Phony Bologna: More Evidence Of Indiscriminate Pepper Spraying, As Police Defend Actions

from the just-admit-he-screwed-up dept

NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna remains in the news, even as the NYPD ramped up their "arrest the protesters" campaign this weekend. After all of the video evidence that he randomly pepper sprayed some women at the OccupyWallStreet protests, the NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that the Internal Affair Bureau would open an investigation into the actions. But at the same time, he defended Bologna's actions. Of course, at about the same time he was doing this, a second video came out, once again showing Bologna appearing to indiscriminately pepper spray people, including a credentialed photojournalist (wearing his credentials around his neck). So how is Kelly defending this? First, he blames the protesters for "tumultuous conduct." I've already said that I don't really think much of the overall protest, but the video evidence doesn't suggest that those who were pepper sprayed were involved in any such "tumultuous conduct." Later Kelly said that the group was "disorderly" and "intent on blocking traffic," and that could justify the use of pepper spray. That seems like a huge stretch. Again, the individuals who were sprayed appear to have been chosen at random.

The NYPD Deputy Inspector Roy Richter, who is basically Bologna's "union representative" is defending Bologna's actions thusly:

“Deputy Inspector Bologna's actions that day were motivated by his concern for the safety of officers under his command and the safety of the public. The limited use of pepper spray effectively restored order without any escalation of force or serious injury to either demonstrator or police officer.”

Someone else at the police department had another cover story:

A law enforcement official familiar with Inspector Bologna’s account of what occurred, however, said he was not aiming at the four women who appeared in videos to have sustained the brunt of the spray. Rather, he was trying to spray some men who he believed were pushing up against officers and causing a confrontation that put officers at risk of injury, the official said.

"The intention was to place them under arrest, but they fled," the official said.

Given how many videos of the scene and surrounding areas have been shown, it's amazing anyone can claim that with a straight face. There was no indication of these "others." There was no indication of any attempt to arrest others near the women. If Bologna was aiming at these mythical men, he's a terrible shot, because he hit those women he wasn't aiming for point blank.

In the meantime, the folks at USLaw.com remind us that Bologna wasn't the only police officer using random "escalation" techniques. They point out this video of an NYPD officer purposely tripping a protester who already appeared to be in the control of multiple officers. Of course, the act of tripping the guy makes it look like he's trying to resist arrest. Of course, once again, all of this is caught on video. It really makes you wonder if all of this kind of video evidence is finally going to lead police to recognize that they actually have to behave and follow the law themselves.

Filed Under: anthony bologna, evidence, nypd, occupy wall street

Does The NYPD Really Think That Shooting Photos/Videos Of Protests Is 'Disorderly Conduct?'

from the censorship-at-its-finest dept

The mess in NYC with the way the NYPD are handling the whole "Occupy Wall Street" situation continues. We've already covered the story of the police falsely claiming that video evidence of an incident where an officer (Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna) pepper sprayed women did not show the full story. In those posts, we highlighted the importance of photographic and video evidence from people around the incident, and noted how important the right to film police is for a functioning democracy. Now there's increasing evidence that the NYPD targeted people reporting on, videotaping or filming the police, in making a bunch of arrests.

Reporter John Farley, working for WNET MetroFocus -- which is part of New York's PBS station -- wrote the story after being arrested himself, on "disorderly conduct" charges. What was his disorderly conduct? Apparently it was attempting to interview some of those women who were pepper sprayed by Bologna. He properly identified himself to the police as a reporter, but they did not care. He was still arrested and spent nine hours in custody. While some of the others in custody with him were, in fact, protestors, some were merely bystanders trying to record what was going on. He notes two such stories. The first is of a guy who was working at a cafe right by the pepper spray incident:

The arrest of my cell mate, Sam Queary, 24, adds another dimension to the issue: that of the inadvertent, spontaneous citizen journalist. Queary happened to be at work at Grey Dog Cafe near Union Square when the protesters marched by.

“I heard a commotion and went outside to find cops macing women and arresting people and hitting people with nightsticks, so I started taking pictures,” said Queary. “I followed a young, black male as he was being accosted by five cops. As I tried to take a picture I was pushed away. I asked why I was pushed away and then the next thing you know I was being judo flipped.”

