California Court Says New Records Law Covers Past Police Misconduct Records

from the your-tax-dollars-hard-at-work-hiding-stuff-from-taxpayers dept

The battle over public records in California continues. A new law made records of police misconduct releasable to the public, kicking off predictable legal challenges from law enforcement agencies not accustomed to accountability.

These agencies believe the law isn't retroactive. In essence, they think the passage of the law allows them to whitewash their pasts by only providing records going forward from the law's enactment. None other than the law's author, Senator Nancy Skinner, has gone on record -- with a letter to the Senate Rules Committee and the state Attorney General's office -- stating the law applies retroactively.

This has been ignored by the state AG, who has stated in records request denials that he believes the law can't touch pre-2019 misconduct files. This is exactly what agencies challenging the law want to hear. Unfortunately for them, they've just been handed a loss by a California court.

A Contra Costa County judge on Friday refused to block public access to records of police misconduct that occurred before California’s new transparency law took effect, the first ruling in a string of police-backed lawsuits filed across the state.

Judge Charles Treat said it seemed unlikely the suing law enforcement unions would prevail on the merits while dumping the unions' requested injunction. He pointed out the new law has no impact on past misconduct. All it does is make those records available to the public.

“If it was illegal in 2018, it’s illegal in 2019,” Treat said. “It doesn’t change the legal principles applicable to anyone’s conduct.”

This was said in response to the unions' argument that the release of old records would introduce new liabilities for officers. The availability of records may make it easier to sue officers, but it doesn't change the fact they were always potentially liable for misconduct. It just used to be a lot easier to hide this misbehavior from the public.

The impact of this bench ruling is muted by Treat blocking his own unblocking for another ten days to allow the union to appeal his decision.

There's a chance this ruling will be overturned, despite Sen. Skinner's clarification. And it's not the only legal battle being waged over the new transparency. Multiple agencies are suing in multiple counties and it's probably going to take a trip to the state Supreme Court to resolve the issue.

These agencies may state publicly they believe the law isn't retroactive, but their actions say something different. The Inglewood PD went so far as to get permission from the city council to shred all pre-2019 misconduct records prior to the law's enactment date. As a local attorney points out, why would they have bothered if they felt the law would only affect records generated after January 1, 2019?

First Amendment and police misconduct attorney Matthew Strugar predicted the unions’ challenge will ultimately fail.

[...]

Cities, too, had expected SB 1421 to disclose existing records, Strugar said. “Why was Inglewood running its shredding machines 24/7 before the New Year?” he asked.

It's a question no cop or city legislator in Inglewood wants to answer. Thanks to their cooperative effort, the likelihood of the PD being sued over unreleased misconduct is almost nil… easy to do when there's nothing left to sue over.

Filed Under: california, foia, nancy skinner, police discipline, public records, retroactive, transparency

Author Of California's Public Records Law: The Law Covers Old Police Misconduct Files, Not Just The New Ones

from the stick-that-in-your-deliberate-obtuseness,-PD-officials dept

For the first time in years, California police misconduct records are accessible by the public. There's a huge asterisk on that sentence because, so far, law enforcement agencies have been unwilling to hand them over.

One police department decided to purge all of its old records before the law went into effect, mooting the question with a questionable memory-holing. Other agencies have told requesters the law isn't retroactive, pretending the law says something it doesn't. A sheriff's union tried to force the question by petitioning the state's supreme court, but the court declined the opportunity to clarify the law's ability to open up records of past misconduct.

At this point it's clear PDs aren't interested in complying with the new law. They'll sit on records until they're forced out of their hands by lawsuits. This isn't how transparency is supposed to work. The law wasn't a History Eraser button for old files and it certainly isn't there to assist PDs in withholding documents they're definitely obligated to turn over to the public.

Most law enforcement agencies appear to believe the law hit the reset on misconduct records, ordering them only to release records created past the point the law went into effect (January 1st, 2019). Again, the law says nothing about it only affecting records going forward, but since it doesn't say anything specifically about past misconduct records, law enforcement agencies will continue to pretend it doesn't affect those until courts tell them otherwise.

