unpleasantness (and future theoretic unpleasantness) -- everyone but Bloomberg and the NYPD. The arguments Bloomberg uses are so abysmal it's almost possible to believe this is a very broadly played satire, rather than an actual event that actually happened. Just take a look at this statement.

“God forbid terrorists succeed in striking our city because of a politically driven law that undermines the N.Y.P.D.’s intelligence gathering efforts,” he said.

"Terrorists." "God forbid." Someone needs to find a new rhetorical device.

Believe it or not, this is Bloomberg's argument against appointing an independent Inspector General to review police policies. The argument has two parts, both equally awful. The first uses the tired "but terrorism" threat/excuse/cliche. The second part actually makes the claim that an Inspector General would result in other agencies being less willing to share info with the NYPD. That may be true, but why is it true and why is this an "acceptable" truth? To put it in words frequently directed towards US citizens: what do they have to hide?

Bloomberg's words play to the home crowd (NYPD) , but holy shit is that an ugly bit of truth to (inadvertently) drop in the middle of a loaded sentence. If NYPD intelligence gathering is "undermined" by the presence of independent oversight, the problem is with the NYPD and every agency that decideds to cut them out of the loop, willfully endangering the public in favor of CYA opacity.

Bloomberg said more, but this statement is just terrible. It indicates there's an acceptable level of corruption within the police force and that the mayor has no interest in addressing that issue. Everything else becomes so much banality aimed at satiating his audience, a collection of NYPD police chiefs. There's terrorism (again):

“Look at what’s happened in Boston,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Remember what happened here on 9/11. Remember all of those who’ve been killed by gun violence and the families they left behind.”

OK. And what? Honor their memories by giving the police carte blanche to shove any citizen up against the nearest wall and pat them down? Cover every inch of the city with cameras, microphones and facial recognition software in hopes of "preventing" a statistically anomalous event (and proclaiming victory when the more statistically probable nothing continues to happen)?

To top this all off, Bloomberg steps past the empty rhetoric and defense of shady police "business as usual" to hypocritically deride others for "playing politics with people's lives."

“The attacks most often come from those who play no constructive role in keeping our city safe, but rather, view their jobs as pointing fingers from the steps of City Hall,” he said.

Said the man who is City Hall, pointing fingers from NYPD headquarters.

Bloomberg's statements are ugly, but at least they were delivered out in the open, rather than in a closed-door meeting with the "home team." All of Bloomberg's finger pointing and cheap rationale is a matter of public record. This is a small, inadvertent, victory. Bloomberg wants his constituents' lives to be open books, but wants the NYPD to remain an inscrutable, unassailable means of enforcement and "security." That's a load of crap and Bloomberg seems to be having trouble shoveling it correctly. If he keeps feeling this sort of heat, we may see him slipping into full blown opacity or devolving even further into a ranting apologist for systemic failure.

Filed Under: new york, nypd, stop and frisk, surveillance

NY Police Chief Ray Kelly Says The Boston Bombing Takes Privacy 'Off The Table'

from the not-that-there-was-much-left-on-table... dept

In light of the recent Boston bombing, NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly is now restructuring some sort of nonexistent deal with New Yorkers, issuing a clawback on their civil liberties. According to Kelly, the Boston Marathon bombing means privacy has been "taken off the table."

“I'm a major proponent of cameras,” Kelly said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table.”

Some of you may take issue with Kelly's assumption that the privacy "offer" has been rescinded (or that it's truly his to rescind). Well, guess what. Your opinion means nothing, at least not to the chief of the NYPD.

“The people who complain about it, I would say, are a relatively small number of folks, because the genie is out of the bottle,” Kelly said. “People realize that everywhere you go now, your picture is taken.”

Ray Kelly doesn't care much for civil liberties. He's already been questioned about the NYPD's "anti-terrorism" efforts (aided by the FBI), largely comprised of various (failed) efforts to infiltrate the Muslim community. While it's failed to produce any terrorists, it has managed to tread all over the community's civil liberties. During that discussion, a Brooklyn councilman bluntly stated that the counterterrorism efforts looked to be based on "profiling" rather than on any "real leads."

He's also been queried about the notorious "stop and frisk" program, something that largely targets young minorities (87% of all stops are non-white) while failing to produce much in terms of results (only 1 in 10 stops result in a summons or arrest; weapons are only discovered in 0.2% of the stops).