The second involved a woman who just pulled out her camera phone as events were unfolding in front of her, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the protest:

I also met Rosa A., 33, in the police van while we were being transported to the 1st Precinct for processing. She had been shopping at the Barnes and Noble on Union Square when she saw the protesters outside. As many New Yorkers do when they see something unusual, she snapped a picture. And she was arrested.

“I’ve never been arrested,” said Rosa A., in visible pain from the plastic handcuffs. “I was just there looking at magazines.” She laughed, lightening the mood in the police van. Even our arresting officer, in the van with us, chuckled.

While an NYPD spokesperson has been telling the press that police did not target those with cameras, it's hard to understand any other reason for those three people being arrested and charged. Besides, given the fact that NYPD spokespeople talking about this incident have already had their credibility destroyed by the video evidence, it's tough to take those claims seriously. Even if the police weren't officially targeting people with cameras, as Farley noted, they didn't seem to make any attempt to distinguish protesters from bystanders or press:

I don’t know precisely why I was arrested, though I have been charged with disorderly conduct. But what I realized is that in a sudden burst of urban chaos, how can the police distinguish between passersby and protesters who may be committing civil disobedience or any other type of punishable offense? Or between citizen journalists and professional journalists?

In the past, we've seen police use "disorderly conduct" charges against those who film them. It's a nice catch-all that police can use to arrest almost anyone. Perhaps we should be looking to fix the law that allows arrests on "disorderly conduct" when such a law seems to be regularly abused by police to target those who are respecting the law, but doing things the police just don't like?

Filed Under: anthony bologna, disorderly conduct, evidence, journalism, nypd, occupy wall street

Can The NYPD Back Up Its Claim Of A Confrontation That Required Pepper Spray, Despite More Video Evidence?

from the keep-the-videos-running dept

Yesterday we wrote about the NYPD claiming that the video evidence of a police officer, now identified as Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, pepper spraying a group of women shows that it was done appropriately. The specific claim from NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne was that "Pepper spray was used once after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier -- something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video."

The problem, of course, is that the video evidence suggests no such thing, and with more videos taken by other people at the same time and place indicating no such editing or confrontation, it's increasingly clear that the NYPD's Paul Browne lied to the press, and falsely accused folks of editing out a confrontation that does not appear to have happened.

The US Law blog, which has been at the forefront of covering this particular story, has linked to another video at the same place (at about 5:45 in the video). While the person taking the video is turned away from the pepper spray at the moment it happens, you can see as she walks through the women just before it happens (in fact, you can see this same person in the original video passing right behind the pepper sprayed women, seconds before it happens).

Add to that another video that actually pulls together two perspectives of the incident, which you can see below:

And, finally, we have a 4th view of the events surrounding the incident, immediately prior to the pepper spraying. From these multiple videos at multiple angles, two things are abundantly clear: contrary to the claims of the NYPD, nothing was edited out of the first video and while there was lots of screaming, the women who were sprayed do not appear to have "confronted the officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier" at all. Some others may have done so, but not the women being sprayed. Instead, as originally alleged, it appears that the spraying was entirely arbitrary.

Furthermore, as pointed out on the US Law Blog link above:

Having approached the immediate area from some distance away, it is difficult to understand how the Deputy Inspector could have had any instant awareness of what, if any, confrontation may have been happening at that time and place. The officer does not appear to take adequate time to assess whether the handfull of people in the immediate vicintiy were obeying police orders. In fact, his approach with outstretched arm and the surprised reaction of the blue shirted officers suggest he may have made the decision to release pepper spray in advance of his arrival at the immediate location of it's deployment.

Furthermore, they note that the NYPD rules say that pepper spray may be used if "it is necessary to effect an arrest of a resisting suspect." And yet, after pepper spraying the women, no arrests were made (some of the people sprayed were arrested later, at different locations for different reasons). It appears that even if there was a confrontation, which there does not appear to be, involving these women, the use of pepper spray was inappropriate.

Once again, what fascinates me about all of this is all of this video evidence, and the value in showing that the "official story" from the police is almost certainly false. I'm curious as to how long the NYPD will keep up the charade of pretending its version is accurate.