Whenever the courts take up the question, they'll have to examine the bill-making process and the law itself to determine its legislative intent. The law doesn't have to specifically order the release of pre-2019 documents if it's clear legislators intended the law to be retroactive. Fortunately for those suing PDs over withheld documents, the legislation's author has decided to clear the air on the law police departments are conveniently and deliberately misunderstanding.

In a one-page letter to the state Senate Rules Committee, Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), sought to clarify the intent of the law, which opens up records of shootings by officers, severe uses of force and confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying by officers.

In the letter obtained by The Times, Skinner said any relevant discipline records kept by a government agency should be disclosed under the new law, which was approved last year.

“Therefore, it is my understanding in enacting SB 1421 that the change in the law applies to all disclosable records whether or not they existed prior to the date the statute went into effect,” Skinner wrote. “This is the standard practice for public records legislation in California.”

We'll see how quickly this letter results in the lifting of the temporary restraining order secured by Contra Costa law enforcement agencies, which are being sued by California newspapers for refusing to turn over historical misconduct files. There doesn't seem to be any room for misunderstanding in Skinner's letter. But if anyone's incapable of understanding crystal clear laws, it's law enforcement agencies.

Filed Under: california, foia, nancy skinner, police, police misconduct, public records, retroactive

UK Forum Hands Out Public Records Request-Dodging Guidance To Over 100 Government Agencies

from the keep-calm-and-redact-fully dept

Freedom of information laws have given the public a peek inside the government agencies that were always supposed to be accountable to the public. Obviously, these laws have never been welcomed by government agencies. Plenty of documents have been released showing just how much of your tax dollars governments are wasting. But some of the most frustrating wastes are the tax dollars expended to keep documents out of the public's hands.

Most of that spending takes the form of playing defense against public records lawsuits. But some of it comes from preventative steps taken to keep as much information away from citizens as possible. Andrew Norton points us to a document leaked to a Kent (UK) press outlet which instructs Kent government entities how to keep the public as unaware as possible of the government's Brexit contingency plans.

The report - marked as ‘sensitive’ and updated last month - cited guidance issued by DExEU that councils and other organisations should refuse Freedom of Information requests about emergency planning and in some circumstances should not even confirm whether they hold information.

In a section headed “How to respond to Brexit-related FOI Requests” the report says Local Resilience Forums or individual partner organisations that receive FOI requests should respond by saying disclosure would not be in the public interest as it “would undermine the effective conduct of public affairs.”

Where requests were about specific details about plans on a particular subject or relevant to an area, the authority should refuse to even confirm or deny if it held information.

Included in the non-transparency packet were fill-in-the-blank boilerplate FOI reject forms, giving agencies a more efficient means of walking away from their obligations to the public. If vague wording about "undermining effective conduct" might appear to be insufficient to guarantee opacity, the template also contained blanket statements to justify the deployment of a UK Glomar.

Considering the percentage of the Kent public affected by the Brexit (roughly 100%), details about contingency plans would be the very definition of "public interest." And yet, the Kent government figures the less people know, the easier it will be to do things the public possibly wouldn't support. The blanket of opacity the Kent Resilience Forum has spread is impressive. According to Kent Online, the Forum consists of over 100 government organizations, including law enforcement, emergency services, and national security agencies. That's a lot of people implicitly agreeing to lock the public out of the Brexit discussion -- none of which felt compelled to speak out against the Forum's guidance.

Filed Under: guidance, public records, transparency, uk

Oregon Lawmaker Wants Public Records Requesters To Tell Gov't Agencies What They Plan To Do With Released Documents

from the we'll-decide-what's-acceptable-use dept

As if government agencies needed any new ways to thwart accountability and transparency. Oregon legislators are introducing a host of alterations to the state's public records law, but one of those looks like nothing more than an easily-abusable tool to be wielded against public records requesters. Jessie Gomez of MuckRock has more details:

Senate Bill 609, sponsored by Senator Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) at the request of former Representative Deborah Boone, would require requesters to disclose the intended use for records being requested with any state agency. Boone believes the bill would help eliminate requests that [seek] personal information.