Kelly has defended these two programs with a pair dubious claims. On the anti-terrorist side, he proudly states that the city has not been attacked by terrorists since the 9/11 tragedy. Considering the average person is 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist, this claim is nothing more than Kelly attempting to take credit for a statistically improbable event not happening. It's about as meaningless as claiming no one has been struck by lightning twice while under his watch.

As for the "stop and frisk" program, Kelly claims the reduction in crime speaks for itself. But as NYCLU Director Donna Lieberman pointed out, there's precious little evidence this program did anything more than tag along for the ride as crime decreased across the nation.

Kelly nevertheless claims the program has saved thousands of lives during the last decade by reducing violent crime, an assertion that Lieberman calls "demonstrably false." She notes that homicides were already falling in New York before Kelly launched the stop-and-frisk program in 2003 and that since then they have declined more quickly in other big cities.

Speaking of "speaking for itself," this quote is allegedly Ray Kelly's goal for "stop and frisk."

According to [State Sen. Eric] Adams, Kelly "stated that he targeted or focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that any time they leave their homes they could be targeted by police."

So, we already know Kelly's general attitude towards the rights of the citizens under his care control. It appears his view on privacy is just more of the same. The question is, how much more surveillance does he feel is justified? New York already rivals the capital of Knife Crime Island Great Britain in terms of camera usage. London's "Ring of Steel" is an Orwellian construct (even the nickname conjures thoughts of Soviet Russia's surveillance of its own citizens) that funnels drivers into areas populated by thousands of unblinking law enforcement eyes. Kelly has openly expressed his pride in NY's emulation of London's surveillance system.

Kelly acts like increased surveillance is a forgone conclusion after the Boston bombing. The investigation's most useful images and video were captured by individuals and private businesses, not by PD cameras, something surveillance advocates like Kelly keep conveniently forgetting. He claims only a few will complain and the rest will just fall in line. But where is he hearing this cry for more police and government surveillance?

As far as I can tell, there's been no public outcry demanding that the police, FBI, etc. do something to prevent another tragedy. The only voices I've heard are a variety of self-contained echo chambers who hear only the reverberations of their preconceived notions.

Kelly certainly likes hearing "privacy is off the table," even if the words had to originate from his own mouth. He said it because he truly believes it. But it serves a secondary purpose as well, something I'm sure Kelly is fully aware of. Making this statement as the resident police chief in the nation's largest city sends the message to like-minded law enforcement entities that now is the time to expand surveillance efforts. After all, who's going to stop you? A "few complainers?"

Filed Under: boston, nypd, ray kelly

Former Police Chief Defends NYPD's 'Stop And Frisk' Program, Because It Has A Checklist

from the meanwhile,-certain-commanders-seem-to-be-encouraging-profiling dept

NYPD's "stop-and-frisk" program has never really been considered "constitutional" by anyone involved on either side of the law. In fact, certain elements of the stop-and-frisk program have already been ruled unconstitutional (making trespass stops outside residential buildings). But a case currently underway (Floyd v. City of New York) is hoping to prove that the NYPD's program violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Since 2002, the NYPD has performed these "street interrogations" over 4 million times. The end result? Nearly nine out of ten "suspects" have been completely innocent, and this is according to the NYPD's own reports. In addition, an overwhelming percentage of those stopped have been minorities. (Stops of whites hovers around 11% of the total.)

Not only are the NYPD's numbers damning in their own right, but NYPD officer testimony alleges that the department pressures officers with a quotas (20 summonses + 1 arrest per officer per month -- a.k.a. "20 and one"), something many states have recognized as creating perverse incentives and have outlawed accordingly. (Of course, this just leads to police departments utilizing other terms, like "productivity" or "benchmarks" or "performance goals.") Secret recordings even caught a commanding officer stating explicitly who patrol officers were supposed to target with the stop-and-frisk program: "I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 20, 21."

Recently retired police chief Joseph Esposito was called to testify in the Floyd v. City of New York case and Scott Greenfield noticed a rather interesting exchange between the chief and the presiding judge. After Esposito played to part of the crowd for a bit, mentioning the 40% reduction in crime and saluting his sergeants as the "best in the world," he answered a few questions directly related to the stop-and-frisk program.

