Egyptian Gov't Arrests Journalist Who Exposed Brutality; Will Use Social Media Suspensions As Evidence Against Him

from the moderated-right-into-a-prison-sentence dept

As in any country, the limits of free speech are determined by the ruling party. While we have a Constitution that (mostly) holds our representatives at bay, many countries only pay lip service to rights they have previously declared inviolable. Egypt's government has long suppressed dissent and strangled communications. It deployed an internet kill switch in 2011, cutting off access to millions of Egyptians. A regime change followed and the former president was fined for nuking the country's internet access.

Despite this power shift, nothing much changed. The current government cares no more for dissent and criticism than the previous one. Egyptian journalist Wael Abbas, who exposed police brutality and government torture, has provided his fellow residents an invaluable service: an unfiltered, ground-level view of government atrocities. His work even resulted in the rare conviction of Cairo police officers.

But he's fought censorship at home -- as well as abroad -- every step of the way. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have all suspended his accounts, supposedly for policy violations. Most of these were reversed after US activists intervened on his behalf, but his accounts are always just another perceived violation away from being shut down permanently.

And that's just on the US side. Egypt's government has tried to silence him on the homefront, convicting him in 2010 for "providing telecommunications service to the public without permission of the authorities." That was under the previous regime -- the one that deployed an internet kill switch to disrupt the communications of its many critics and opponents.

The new regime, as noted above, is no better. As Jillian York reports for the EFF, Abbas has been detained by Egyptian police, apparently for the crime of exposing government misdeeds.

Abbas was taken at dawn on May 23 by police to an undisclosed location, according to news reports which quote his lawyer, Gamal Eid. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported that Abbas was not shown a warrant or given a reason for his arrest. He appeared in front of state security yesterday and was questioned and ordered by prosecutors to be held for fifteen days. According to the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), Abbas was charged with “involvement in a terrorist group”, “spreading false news” and “misuse of social networks.”

The details of the charges really don't matter. Much like "resisting arrest," the charges are catch-all crimes meant to show the charged the importance of kowtowing to public displays of power. Unfortunately, the prosecution -- if it evens needs the help -- will be using actions taken by US social media companies as evidence against Abbas.

It seems clear that the messaging around Abbas' detention is that his arrest was connected to his posts on Facebook and Twitter, and that the prosecution and media are using his suspension by these services as part of the evidence for his guilt.

This is more than merely unfortunate. US social media platforms have played a part in anti-government uprisings around the world. In some cases, platforms have exercised caution when dealing with accounts caught in the middle of government violence, taking extra steps to protect the humans behind pseudonymous accounts. But Abbas has received none of these protections and his documentation of government brutality has resulted in multiple suspensions. The self-proclaimed guardians of worldwide free speech are providing evidence to government censors with their sometimes careless moderation efforts. When you treat certain content as offensive and treat it with blanket moderation policies, you strip the "offensive" content of its context. In cases like this, blanket moderation could mean the difference between freedom and a lengthy prison sentence. If social media platforms want to continue to operate in countries where governments are openly oppressive, they need to do a much better job protecting those who expose government abuse.

Filed Under: arrests, egypt, journalism, social media, wael abbas
Companies: facebook, twitter, youtube

FBI's Bust Of Black Open Carry Advocate Predicated On An InfoWars Video Ends In Dismissed Indictment

from the making-its-terrorism-investigations-look-solidly-grounded dept

The FBI's throwback to its Martin Luther King Jr.-watching heyday has reached the first stop on its way to its eventual nadir. Deciding backlash against violence perpetrated by law enforcement officers had resulted in too many frightening African Americans organizing, the agency decided to place "Black Identity Extremists" under surveillance, claiming this made-up group would "likely" engage in violence against police officers.

So far, the agency has yet to secure a prosecution under this theory of extreme blackness. But it has managed to severely disrupt the life of at least one black male.

Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his 15-year-old son were forced outside of their Dallas home, wearing only underwear.

Handcuffed and shaking in the cold wind, Balogun thought a misunderstanding must have led the FBI to his door on 12 December 2017. The father of three said he was shocked to later learn that agents investigating “domestic terrorism” had been monitoring him for years and were arresting him that day in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police.