“There are so many requests for emails and texts, sometimes tens of thousands, that require hours of someone’s time to research and at present the requestor does not have to disclose what they intend to do with the information,” said Boone via email to MuckRock.

What Boone appears to be concerned about is public records requesters obtaining documents containing personal info and using this info to… well, it's kind of left up to the imagination Here's another quote from Boone that doesn't do much to clear up the bill's purpose.

It seems reasonable to ask that the requestor to disclose what they intend to do with the information, some of which can be of a personal nature.

It actually isn't reasonable to ask this question. There may be an extremely tiny subset of records requesters who seek to extract personal info from public records to engage in harassment or some other form of criminal activity. But it seems someone doing this wouldn't be honest about their intentions even if required to inform a government agency about their plans for the requested documents.

What it will do is allow agencies to unilaterally refuse to release documents to requesters who give them reasons they don't like. The bill doesn't even hint at what would be considered unacceptable use for public records, which means agencies are free to explore the outer limits of the undefined term, leaving requesters with little recourse but lengthy appeals and expensive litigation.

Even better (from the perspective of public servants who dislike serving the public), agencies will be able to compile secret blacklists from which to serve up request rejections, claiming the requester's stated reason for seeking documents is not one of the ones they find acceptable.

Rep. Boone is leaving her office so this is a parting gift for the government she's leaving behind. Don't think it will survive a Constitutional challenge if it ever becomes law, but for now, it's a turd floating in legislative stream.

The stream's not completely ruined, though. There's some good news for records requesters as well.

Other bills include reducing request fees by 50 percent for news media, prohibiting the use of personal email for official business, and awarding attorney fees when agencies fail to respond to record requests.

The best thing the legislature could do is send Boone's bill to her home address postage-due.

Filed Under: betsy johnson, deborah boone, foia, intended use, journalism, oregon, public records, research

California Town OKs Destruction Of Police Shooting Records Days Before They Could Be Obtained By The Public

from the cops-and-the-people-that-serve-them dept

California has long protected police officers from accountability. Most police misconduct records are impossible to obtain via public records requests. The restrictions covering these personnel files even prevent defense attorneys and prosecutors from accessing them, allowing cops with lousy track records for telling the truth present testimony as if they've never committed a misdeed or told a lie.

After years of legislative surrender to police union pressure and an overall deference to all things law enforcement, this year's model finally managed to get a records reform bill to land on the governor's desk. The new law goes into effect January 1, 2019, opening up access to a number of records Californians have never seen.

Under SB-1421, law enforcement agencies are required to provide public access to records related to use of force, sexual assault complaints, and dishonesty in investigations and reporting of a crime.

Faced with impending accountability, police departments are readying themselves for mass releases of previously withheld data. Oh, wait. The opposite of that.

Inglewood City Council approved the destruction of records that have been in the police department’s possession — more than 100 cases — longer than required by law. The city staff report and council resolution describing the action makes no mention of the new police transparency law. Instead it says the affected records are “obsolete, occupy valuable space, and are of no further use to the police department.” It added the traditional method of destroying such records is to shred them.

Yes, it's merely a coincidence that records the Inglewood PD has held onto for years -- "longer than required by law" -- are being destroyed days before the new transparency law goes into effect. It's all so innocent and devoid of subterfuge the city council did it in secret with zero public notice or input.

No video or audio of the Dec. 11 council action is available on the city’s website and neither are meeting minutes or any record of the decision.

It affects far more than records the PD has retained for years. The authorization from the Inglewood council will allow the PD to destroy all Internal Affairs investigations from 2004-2012 and all Use of Force reports from 2015-2016.

The mayor continues to argue this is all routine city business and has nothing to do with the mandatory transparency going into effect January 1.

“It’s actually quite routine for us to do records destruction,” [Mayor James T. Butts Jr.] told ABC 7’s Eyewitness News. “The Finance Department, the Police Department and other entities — whenever they want to destroy records that exceed a time limit — they submit a staff report to the City Council and the City Council approves or disapproves the records destruction.”