Filed Under: anthony bologna, evidence, nypd, occupy wall street

Swedish Film Institute Learning That An IP Address Is Not A Person

from the lessons-learned dept

Earlier this month, an anti-piracy tracking company traced the origin of some Swedish films found on The Pirate Bay... all the way back to the Swedish Film Institute. After some embarrassment and further investigation, the Institute is now insisting that it can't find any evidence that someone there leaked the films... and they're complaining that the anti-piracy firm DoubleTrace "aren’t... forthcoming with their evidence." Shocking, I'm sure. But the larger point is that the Swedish Film Institute is pointing out that the IP address alone does not identify the user. This is, of course, entirely true. It's what tons of people have been pointing out for years, and what the film industry (and the recording industry) has often mocked as being a silly excuse. So I'm in agreement with TorrentFreak when it says:

The important thing here is that when it comes to the allegations against SFI, and the refusal of the anti-piracy company to make their ‘evidence’ available, SFI should be given the benefit of the doubt.

But, unlike the hundreds of thousands of other ISP account holders around the world who receive letters claiming that they illegally uploaded a movie or song and therefore should pay compensation or, increasingly, be disconnected from the Internet, they are treated more respectfully, quite simply because of who they are.

An IP address is not a person, and unless anti-piracy companies want to let their ‘evidence’ be seen and tested in public, perhaps it’s better if they keep their allegations to themselves.

Filed Under: copyright, evidence, file sharing, ip address, sweden
Companies: swedish film institute

Yet Again, Evidence Of The Need For Fashion Copyright Is Totally And Completely Missing

from the a-complete-joke dept

For nearly a decade, we've been quite critical of the claim by some in the fashion industry (and a few law professors) that we somehow need a special "fashion copyright." We've covered in great detail why this is false. The whole point of copyright is to encourage greater innovation and output of creative works, and the fashion industry has that. It's highly competitive, with many players and new creative works coming out all the time. In fact, studies have shown it's this very lack of fashion copyright that makes the industry so innovative. That's because of two key factors. First, without copyright, the copycat companies help make the real designers' more valuable. By copying key designs and making cheap knockoffs, these copycats create the fashion trend, which creates an aspirational situation where more people want to buy the real version. Second, because of the lack of copyright, designers have to keep innovating and keep pushing out new designs, to stay ahead of the pack. It's a perfect example of where the lack of copyright leads to greater output and greater creativity.

The only real argument for a fashion copyright, then, is because designers would like to be lazier. They don't want competition and they don't want to have to innovate at the same pace. But the point of copyright is not to make the lives of designers easier. It's to benefit the public.

Yet, every year or so, a small group of law professors and designers, with the help of a few politicians (mainly Chuck Schumer, trying to help out some New York fashion designers) push forward with another attempt to pass the law. Lately, they've been focusing on the "evils" of "fast fashion" companies like Forever 21, who quickly push out knockoff fashions of famous designers at a much cheaper price. They talk about how this is making those famous designers "suffer."

It turns out, that's simply not true. In fact, the luxury sector, including high end fashion is experiencing a massive boom, with revenues up 13 to 23%. But you know who's not doing so well? Low end retailers, who are having trouble in the recession. Supporters of the bill keep assuming that people buying the knockoffs are substituting them for the high end stuff, but there's little evidence to support that at all. In fact, these numbers suggest the exact opposite. People who can afford the high end are happy to pay for it. People buying the knockoffs these days are having trouble affording even that, let alone the original designs.

So again, we're wondering if anyone can explain what the reason is for any form of fashion copyright? It seems to make absolutely no sense at all.

Filed Under: copyright, evidence, fashion copyright

ICE Screws Up, Seizes Tor Exit Node; Vows Not to Learn From Its Mistake

from the these-people-protect-us? dept

Given the various domain seizures and other efforts by ICE to act as Hollywood's personal police force, it long ago became clear that they're not particularly technically competent. As if to demonstrate how technically illiterate they are, ICE recently seized six computer hard drives from the home of Nolan King as part of a criminal investigation. ICE's evidence in getting a warrant? Solely an IP address. Yet, as the EFF notes in the link above, if ICE were even mildly technically competent, it would have been able to tell before it seized the machines that King was running a Tor exit node, and thus was not the person connected to the IP (nor could he say who was).

We've seen this before. Earlier this year we wrote about law enforcement in Europe being equally confused by a Tor exit node.