"Domestic terrorism" is one of the narratives the FBI trotted out during this abortive investigation and prosecution. The facts leading to Balogun's arrest are almost literally unbelievable. His surveillance is believed to be part of the FBI's recent "Black Identity Extremists" focus. Balogun (born Christopher Daniels) is a black open-carry advocate residing in Texas, where this practice is legal. He attended a protest in Austin, Texas -- one featuring black open carry advocates like himself. Apparently, the FBI decided it needed to play to edges of reality to build a case against the activist.

Daniels, a founding member of both Guerilla Mainframe and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, groups that promote weapons training, fitness, and community service among African Americans, first came under FBI scrutiny in 2015 when he appeared in videos participating in an open-carry rally against police brutality. Footage of the demonstration aired by the right-wing conspiracy website InfoWars showed demonstrators chanting “oink oink bang bang” and “the only good pig is a pig that’s dead.”

The InfoWars video drew the FBI’s attention to Daniels’ social media accounts, according to court documents, where he published what they deemed to be comments advocating for “violence toward law enforcement.”

The FBI admitted the comments it reviewed did not actually advocate for violence against police officers, nor did they contain threats from Daniels himself. But what was the agent supposed to do? Stop looking for reasons to fulfill the FBI's "BIE" fantasy?

Nope, instead the FBI raided Balogun's house to arrest him for possession of a handgun, supposedly because it violated restrictions placed on Balogun following a misdemeanor domestic assault conviction in 2007. This bullshit charge doesn't explain why it took the FBI two years from the viewing of the video (a goddamn InfoWars video, at that) to make its move.

The court tossed the indictment -- two years and one InfoWars video in the making -- because the alleged criminal act wasn't actually a real criminal act.

The indictment was dismissed May 1, when a district court in Texas determined “domestic assault” as codified by Tennessee law does not fit the federal definition of domestic violence that would prohibit him from owning a firearm. Daniels was ultimately released from custody two days later.

But that was two days after Daniels spent six months in jail for a charge the FBI offered up because it couldn't find what it was really looking for: a "Black Identity Extremist" calling for violence against cops. The government couldn't get what it wanted, but rather than call the investigation to a halt, it kept digging around in the federal and state rule books to find anything to use against Balogun. "Rule of law" is a joke -- and so is every government official echoing this empty phrase as the FBI pursues bullshit investigations and handcrafts terrorism suspects for easy prosecutions.

Filed Under: arrests, black identity extremists, civil liberties, civil rights, detention, fbi, open carry, rakem balogun, texas

Louisiana Law Enforcement Has Been Abusing An Unconstitutional Law To Arrest People For Trying To File Complaints

from the very-convenient-knowledge-of-the-law dept

Police officers aren't legal experts. No court expects them to know the intricacies of the laws they're paid to enforce. Close enough is good enough when it comes to pretextual stops, street-level friskings, and other assorted Constitutional skirtings.

But no one but a cop would know the ins and outs of stupid laws left on the books by careless legislators or how to wield them like weapons against those who dare to start hassling The Man. Got a criminal defamation law still laying around? Why not use it to arrest and charge critics gathering a few too many eyeballs to their personal blogs. Any number of charges, from disorderly conduct to "assaulting an officer" can be made to cover "contempt of cop" arrests. And every stupid "Blue Lives Matter" law has been abused at least once, with the oversensitive cops of New Orleans leading the way.

Given that two-thirds of the links above direct you to Louisiana law enforcement officers and officials, it should come as no surprise Louisiana officers are using another bad law to bring criminal charges against people who aren't absolutely enthralled with their law enforcement experience. (via The Watch)

On April 30, 2015, William Aubin Jr. was at home with his wife in Livingston Parish, Louisiana when a patrol car from the sheriff’s office pulled onto his street. The deputy, William Durkin, was there to investigate a reckless driving complaint. Aubin wasn’t involved in the incident but he knew about it and went outside of his home to speak with Durkin. During a vulgar and combative conversation, according to Aubin, Durkin repeatedly called Aubin a “pussy.”

“I’m calling your supervisor,” Aubin said. “I’m gonna get you fired.” Aubin took out his cell phone, called the sheriff’s department, and started walking back towards his house. But before he made it inside, Durkin arrested him. The charge: intimidation of a public official — a felony that in Louisiana carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

This isn't the first time the law's been used to charge someone for attempting to file a complaint. Michael Stein of In Justice Today points out the same charge was leveled against Travis Seals, an arrestee seeking to file a complaint after he was pepper sprayed despite already being handcuffed. Seals got another charge added to his docket: public intimidation.