No doubt this statement is true. But this move, with this timing, does nothing to restore years of shattered trust. The Inglewood PD has stonewalled the public for two years, refusing to release info about the killing of two residents by police officers who encountered them passed out in a parked vehicle. The PD was also investigated by the DOJ, which found officers routinely deployed excessive force and were overseen by department management that often cleared officers of wrongdoing after little or no investigation.

The PD's decision to destroy records it has held onto for years only days before they may have become publicly-accessible only further adds to the "bunker mentality" perception noted in the DOJ's investigation. The PD wishes to remain a closed shop despite the new law. This move -- and the city's approval -- lets residents know the city isn't interested in accountability or transparency, no matter what the new law says.

Filed Under: california, inglewood, inglewood city council, inglewood police department, police shootings, public records, record destruction, sb-1421, transparency

Inspector General: FBI Lost Six Months Of Important Text Messages Because Its Retention System Sucks

from the all-the-smart-people-at-the-agency-etc dept

It's great to know the FBI wants encryption broken so it can forensically molest any devices in its possession to find the mother lode of culpatory evidence these devices always contain. ("Always," you ask? The FBI irritatedly taps the word "always" repeatedly in response.)

The reason this is such good news is that the FBI can't even manage to reliably extract content from phones it issues to agents and other personnel. If you can't expertly handle data migration/storage from phones in your control at all times, how badly are you going to bungle forensic evidence extraction at scale if the government ever green lights encryption backdoors?

The DOJ Inspector General has just released a report [PDF] detailing its investigation of missing text messages sent by two agents at the center of a Congressional hearing about supposed biased behavior during the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton and Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump. Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page exchanged text messages expressing their dislike of Trump and made some comments suggesting they would do something to harm his presidential chances. Critics believed this showed these agents -- if not the agency itself -- were guided by political bias when investigating Trump's ties with Russia.

Maybe there was more to this than there first appeared to be. Thousands of text messages from the agents' devices went missing -- a gap that stretched from December 2016 to May 2017. The Inspector General's office used forensic tools to recover roughly 19,000 text messages from the two phones. The culprit appears to be standard operating procedure rather than a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence.

Strzok and Page had each returned their DOJ-issued iPhones six months earlier when their assignments to the SCO (Special Counsel's Office) had ended. The OIG was told that the DOJ issued iPhone previously assigned to Strzok had been re-issued to another FBI agent… CYBER obtained a forensic extraction of the iPhone previously assigned to Strzok; however, this iPhone had been reset to factory settings and was reconfigured for the new user...

The same thing happened to Page's phone. It was reset in July 2017 by personnel at the DOJ's Justice Management Decision. It hadn't been issued to another agent but it had been restored in preparation for reassignment.

Resetting phones just makes sense. Nothing about the FBI's handling of records its supposed to be retaining does. Text messages are official communications. They're subject to public records requests and they're often responsive to subpoenas in criminal cases. Wiping a phone without ensuring existing communications have been backed up is monumentally stupid and possibly illegal.

To the agency's credit, it does try to retain these communications before resetting issued devices. The problem is its tool works poorly. As does its management:

FBI Assistant General Counsel [redacted for some fucking reason] informed OIG that there does not appear to be a directive for preservation of texts by ESOC [Enterprise Security Operations Center], but that ESOC retains text messages as a matter of practice.

Define "retain" and "matter of practice" in the context of a six-month gap of non-retention of Strzok/Page text messages. I guess it's the thought that counts?

[E]SOC could not provide a specific explanation for the failure in the FBI's text message collection relating to Strzok's and Page's S5 phones…

ESOC did offer up a set of possible explanations for the failure, none of which are reassuring. First, it could have been a bug reported by the vendor in 2016 but not fixed until March 2017. The application itself could have been misconfigured. The application may not have been compatible with device software updates.

Efforts were made to mitigate the issue. But those failed as well. The FBI phased out Samsung S5s and replaced them with S7s. Nothing changed but the phone model.