Of course, some people will claim that this is "the price you pay" for running a Tor exit node. In fact, after the EFF gave ICE agents basic remedial training in how the internet works, it returned King's hard drives, but told him "this could happen again." Sure, it could. But it shouldn't. The fact that law enforcement is clueless over the fact that an IP address is not a unique identifier, and yet seems to rely on it as if it does, shouldn't place more of a burden on users. It should indicate that law enforcement should be required to do more than simply identify an IP address.

An IP address alone is not probable cause that a person has committed a crime. Furthermore, search warrants executed solely on the basis of IP addresses have a significant likelihood of wasting officers' time and resources rather than producing helpful leads.

In the case of Tor, the police can avoid mistakenly pursuing exit relay operators by checking the IP addresses that emerge in their investigations against publicly available lists of exit relays published on the Tor Project's web site. The ExoneraTor is another tool that allows anyone to quickly and easily see whether a Tor exit relay was likely to have been running at a particular IP address during a given date and time. The Tor Project can also help law enforcement agencies set up their own systems to query IP addresses easily. These simple checks will help officers concentrate their investigative resources on tracking down those actually committing crimes and ensure that they don't execute search warrants at innocent people's homes.

Filed Under: evidence, exit node, ice, ip address, tor

US Copyright Group Lawsuits Based On Highly Questionable Evidence

from the here-we-go-again dept

US Copyright Group was the first US operation to really dive into the whole copyright trolling business of suing thousands of people based on weak evidence of infringement and then offering to "settle" for less than it would cost to go to court. It was known that US Copyright Group was a front for DC-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, and a few months later it came out that US Copyright Group was actually a combined effort between Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver and a German "anti-piracy" tracking company named GuardaLey, who had set up similar partnerships elsewhere.

However, as TorrentFreak reveals, in a lawsuit filed against US Copyright Group over its legal strategy (more than 100,000 sued!), it appears that GuardaLey was the real driving force behind US Copyright Group... and its technology for identifying "pirates" has been found wanting (at best). A German court in a similar case found GuardaLey's tracking software to not be very good at actually identifying infringement, since it fails to determine if any work is actually shared. Now, though the RIAA may be pushing for the idea that "making available" equals distribution, some courts have already disagreed. If it can't show actual uploads or downloads, USCG may have a tough time proving infringement.

Even more troubling are claims that GuardaLey set up honeypots to try to get IP addresses to sue. If there's a honeypot, then, as long as the content is accurate, the download is authorized since the companies doing such copyright trolling usually have licenses over the content. Or, if the file is fake, then there's no infringement, since the actual file wasn't downloaded (let alone available).

Of course, we see this kind of thing all the time, with copyright supporters insisting that all you need is an IP address to identify someone. It's a lot more complicated than that, and making that assumption while going after 100,000 people suggests that any nuances around IP addresses are completely ignored.

Filed Under: evidence, ip addresses
Companies: guardaley, us copyright group

Oracle Deletes Jonathan Schwartz's Old Blog; Which Excitedly Celebrated Google's Use Of Java In Android

from the rewriting-history dept

There was a bit of an embarrassment in the ongoing patent dispute between Oracle and Google. Oracle, of course, is claiming that Google's Android violates some of the patents it acquired from Sun concerning Java. Google pointed out that if its use was so problematic, why did Sun celebrate Google's Java usage in Android? They pointed to a blog post from then-Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (who was the first Fortune 500 CEO to blog -- and who, unlike many corporate bloggers, actually spoke his mind on the blog), which happily celebrated Google basing Android on Java/Linux: Of course, that looks bad for Oracle... so it's response was to delete Schwartz's entire blog. Poof. That moment of history gone. Except if you have access to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. No wonder the Internet Archive has been declared a rogue site dedicated to infringing activities.

I imagine that Oracle also wanted to erase other former Schwartz blog posts, like the one we spoke about years ago, in which he pointed out that suing over patents is a sign of desperation and that real companies innovate, rather than litigate.

Now, many of you who will be quick to point out that none of that matters. Oracle holds the patents now and so it gets to decide. And that's true -- though I do wonder if such promises not to litigate over patents and to celebrate such usages might be seen as a form of a license... But, the larger point I wanted to raise is that this shows the dangers even of defensive patents. Sun held a ton of patents, almost all of which were for defensive reasons (or to just show what a joke the patent system is). And yet... now that Oracle has them, it can and is using them to try to shake down other companies.