In both cases, the state DA showed up in court to defend the use of the law to charge citizens looking to file complaints.This law should have been tossed in the legislative trash last year when a federal judge had this to say about it:

In a September 2017 ruling, Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana pilloried the application of the statute in the Aubin case. “The right to criticize the police without risk of arrest distinguishes a democracy from a police state,” he wrote.

The same thing happened in the Seals case. Another federal judge took a look at the law and found it egregiously unconstitutional, considering it could be deployed to arrest people complaining about cops, filing lawsuits against government officials, or voting for the "wrong" public officials.

Anything a public employee could possibly takes offense to can be construed as "intimidation." ANYTHING.

In August 2017, the ACLU condemned the statute after it was used in the case of a Northern Louisiana man who raised his middle finger to a state trooper.

Despite the law's clear lack of constitutionality, the state District Attorney continues to fight for the law's continued existence. So do law enforcement officials. Sheriff Ard -- a defendant in the Aubin lawsuit -- claimed the law was necessary to prevent "threats" from "influencing the behavior of police officers." Seems like better training and better officers would take care of this problem -- especially when the "threat" consists of curse words, extended fingers, and filing complaints.

Despite the legal challenges, the law lingers. It will continue to be abused until it's rewritten or stricken. State prosecutors have already shown their willingness to treat these as criminal violations, rather than law enforcement abusing the law and their position to shut down criticism of police officers.

Filed Under: arrests, complaints, intimidation, intimidation of a public official, louisiana, police

Prosecutors Have Pulled Data From More Than 100 Phones Seized From Inauguration Day Protesters

from the collect-it-all,-sort-it-out-later dept

More than 100 phones taken from arrested Inauguration Day protesters have had their data exfiltrated, apparently in hopes of pinpointing perpetrators of damage and additional (but unarrested) suspects. As Buzzfeed reports, the unusual investigative step doesn't appear to have been hampered by device encryption.

Prosecutors are extracting data from more than 100 locked cell phones seized during arrests in downtown Washington, DC, on President Trump’s Inauguration Day, according to court papers prosecutors filed on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said they had search warrants to pull data from the phones, which were taken from individuals arrested on Inauguration Day, including some who were not indicted. All of the phones were locked, according to the government, “which requires more time-sensitive efforts to try to obtain the data.” But the filing appeared to indicate that they were successful in accessing information on the phones.

Presumably, prosecutors are looking for communications and photos that will nail down charges against protesters who directly caused $100,000 worth of damage. (Or maybe they're just looking for paystubs?) Another clue can be found in the Motion for Protective Order [PDF] filed by the US prosecutor before turning over the data to defendants' lawyers.

The police were able to arrest approximately 230 of the rioters that day; all of them were charged with violating DC. Code 22-1322 (Rioting or inciting to riot). However, many other rioters evaded arrest by forcibly charging police officers and fleeing.

It looks like the government prosecutor isn't satisfied with the 214 indictments it already has. Cell phones of "unindicted arrestees" have also been searched. Unusually, the data collected isn't being separated. Instead, defense attorneys will have all the access prosecutors have: a full dump of everything and the responsibility to sort out what is or isn't relevant to their case.

According to the filings on Wednesday, the government plans to produce the information it collects from the seized phones to the defendants by way of an electronic database that would be made available to defense counsel. The extracted data includes irrelevant personal information, prosecutors said, so they’re seeking an order from the court that would prohibit defense lawyers from copying or sharing information unless it’s relevant to defend their client.

The cell phone searches sound sketchy, especially when law enforcement has apparently acquired 100 cell phone-sized warrants or, worse, one warrant to search them all. The cell phones searches aren't the government's only bulk operation. Prosecutors are also hoping to prosecute in bulk, dividing the 200+ indictees into four categories for faster processing. One of the defense lawyers involved is fighting this move, pointing out the Constitution takes precedence over the government's convenience.

Christopher Mutimer, a defense lawyer representing one of the defendants, told BuzzFeed News by email on Wednesday that he would oppose efforts by the government to hold joint trials.

“These cases should be tried individually in a manner that protects each individual defendant’s constitutional rights,” Mutimer said. “Not in groupings that make the trials most convenient for the government. Grouping individuals for trial creates a danger of wrongful convictions based on guilt by association.”