[A]ccording to FBI's Information and Technology Branch, as of November 15, 2018, the data collection tool utilized by FBI was still not reliably collecting text messages from approximately 10 percent of FBI issued mobile devices…

That the OIG was able to recover thousands of messages from forensic extraction and scouring the FBI's enterprise database isn't really good news. It's unlikely the FBI will make the same effort when hit with discovery demands and it already won't thoroughly search databases it has full access to when responding to FOIA requests. So, records are going to go missing and it won't be until the OIG steps in that any effort will be made to find the missing records, much less take a good look at the broken processes that caused them to go missing in the first place.

Filed Under: data retention, fbi, inspector general, lisa page, peter strzok, public records, text messages

FCC Commissioner Accuses Her Own Agency Of A Net Neutrality Cover Up

from the ill-communication dept

We've long discussed how the Pai FCC's net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (like myself) had their identities used to support Pai's unpopular plan, as did several Senators. Numerous journalists have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

But the Pai FCC has repeatedly tried to tap dance around FOIA requests, leading to several journalists (including those at the New York Times and Buzzfeed) suing the FCC. Despite the Times' lawyers best efforts to work with the FCC to tailor the nature of their requests over a period of months, the agency continues to hide behind FOIA exemptions that don't really apply here: namely FOIA exemption 6 (related to protecting privacy) and 7E (related to protecting agency security and law enforcement activity).

And while the Times and Buzzfeed had appealed the FCC's ruling, the FCC this week released a memorandum and order formally denying those requests. In it, the FCC doubles down on the claims that it's simply blocking the release of this data because it's super worried about the privacy of FCC commenters (though again, if you actually read the Times lawsuit, you'll note the FCC was utterly inflexible in terms of narrowing down the scope of requests).

FCC lawyers also try to make the amusing claim that the press really doesn't need this data because there's other investigations (including one at the GAO) trying to get to the bottom of the scandal:

"Confessore proffers a putative public interest in understanding the integrity of the Commission’s comment process. This question, however, is being or has already been examined by other press outlets,51 Commission staff, and the Government Accountability Office, among others. Confessore has not provided us with any reason to believe that his review of this data would significantly advance any public interest beyond the investigations that are already underway."

Of course this is the same FCC that has also actively blocked law enforcement efforts to get to the bottom of the scandal, refusing nine inquiries from the NY AG over a period of five months for additional data. So while the Pai FCC breathlessly claims it's all about transparency and integrity, their actions on this subject (and that whole fake DDOS attack they concocted in a weird bid to downplay public backlash) tend to undermine these claims.

Meanwhile, Pai's fellow Commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, has certainly taken off the gloves in recent weeks. She hit Twitter and issued a statement that effectively accused her own agency of engaging in a cover up of fraudulent activity:

Her full statement (pdf) is also worth a read, and doesn't pull any punches:

"Instead of providing news organizations with the information requested, in this decision the FCC decides to hide behind Freedom of Information Act exemptions and thwart investigative journalism. In doing so, the agency asserts an overbroad claim about the security of its public commenting system that sounds no more credible than its earlier and disproven claim that the system was the subject of distributed denial of service attack. It appears this agency is trying to prevent anyone from looking too closely at the mess it made of net neutrality. It is hiding what it knows about the fraud in our record and it is preventing an honest account of its many problems from seeing the light of day.

Pai's justification for the FOIA blockade tries very heavily to insist this is all just unfair partisan gamesmanship. But at this juncture his FCC's record when it comes to transparency, blatant telecom sector cronyism, and bizarre scandals has pretty much been established. This is an agency that not only used bullshit telecom lobbyist data to undermine policies that had broad, bipartisan public support, it has been rocked by scandal after scandal, fought tooth and nail against real transparency on numerous fronts, and has refused to give any real weight to the will of the tech-savvy public.

Pai comes off as an unwavering ideologue who truly seems to believe he's doing an incredible job of "unleashing innovation" despite every shred of evidence to the contrary (not unlike the man who appointed him to the position). Unfortunately for Pai, whose post-FCC political ambitions couldn't be any more obvious, his legacy will likely be the giant middle finger he's given to tech-savvy Millennials. As for the fake comments specifically, they're likely to play a starring role in next February's net neutrality lawsuits, which will look to prove the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by ignoring the will of the public as it rushed to give AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast a sloppy kiss for the ages.

Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fake comments, fcc, foia, jessica rosenworcel, net neutrality, public records, transparency

Public Records Law Reforms Still Haven't Made Massachusetts Any Less Of A Hellhole For Records Requesters

from the appears-the-massholishness-goes-all-the-way-to-the-top dept

Nearly a third of the official guide to public records requests published by the state of Massachusetts is given over to exemptions. That should give records requesters some idea of what they're in for when tangling with the state's agencies.

The state has developed a reputation for being a public records black hole that sucks in requests but never spits anything back out. MuckRock has a detailed post about one agency -- the Medford Police Department -- that appears, for the most part, to simply ignore requests it doesn't feel like fulfilling.

MuckRock records show that the agency consistently fails to acknowledge and fulfill requests, sometimes for years and despite appeals to the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. Its failure to comply with even the updated legislation highlights the shortcomings that remain in enforcement mechanisms for citizens entitled to government information.

This means the nonprofit is burning up man hours attempting to communicate with the MPD's brick wall.

The oldest pending request, dating back to April 2013, had 112 email follow-ups that were sent to an officer who, at some point since initial submission, had left the department; these were followed by 14 fax follow-up messages to a currently valid office fax number.

If there's an exemption that can be used, it will be used. Up until recently, the state had the worst public records laws in the nation. And it looks like they're still the worst. This has allowed a state agency to claim a 63-year-old murder case investigation was still ongoing, despite the lead suspect having died years ago. In another case, the State Police took $180 from a requester and then refused to hand over the records requested.

The recently instituted public records law reforms don't seem to be having much of an effect on state agency responsiveness. MuckRock is reporting law enforcement agencies continue to be the main offenders, upholding the proud police tradition of ignoring laws officers and officials don't like.

This leads to insane, if not illegal, responses to records requests. Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe requested a photo of an officer and detective employed by the Boston Police Department. It rejected his request citing public records exemption f, which claimed the staff photos were "investigatory materials." When Wallack challenged this determination, the BPD responded with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

BPD couldn’t explain exactly how this exemption applied to the records in question. And so, the Supervisor of Public Records ordered the Department to fulfill the request. But with a lack of enforcement options from the SPR, it is still to be determined if the Department will comply or not.

The Supervisor of Public Records is an especially useless position, but one that meshes well with the state government's antagonistic take on transparency. The SPR makes the initial call on disputed records requests, but cannot, as a matter of law, force an agency to turn over records if the SPR determines the government agency is in the wrong. All the SPR can do is kick it up to the Attorney General for another determination. This escalation is completely at the discretion of the SPR, who is required by law to escalate reports of non-compliance by state agencies.

In essence, state and local agencies are being told "wait til your dad gets home" when they lose appeals, but without any estimate on when dad will be home or if he's even interested in handling these issues whenever the hell he actually gets back.

Here's how the state suggests requesters deal with Massachusett's effed-up public records laws. This comes directly from Secretary of State spokesperson Debra O'Malley.

“Sometimes requesters opt to sue because they might be more successful and it’s faster,” said O’Malley.

I'm sure O'Malley means well and is probably accurately portraying the near-farcical situation. But the government shouldn't be pushing citizens into lawsuits over public records. The presumption is supposed to be openness, not schoolyard taunts of "make me." But that's where the state remains, even after public records reform: a drain on taxpayers both ways, whether screwing them out of records or paying legal fees with taxpayer funds at the end of the apparently inevitable lawsuits.

Filed Under: boston police department, foia, massachusetts, medford police department, public records

EFF, ACLU Petition Court To Unseal Documents From DOJ's Latest Anti-Encryption Efforts

from the talk-to-us,-DOJ dept

Back in August, the DOJ headed to court, hoping to obtain some of that sweet sweet anti-encryption precedent. Waving around papers declaring an MS-13 gang conspiracy, the DOJ demanded Facebook break encryption on private Messenger messages and phone calls so the government could eavesdrop. Facebook responded by saying it couldn't do that without altering -- i.e., breaking -- Messenger's underlying structure.