Filed Under: android, blog, evidence, java, jonathan schwartz, patents
Companies: google, oracle, sun

Man Made Famous Over 2006 Arrest For Videotaping Police... Arrested Again While Videotaping Police

from the falsifying-evidence? dept

We've discussed multiple times how police have been increasingly abusing wiretapping laws to arrest and charge people who film them in public. The arrests are simply an intimidation technique against those who wish to provide public oversight of law enforcement. One of the first high profile cases of such an arrest came back in 2006 when Michael Gannon was arrested under wiretapping charges for filming police with a security camera. In that case, Gannon was arrested after bringing the tape to the police station to use the footage to file a complaint concerning how detectives acted in coming to get his son. It was clearly a vindictive charge against Gannon for daring to report on the police. Of course, eventually it came out that the complaint Gannon wished to file against the detective was completely justified... and the case against Gannon was dropped.

Of course, Gannon likely now has a bit of a reputation with police in Nashua, and Slashdot points us to the news that Gannon's been arrested again, and once again, his videotaping of police has become part of the story.

The details are a bit confusing and involve a lot of disagreements between police and Gannon -- though Gannon has witnesses who appear to back up his claims. As far as I can tell, the events involved: (1) Police drove by Gannon and yelled something about his son. (2) Gannon responded with a definite wisecrack: "There goes corruption at its finest." (3) The police stopped and confronted Gannon. (4) Gannon apparently asked if he was being arrested, and was originally told no, so he turned to walk away. (4) At this point the police tackled him, maced him, handcuffed him, punched him and kicked him. (5) As he was being tackled, he tossed the video camera to someone on the street who was witnessing the whole confrontation, Pamela Reynolds. (6) Reynolds claims she wanted nothing to do with any of this, and immediately tossed the camera that was thrown to her into the bushes right next to her, just as a way of showing she had nothing to with any of it. (7) Police arrested Reynolds (and maced her as well) for (get this) "falsifying evidence," in tossing the camera.

Police, obviously, dispute parts of this chain of events. They claim that Gannon was resisting arrest. They also claim that Reynolds "fled" with the camera and refused to hand over "the evidence" to them when asked. One would hope that the actual video on the camera would confirm which one was right, but it seems pretty bizarre and questionable that the police would immediately seek to seize the camera as "evidence." Why would they do that unless the camera shows them doing something wrong?

Filed Under: evidence, michael gannon, police, wiretapping

Court Says Prosecutors Can't Just Assume A MySpace Profile Is Legit

from the why-didn't-they-ask? dept

A murder lawsuit in Maryland involved some evidence from a MySpace profile (allegedly from the defendant's girlfriend, attempting to intimidate witnesses). A police officer went to the profile and printed it out, but prosecutors did nothing else to authenticate that the MySpace profile and the comments on the page were legit and placed by the girlfriend. A lower court said this was fine, but as Venkat Balasubramani discusses, the Maryland Supreme Court has said that just printing out a MySpace profile and showing it to jurors is not enough to prove that the content really came from the person in question. The court even cites the infamous Lori Drew case, in pointing out that it's easy to create fake profiles of people. In the end, the court makes a simple point: if you want to authenticate that a social networking page is from a particular person, there are a number of ways to do so, starting with asking the person in question if it's their website. Stunningly, prosecutors in this case never did that.

I have to admit that I'm a bit confused by the dissent on this case, as described by Venkat:

Two dissenting judges accuse the majority of having a case of the "technological heebie-jeebies," and note that the key question is whether a "reasonable juror" could conclude that the evidence in question was authentic. In other cases where the authenticity of a piece of evidence is disputed, the typical practice is to let the jury make the call, unless the court concludes that "no reasonable juror" could find the evidence authentic. The dissenting judges fault the majority for not following the same practice in this case.

I don't see how it's a case of technological heebie-jeebies at all. If anything, it's the reverse. It's recognizing that (1) such evidence is easy to fake and (2) there are some very easy steps to authenticate the evidence. In a case such as a murder case, isn't it a reasonable standard to make sure that such evidence is, in fact, authentic?

Filed Under: court, evidence, myspace profile, social media