Other constitutional inconveniences will have to wait as well. The presiding judge hasn't granted the data dump court order yet but has told arrestees any unconstitutional searches will have to be sorted out during their trials, not prior to prosecution. Expect statements of expertise from law enforcement officers where the word "drug dealer" has been replaced with "protester" to explain the likelihood of finding evidence of drug dealing felony rioting on more than 100 seized and searched cell phones.

Filed Under: arrests, exfiltrated, inauguration, investigation, phones

Court Case Management Software Upgrade Results In Bogus Felony Convictions, Wrongful Arrests

from the patch-notes-to-be-entered-as-evidence-in-inevitable-civil-lawsuit dept

Software updates are seldom painless. The history of the Windows operating system is littered with stories of computers/programs bricked by auto-update patches and OS iterations. They're not much fun on the IT end either, especially when businesses depend on functioning computers/programs for pretty much everything. An enterprise-level OS upgrade can take days or weeks -- and that's not counting the aftershocks which continue for months after as every interdependent application finds new and exciting ways to clash with the upgraded system software.

Days, weeks, months chewed up by an upgrade. It's horrible, but hey, at least you're still relatively free to step outside periodically and/or exit the building when you've had enough for one day. It could be much much worse.

Take the example of Andrew.

It was Saturday and he was woken up with a start by his mother. There were four officers at the front door and he was about to be arrested.

"I’d only had four hours sleep and I’m only wearing gym shorts,” he recalled.

“I’m thinking, what happened? I was completely confused.”

Unbeknown to his parents, 24-year-old Andrew - not his real name - had recently finished a six-month drug programme after he was caught in possession of marijuana and ecstasy.

Which is why he was so confused. It was his first offence and he had done the course as asked. A judge had then told him the case had been dismissed.

“I did what I was supposed to."

But the court’s new computer system had other ideas and Andrew was put into a police car and driven off to jail.

The computer system is Odyssey, California's new case management software. So far, attempts to integrate it with the existing system have resulted in multiple rejections of the donor. If this had only resulted in a less smoothly-flowing bureaucracy, that would be one thing. Instead, it's ruining people's lives.

The company behind it -- Tyler Technologies -- calls the transition "challenging." That's one way to put it -- a way that only those not adversely affected by the transition can put it. To those on the receiving end of a raft of new case management errors, the transition can more accurately be described as "nightmarish." In addition to the case described above, the upgrade has resulted in wrongful arrests, incorrectly extended sentences, and misdemeanor offenses being reclassified as felonies.

Nothing on this list of problems could be considered a harmless error. The last one on the list could result in job hunters, prospective tenants, parents in custody battles, etc. being kicked to the curb when their moving violations show up in background check systems as serious felonies.

On the plus [?] side, Odyssey's malfunctioning software has also managed to produce a few criminal justice "winners."

Alameda County is not the only area to have struggled with Odyssey. Similar problems have been reported in Tennessee and also in Indiana - where prosecutors have had a perhaps more troubling issue of inmates being mistakenly released early.

The software will continue to be upgraded and lives will be bricked. Those the software has determined need more time served or felonies added to their record are pretty much on their own. Alameda County public defender Brendon Woods is fielding as many cases as he can, but he seems to be one of the only ones interested in assisting victims of a "challenging" system upgrade. The county itself isn't offering anything to these victims and the software company certainly doesn't want to open itself up to liability by admitting any culpability in this debacle.

The criminal justice system barely works. The last thing it needs is software that makes this even worse.

Filed Under: arrests, case management, felonies, odyssey, software, software updates
Companies: tyler technologies

Stepdad Goes To Police With Stepdaughter's Sexts, Asks Them To Intervene, Is Prosecuted For Child Porn

from the great dept

Sexting continues to be a thing. And, as we have covered various stories revolving around people sending pictures of their naughty bits to one another, much of the consternation in the public tends to be around children partaking in sexting. And I can see their point. While I tend to laugh at prudishness in general, it would probably be best for all involved if underage youngsters weren't texting each other provocative pictures of themselves with reckless abandon.

So what is a parent to do if their children are found to be doing just that? One might think that going to both the child's school and authorities to ask for help in stopping this behavior would be in order, right? Well, for one parent in Australia, doing just that landed him a conviction for child pornography and sex offender registration, even as essentially the entire legal system acknowledged that he was just trying to be a good father.