Not that breaking a communications platform would give the FBI any sleepless nights. Worthless encryption is better than good encryption when it comes to demanding the content of communications or, as in this case, operating as the unseen man-in-middle when suspected gang members chatted with each other.

Unfortunately (for the FBI), this ended in a demurral by the federal court. The details of the court's decision are, just as unfortunately, unknown. Reuters was able to obtain comments from "insiders familiar with the case," but the public at large is still in the dark as to how all of this turned out.

The EFF and ACLU are hoping to change that.

In our petition filed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, EFF, the ACLU, and Riana Pfefferkorn of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society seek to shed light on this important issue. We’re asking the court to release all court orders and related materials in the sealed Messenger case.

Given the importance of encryption in widely used consumer products, it is a matter of public interest any time law enforcement tries to compel a company to circumvent its own security features.

The petition [PDF] points out the First Amendment guarantees access to courtroom proceedings and the courts are supposed to adhere to this by operating with a presumption of openness. Only in rare, rare cases should they side with the government and allow the public to be cut out of the loop by sealing documents.

This is doubly true in cases of significant public interest. Any time the DOJ is in court agitating for broken encryption, it's safe the say the public will be affected by the case's outcome. At this point, we don't know anything more than the DOJ didn't get what it wanted. What we don't know is why, or what impact the ruling here will have on similar cases in the future. And we should know these details because, if nothing else, the FBI has proven it cannot be trusted to deal with device encryption honestly.

Filed Under: breaking encryption, compelled access, doj, encryption, facebook messenger, fbi, going dark, ms-13, public records, sealed court documents, transparency
Companies: facebook

Harvard Opens Up Its Massive Caselaw Access Project

from the good-to-see dept

Almost exactly three years ago, we wrote about the launch of an ambitious project by Harvard Law School to scan all federal and state court cases and get them online (for free) in a machine readable format (not just PDFs!), with open APIs for anyone to use. And, earlier this week, case.law officially launched, with 6.4 million cases, some going back as far as 1658. There are still some limitations -- some placed on the project by its funding partner, Ravel, which was acquired by LexisNexis last year (though, the structure of the deal will mean some of these restrictions will likely decrease over time).

Also, the focus right now is really on providing this setup as a tool for others to build on, rather than as a straight up interface for anyone to use. As it stands, you can either access data via the site's API, or by doing bulk downloads. Of course, the bulk downloads are, unfortunately, part of what's limited by the Ravel/LexisNexis data. Bulk downloads are available for cases in Illinois and Arkansas, but that's only because both of those states already make cases available online. Still, even with the Ravel/LexisNexis limitation, individual users can download up to 500 cases per day.

The real question is what will others build with the API. The site has launched with four sample applications that are all pretty cool.

• H2O is a tool that law professors can use to easily create casebooks for students in various areas of law. Anything published on H2O gets a Creative Commons license and can then be shared widely. I wonder if professors like Eric Goldman, who offers an Internet Law Casebook, or James Grimmelmann, who has a different Internet Law Casebook, will eventually port them over to a platform like H2O.
• A wordcloud app that currently shows the "most used words" in California cases in various years. Here, for example, are the word clouds in California cases from 1871... and 2012. See if you can tell which one's which.

   

• Caselaw Limericks that appears to randomly generate what it believes is a rhyming limerick from the case law. Here's what I got:

Her son Julius is a confirmed thief.
He did not turn over a new leaf.
The vessel, not.
the parking lot.
Respondent concedes this in its brief.

The quality overall is... a bit mixed. But it's fun.

• And, finally, in time for Halloween, Witchcraft in Law, which totals up cases that cite "witchcraft" by state.

Hopefully this inspires a lot more on the development side as well.

Filed Under: caselaw, caselaw access project, legal data, public info, public records, transparency
Companies: harvard, lexisnexis, ravel