Mr. Esposito also put much stock in the paperwork that officers must fill out after each street stop. That form includes numerous check boxes, each describing behavior that might lead to a stop, like “furtive movements” or “actions indicative of casing.”

Mr. Esposito insisted that a supervisor could conclude that a stop was legal based on reviewing that form alone.

“If it’s filled out properly, it gives you reasonable suspicion. And if you have reasonable suspicion established, then you do not have racial profiling,” Mr. Esposito said. “It’s as simple as that.”

(Here's a copy of that form, usually referred to as a "250" form [UF-250] despite the fact that its form number is 344-151A.)


That's an interesting rationale. And not just the fact that Esposito believes "reasonable suspicion" can be entirely unyoked from "racial profiling." It's not as if narratives (and their corresponding paperwork) have never been altered to justify racially motivated actions.

But the worst part of this rationale is how little it takes for an officer to "establish" reasonable suspicion, and how the NYPD seems to prefer it that way.

A checklist. The holy grail of grocery clerks. Check off a few boxes and, bingo, reasonable suspicion is established. "It's as simple as that."

[T]his... testimony... provides the deepest understanding of the failure to grasp what's at risk when cops roam the street under the leadership of a guy like Espo.

With his three stars, he was a "near-mythic figure" in the NYPD. Yet on the witness stand, he revealed himself to be an errand boy for grocery store clerks, who thought a checklist was real. "It's as simple as that." They so adore checklists. Check the right boxes and all is well with the world. There is no better proof than a checklist.

As Greenfield says, this is what's presiding over New Yorker's constitutional rights -- a set of checkboxes so vague any person could be considered "reasonably suspicious."

Fortunately, the judge was underwhelmed by Eposito's "star power" and his affection for reasonable-suspicion-via-checklist. Her response points out just how broadly written the form is and how easily it can be abused.

But Judge Scheindlin appeared skeptical that the paperwork proved anything.

“Any officer can check off ‘high-crime area’ and ‘furtive movements,’ ” Judge Scheindlin said, referring to two check-box categories on the stop-and-frisk form. “You really don’t know much about the stop, looking at the form, do you?”

No. You really can't tell much by looking at the form. And like all paperwork, it's usually filled out after someone has already been shoved against a wall for walking in a high crime area. The department's own stats show that 9 out of 10 times, nothing illegal is happening. But yet the practice persists, failing to do anything more than assert control over the populace with systemic harassment sporting a gaudy 90% failure rate.

The number of stops dropped 20% last year (from its 2011 peak), suggesting a couple of things are happening. Either batting .100 isn't sitting well with some officers or the form itself is slowing down the process of establishing reasonable suspicion. Below is one of the forms the NYPD is reportedly* considering using to replace the inefficient, two-page "250" form.


*Actually not considering this completely made-up form at all.

Filed Under: nypd, stop and frisk

NYC Artist Satirizes Law Enforcement Drone Program; Gets Book Thrown At Him By NYPD

from the for-all-the-tough-talk,-the-skin-is-surprisingly-thin dept

If there's one thing authority figures hate, it's anything that goes counter to the narrative and/or puts their pet projects in an unfavorable light. A New York City artist is learning this the hard way after he and some friends took aim at the police department's drone program, plastering the city with satirical ads touting the "safety" provided by the new eyes in the sky.

On September 16, 29-year-old “Essam” and a group of friends blanketed lower Manhattan with posters designed to look like official New York Police Department signage. “Drones: Protection When You Least Expect It,” read the slogan below simple ideograms of families running from unmanned aerial vehicles. Essam and his team disguised themselves as employees of the outdoor advertising firm Van Wagner, which manages the advertising space on bus stations and kiosks throughout the city. All told, they swapped out about 100 ads.

“We see this trend throughout history of military technology always coming to the civilian world,” the Army veteran told Animal New York. He says his goal is for the conversation about domestic police use of drones “to reach a mainstream level where we are talking about this at the dinner table.”

Needless to say, the PD was highly unamused. Its "weeks-long manhunt" for the artist finally culminated in an arrest... and a handful of trumped up charges.

Essam Attia, 29, was hit with 56 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, grand larceny possession of stolen property and weapons possession after allegedly having an unloaded .22-caliber revolver under his bed at his Manhattan apartment when he was arrested early Wednesday.