A man who found out that his 15-year-old stepdaughter was sexting her boyfriend proceeded to download the evidence to bring it to the school and the police to ask them to intervene. Oh dear, readers. You know where this is heading. Intervene they did. Now the dad has been convicted on child pornography charges and placed on the sex offender registry. This, despite the judge understanding exactly why the man, Ashan Ortell, 57, held onto the images.

"There is no suggestion of any exploitation of them by anybody," ruled Judge Jane Patrick, over in Australia, which is becoming as daffy as the United States. "You made no attempt to conceal the images. In fact, you were so concerned that you contacted the authorities about the images."

And then the judge proceeded to levy the conviction for child pornography upon Ortell. Why? Well, because Ortell made copies of the images he'd found his stepdaughter sending around on a USB stick and brought them to the school and police. The police apparently warned him to delete the images or risk prosecution, before reportedly failing to do much at all to address the behavior about which Ortell was concerned. Because of that, he kept the images, ostensibly so that he could address the behavior with other parties that might help him intervene. And that's when he was prosecuted for child pornography.

Let's be clear here: everyone agrees that Ortell did not keep the images for lewd reasons. There is a complete consensus, up to and including the judge who convicted him, that Ortell is merely a concerned parent attempting to do the right thing. Yet here we are. Legal systems routinely take intention into account with regards to charges, prosecutions, and rulings. Yet that failed to happen here, because context and nuance go right out the window when it comes to certain topics that have been overhyped in the public discourse as some kind of impending doomsday. Sexting amongst children is one of those topics.

Need more proof? The local police department has reached out to parents as a result of this whole fiasco with advice that wouldn't have helped in this case.

The ridiculous advice the Victoria police are giving to parents in the wake of this case is: Talk to your children about sexting "and encourage them not to communicate with people they don't know."

Well, okay. How would that have helped? The girl was definitely communicating with someone she did know: her boyfriend. I'm also guessing that talking to your kids about sexting is like talking to them about abstinence. A few may pay heed, but many won't.

The fact that sexualized pictures of "children" (anyone under 18 qualifies in federal child porn statues) are rampant and often consensual should somehow be reflected in the laws. Instead, low-level sex offenses are becoming the low-level drug offenses of this century: Something we overreact to in a charade of concern and, in the process, turn decent people into criminals.

Child pornography is not an issue to be taken lightly, to be sure, but making a mockery of the public's concern by convicting a well-meaning parent isn't the answer to anything at all.

Filed Under: arrests, australia, child porn, police, sexting

Field Drug Tests: The $2 Tool That Can Destroy Lives

from the life-is-cheap dept

It only takes $2 and a few minutes to ruin someone's life. Field tests for drugs are notoriously unreliable and yet they're still considered to be evidence enough to deprive someone of their freedom and start a chain of events that could easily end in joblessness and/or homelessness.

Ryan Gabrielson and Topher Sanders -- writing for the New York Times magazine -- take a detailed look at these field tests, filtered through the experience of Amy Albritton, who spent 21 days in jail thanks to a false positive.

A traffic stop that resulted in a vehicle search turned up an empty syringe and a "suspicious" crumb of something on the floor. The field test said it was crack cocaine. Albritton was taken to a county jail where she spent the next three weeks after pleading guilty to possession, rather than face a trial and a possible sentence of two years.

The crumb of whatever had been sent on to a lab for verification, but with Albritton's guilty plea, there was no hurry to ensure the substance retrieved from Albritton's car was actually illegal. In fact, with the case adjudicated and closed, the evidence could simply have been destroyed. It wasn't. Long after Albritton had been released, the substance was tested.

On Feb. 23, 2011 — five months after Albritton completed her sentence and returned home as a felon — one of Houston’s forensic scientists, Ahtavea Barker, pulled the envelope up to her bench. It contained the crumb, the powder and the still-unexplained syringe. First she weighed everything. The syringe had too little residue on it even to test. It was just a syringe. The remainder of the “white chunk substance” that Officer Helms had tested positive with his field kit as crack cocaine totaled 0.0134 grams, Barker wrote on the examination sheet, about the same as a tiny pinch of salt.

[...]

The powder was a combination of aspirin and caffeine — the ingredients in BC Powder, the over-the-counter painkiller, as Albritton had insisted.

[...]