He posted bail, which was set at $10,000 bond or $2,500 cash, and is due back in Manhattan Criminal Court on Dec. 3.

Attia hoped to generate some awareness and kickstart discussion about the increasing prevalence of law enforcement drone usage. Unfortunately, it looks as though the NYPD is only interested in providing its narrative, one that is free from criticism or transparency. It also seems to be particularly bad at actual "police work." Essam signed many of the posters with his artist signature ("ESSAM") and participated in a barely-anonymous interview and yet it took a "weeks-long manhunt" to track him dow.

Calling his lookalike posters "forged" is stretching the truth to fit a hefty criminal charge, one that appears to have been levied solely out of spite. Perhaps if Essam had just placed his posters over the NYPD's, he wouldn't also be facing the grand larceny charge, but that's just quibbling over theoretical outcomes. The larger issue is the First Amendment. No one ever guaranteed free speech without consequences, but it does seem like this pursuit of an artist who honestly did nothing more than make more New Yorkers more aware of their PD's tactics has very little to do with bringing a criminal to justice, and everything to do with harshly shutting down criticism in order to deter further critiques of the NYPD. 

Filed Under: drones, free speech, nyc, nypd, protests

Another NYPD Terrorist 'Investigation' Turns Up Nothing But Privacy Invasions And Rights Erosion

from the when-all-you-have-an-'elite'-anti-terrorism-squad,-everything-looks-like dept

It's no secret that the "War on Terror" has resulted in little more than steady paychecks for those in the loop and plenty of rights erosion everywhere else. As was detailed earlier this year, the New York Police Department has decided to follow in the clumsy footsteps of the FBI's anti-terrorism efforts, crafting its own "elite" agency (with the help of the CIA) to infiltrate the Muslim community and smoke out terrorists. The end result? Not a single lead generated.

Via Reason comes this Associated Press story about another NYPD anti-terrorism failure. Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bengali descent, was put to work by the NYPD's intelligence unit as an informant, earning $1000 a month in exchange for "baiting" Muslims into making inflammatory statements.

Shamiur Rahman... who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture." He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.

There's nothing like a little leverage in the form of dangling prison sentence to "motivate" your informants into giving you as much "information" as possible, even if most is unverifiable, exaggerated or simply made up. Rahman was no exception:

Police recruited Rahman in late January, after his third arrest on misdemeanor drug charges, which Rahman believed would lead to serious legal consequences. An NYPD plainclothes officer approached him in a Queens jail and asked whether he wanted to turn his life around...

In an Oct. 15 interview with the AP, however, Rahman said he received little training and spied on "everything and anyone." He took pictures inside the many mosques he visited and eavesdropped on imams. By his own measure, he said he was very good at his job and his handler never once told him he was collecting too much, no matter whom he was spying on.

He said he sometimes intentionally misinterpreted what people had said. For example, Rahman said he would ask people what they thought about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, knowing the subject was inflammatory. It was easy to take statements out of context, he said. He said wanted to please his NYPD handler, whom he trusted and liked.

"I was trying to get money," Rahman said. "I was playing the game."

That wasn't all Rahman did. In order to avoid the sentence constantly hanging over his head, he went above and beyond. According to the AP article, Rahman took pictures inside mosques and at events, eavesdropped on imams, spied on the Muslim Student Association at John Jay College, wrote down license plate information and collected cell phone numbers. All of this activity resulted in Rahman drawing this conclusion:

Rahman, who was born in Queens, said he never witnessed any criminal activity or saw anybody do anything wrong.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne refused to comment but has denied widespread spying in the past, insisting that "police only follow leads." It's the sort of statement you expect from a spokesman, even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Even the "targeted" Demographics Unit cast a very wide net, assembling databases on where Muslims lived, shopped and worked and cataloguing every Muslim who adopted an Americanized surname.

Furthermore, former NYPD officials confirmed that the tactics used by Rahman were common. Rahman received little training or instruction, something that may have helped focus his efforts. Of course, if his handlers wanted a wide net cast, the last thing they would have done is give him some guidelines.

The assault on constitutional rights continues, and privacy continues to be violated, all under the dubious heading of "anti-terrorism."

Filed Under: nypd, privacy, terrorism