The crumb’s fragmentation pattern did not match that of cocaine, or any other compound in the lab’s extensive database. It was not a drug. It did not contain anything mixed with drugs. It was a crumb — food debris, perhaps. Barker wrote “N.A.M.” on the spectrum printout, “no acceptable match,” and then added another set of letters: “N.C.S.” No controlled substance identified.

Albritton was innocent, but with a guilty plea, she now had a criminal record. And three weeks in jail turned her life upside down.

Albritton had managed the Frances Place Apartments, a well-maintained brick complex, for two years, and a free apartment was part of her compensation. But as far as the company knew, Albritton had abandoned her job and her home. She was fired, and her furniture and other belongings were put out on the side of the road. “So I lost all that,” she says.

[...]

Albritton gave up trying to convince people otherwise. She focused instead on Landon [her son]. Using a wheelchair, he needed regular sessions of physical and occupational therapy, and Albritton’s career managing the rental complex had been an ideal fit, providing a free home that kept her close to her son while she was at work, and allowing her the flexibility to ferry him to his appointments. But now, because of her new felony criminal record, which showed up immediately in background checks, she couldn’t even land an interview at another apartment complex. With a felony conviction, she couldn’t be approved as a renter either.

As the authors point out, 90% of jurisdictions will allow prosecutors to accept a guilty plea based on nothing more than highly-unreliable field test results. The test used in Albritton's case contains a chemical that turns blue when exposed to cocaine. Unfortunately, it also turns blue when exposed to 80 other legal substances, including acne medicine and household cleaners.

The tests are about as accurate as you'd expect for a $2 test. Differences in ambient temperature can affect test results, as can the alteration of the order in which the three tubes in each test are used. A positive field test is still a long way from being a credible indication of an illegal substance.

In Las Vegas, authorities re-examined a sampling of cocaine field tests conducted between 2010 and 2013 and found that 33 percent of them were false positives. Data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab system show that 21 percent of evidence that the police listed as methamphetamine after identifying it was not methamphetamine, and half of those false positives were not any kind of illegal drug at all. In one notable Florida episode, Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies produced 15 false positives for methamphetamine in the first seven months of 2014.

But they're just good enough to destroy lives.

Fortunately, the article reports a few positive developments. Some people who have pled guilty to possession charges based on field tests have had their convictions overturned when lab tests come back clean. This is after the fact -- sometimes years after the fact -- so it does little to undo the damage already done.

In addition to only allowing someone who's life has been drastically altered to maybe finally make some forward progress, this sort of thing is limited only to those jurisdictions where crime labs are required to test every incoming sample, whether or not a conviction has already been obtained. Very few labs have this requirement. The standard M.O. is to simply destroy "unneeded" evidence if the case has been closed.

The most immediate fix would be to discard the faulty tests and develop something far more precise for field testing. But until that occurs, it seems unlikely law enforcement will abandon a product that allows officers to develop probable cause for drug possession arrests. A more immediate route towards ensuring few wrongful convictions would be to institute a requirement that all field-tested substances be tested by a lab before the prosecution can move forward. Otherwise, the system is basically convicting people on suspicion, rather than actual guilt.

In the county where Albritton was arrested, this change has been made.

Last year, Devon Anderson, the current Harris County district attorney, prohibited plea deals in drug-possession cases before the lab has issued a report.

That's still not enough to prevent the accused's world from falling apart while waiting for a lab test.

The labs issue reports in about two weeks, but defendants typically wait three weeks before they can see a judge — enough time to lose a job, lose an apartment, lose everything.

But it's still better than the alternative: doing nothing. Since this policy was implemented, dismissals are up 31% in the county, thanks to lab tests showing substances seized were not illegal.

Filed Under: accuracy, arrests, drug tests, field drug tests, police

Police Step Up Arrests For 'Threatening' Social Media Posts In The Wake Of The Dallas Shooting

from the civil-liberties-v.-kneejerking dept

In a move that's sure to only increase the nation's respect for law enforcement, police departments have been arresting people for "threatening" social media posts. This activity follows the tragedy in Dallas, where five police officers were killed by a man armed with a rifle. Naomi LaChance of The Intercept has more details.

Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged.

Four more arrests have occurred elsewhere:

Last weekend in Connecticut, police arrested Kurt Vanzuuk after a tip for posts on Facebook that identified Johnson as a hero and called for police to be killed. He was charged with inciting injury to persons or property.

An Illinois woman, Jenesis Reynolds, was arrested for writing in a Facebook post that she would shoot an officer who would pull her over. “I have no problem shooting a cop for simple traffic stop cuz they’d have no problem doing it to me,” she wrote, according to the police investigation. She was charged with disorderly conduct.

In New Jersey, Rolando Medina was arrested and charged with cyber harassment. He allegedly posted on an unidentified form of social media that he would destroy local police headquarters. In Louisiana, Kemonte Gilmore was arrested for an online video where he allegedly threatened a police officer. He was charged with public intimidation.

Arresting people for speech is problematic, especially when the content of the communications doesn't rise to the level of a "true threat." The Supreme Court's Elonis decision says this distinction is important. It's not enough for a person or persons to subjectively view the communication as threatening. It needs to be viewed through the "reasonable person" lens.

In these cases, perception appears to be everything. In the wake of the Dallas shooting, it's entirely normal for police officers to view the world a little differently. But this altered view -- one that's likely to be less skewed as time goes on -- can't be allowed to override the First Amendment and deprive individuals of their freedom to speak, not to mention their actual freedom.

And just as certainly as law enforcement officers and officials are likely to view certain acts of blowhardiness as threatening in the immediate aftermath of a shooting targeting police officers, certain citizens are likely to vent their frustration and anger in particularly stupid ways, but without the intention or ability to carry out the perceived threat. Caution should be exercised on both sides of the interaction. However, those with the power to arrest, detain, and charge citizens for stupidity should be the more cautious of the two parties -- simply because they still hold the power, despite recent events.

Those in power should also take care to carry this out with some sort of consistency, if that's the route they're choosing to take. It can't just be deployed against a bunch of nobodies who mouthed off about their contempt for law enforcement. If this is how it's going to be handled, those who speak with the same rhetoric in defense of law enforcement need to be held accountable. Former congressional rep Joe Walsh tweeted out that this was now "war on Obama" after the Dallas shootings and yet no one showed up at his door to arrest him for threatening the President. It's bad enough that power is being misused to silence criticism of law enforcement violence. It's even worse when this power is deployed in a hypocritical fashion.

Filed Under: arrests, dallas, free speech, law enforcement, police, shootings, social media

Journalists Arrested In Ferguson Promise Not To Promote The Settlement

from the interesting-agreement dept

Back in 2014, as the protests in Ferguson, Missouri were the main story everyone was following, we noted a troubling pattern of police in the area arresting journalists on no basis whatsoever. This happened even after a court told them to knock if off. And yet, the fallout from this is still happening. For reasons that still don't make any sense at all, prosecutors have charged two journalists -- Ryan Reilly and Wesley Lowery -- with trespassing, after they failed to leave a McDonald's fast enough (they were leaving, just apparently not fast enough).

Back in March, St. Louis County "accidentally" issued arrest warrants for the two of them: They eventually were told the warrants were issued in error, but it still shows how ridiculous this situation became. Finally, on Thursday, officials announced that they were dropping the charges against Reilly and Lowery, in exchange for a promise that the two will not sue the county.

Meanwhile, some other journalists who had been detained had already filed a lawsuit over the unlawful detention and, on Wednesdsay, it was announced that a settlement has been reached in which law enforcement officers will receive more training. While the official details of the settlement were "confidential," the Huffington Post got a copy of the settlement using a FOIA request and found some interesting details, including an agreement that none of the four journalists in question will "publicize" the agreement in any way:

Under the deal, Ryan Devereaux, Lukas Hermsmeier, Ansgar Graw and Frank Herrmann cannot “take any steps to publicize any of the terms” of the settlement. The agreement requires St. Louis County to pay $75,000 to resolve the federal civil rights lawsuit from the reporters, but like many settlements does not require the county to admit liability.

The agreement, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post through a public records request, will also require all officers with the police department to undergo mandatory in-service training on media access and the right to record police activity.

Of course, it shouldn't take a lawsuit for police to learn about the right of anyone (not just the press!) to record police activity. And, even though this information is getting out anyway, it seems pretty ridiculous that part of this settlement has this kind of gag order. These people are reporters. Their whole focus is on sharing and spreading information. It sounds like the St. Louis County Police Dept. must have really wanted to try to keep this settlement quiet... and now that's backfiring too. Maybe it should just stop trying to arrest and muzzle the press.

Filed Under: arrests, ferguson, freedom of the press, missouri, ryan reilly, settlements, wesley lowery