Copyright As Censorship: San Francisco Eviction Lawyer Uses DMCA Takedown To Censor Protest Video

from the because-that's-what-copyright-does dept

Right now the issue of housing in San Francisco is a big local topic -- and while I tend to agree that the real issue is the regulations limiting the building of new housing in and around the city, the fight has gotten quite nasty at times. It often seems to focus on two issues (neither of which are the true cause of the problem): local evictions for longtime tenants, and tech workers. You can certainly understand the frustration, even if it's mostly misguided. Still, even given that, this seems like a clear abuse of copyright law by some of the lawyers who have been helping train people to conduct those evictions: using a bogus DMCA takedown to hide a video of a protest of one of their training sessions.

Jackson West attended one of the sessions and video taped people protesting it at a seminar given by lawfirm Bornstein & Bornstein. You can see the video below via Vimeo: However, you cannot see it on YouTube, because Daniel Bornstein issued a bogus copyright notice over the video.

The full article is worth reading, as it includes West calling up Bornstein to talk about things and Bornstein appearing to offer to trade meeting in person for pulling the takedown notice. No matter where you stand on the issue of evictions in SF, hopefully everyone can agree that issuing a bogus copyright notice to delete a video of people protesting you is not okay. Hell, even if you think Bornstein is doing the right thing in helping evict people, hopefully you'll still agree that abusing copyright in this manner is simply wrong.

In West's account (which is, obviously, just his side of the story), Bornstein doesn't seem to understand copyright laws:

...he began asking to meet in person in order to be “presented as human, multi-dimensional.” I pointed out that issuing a takedown notice without contacting me first didn’t really offer me that same benefit of the doubt. I asked if he’d actually watched the video, which he didn’t confirm but instead indicated that he’d objected to the characterization of the incident in the description, complained about other videos of the event (which can’t be found on YouTube, suggesting he may have issued additional claims) and asked to be sent a copy.

Just because you object to the "characterization" of the event, it doesn't magically give you the right to abuse copyright law.

Bornstein promised that if I agreed to meet he would consider dropping the matter, but when I made it clear that I reserved the right to publish a story before the meeting, he replied he’d then have to contact copyright counsel. While not directly stated, the implication was clear that if I agreed to hold the story until after meeting with him, he’d agree to drop the claim.

Later in the story, there's an "update" when West goes to meet with Bornstein. After a dispute about whether things are on or off the record, Bornstein trots out another non-copyright, but still bogus, reason for issuing the copyright takedown, claiming West is not "a legitimate reporter."

When I pointed out that a story was already online, along with the video, he rescinded the offer. However, seemingly confused over the difference between copyrights and privacy rights, he seemed intent on arguing that I wasn’t acting as a legitimate reporter for having attended the event and filmed the protest without notifying the firm first.

That doesn't really have anything to do with privacy rights either -- and even if it did, it still doesn't give Bornstein (a lawyer, remember) the right to abuse copyright law to takedown the video.

Yet again, we see copyright being abused for the purpose of censorsing content someone doesn't like.

Update: As noted in the comments, YouTube has put the video back up...

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, daniel bornstein, dmca, evictions, housing, jackson west, san francisco
Companies: bornstein & bornstein, youtube

The Inevitable: Drunk Man Arrested For Impersonating Groping TSA Agent At Airport

from the had-to-happen dept

In all of the discussion of the TSA, their nudie scanners, and their insane groping as part of security theater, there tends to be a lot of hand-wringing over the slide of our civil liberties and the conditioning of citizens to accept these kinds of intrusions. The problem with making these kinds of slippery-slope and feature-creep arguments has always been how similar they are to insane conspiracy theories and they're typically met with as much derision by the general public. Sometimes, however, you get the unfortunate payoffs to these warnings.

That appears to be exactly what we have in a story about a drunk jackass in San Francisco posing as a TSA agent at the airport and luring women into secluded areas to grope them.

A man suspected of being drunk posed as a security screener at San Francisco International Airport long enough to direct a couple of women into a private booth for pat downs before real security staffers caught on to him, authorities said Wednesday. The 53-year-old San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of public drunkenness after creating a stir at the A-side security checkpoint of the International Terminal about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, said Sgt. Wesley Matsuura of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.

Here's how insane this is: airport security has so conditioned people to having their privates tweaked that the women in this story likely still don't know that they were violated by someone posing as an agent, and all of this happened amidst the security apparatus the TSA has set up to begin with. It's like a double trump card. Security sucks to point that two women were molested in their midst before anyone caught on and it was only allowed to happen by the victims because they've been conditioned to expect exactly this sort of thing.

Look, sorry, but sometimes the damned slope is indeed slippery and sometimes we get to see the dangers of trading liberty for safety right in front of us. By all accounts, this molester's scheme wasn't even difficult to pull off.

Two other airport law enforcement sources tell us the incident started when the man entered the security area wearing khaki pants, a blue polo shirt and blue rubber gloves - an outfit that might have been mistaken for those worn by screeners with the private Covenant security firm. The man, apparently without saying much, steered a woman into one of the private screening booths used to pat down selected passengers, our sources say. What happened inside isn't known, because the woman soon disappeared to catch a flight.

A few minutes later, the man directed a second woman toward the booth, our sources say. This time, however, he caught the attention of real screeners, who figured something was wrong because male screeners are prohibited from taking women into the booth for a pat-down without a female screener also being present.

Only then was he detained and charged with...public drunkenness. And nothing else. Why? Well, because the women he violated got on their planes thinking he was an agent and made their way to their destinations. If that doesn't demonstrate the danger in all this, nothing will.

Filed Under: drunkenness, groping, impersonation, san francisco, san francisco airport, tsa

Another Bogus Hit From A License Plate Reader Results In Another Citizen Surrounded By Cops With Guns Out

from the verification-to-be-performed-at-gunpoint dept

We recently covered a story about a lawyer who found himself approached by cops with guns drawn after an automatic license plate reader misread a single character on his plate as he drove by. The police did make an attempt to verify the plate but were stymied by heavy traffic. Unfortunately, it appears they decided to force the issue rather than let a potential car thief escape across the state line.

As I pointed out then, the increasing reliance on ALPRs, combined with the one-billion-plus records already in storage and the millions being collected every day, means the number of errors will only increase as time goes on -- even as the technology continues to improve. This person was lucky to escape with nothing more than an elevated heart rate. Others won't be so lucky... like Denise Green of San Francisco.

Green's civil rights lawsuit has just been reinstated by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned an earlier decision that granted summary judgment in favor of the San Francisco Police Department. The lower court found that the officers had made a "good faith, reasonable mistake" when they performed a felony stop of Green, which included being ordered out of her vehicle and onto the ground at gunpoint and held in cuffs for nearly 20 minutes while officers verified the plates and filled out paperwork.

The Appeals Court disagreed with this finding and the opinion details what the SFPD is supposed to do with ALPR "hits" and compares this to what was actually happened.

It is undisputed that the ALPR occasionally makes false “hits” by misreading license plate numbers and mismatching passing license plate numbers with those listed as wanted in the database. Because of the known flaws in the system, SFPD officers are trained that an ALPR hit does not automatically justify a vehicle stop, and SFPD directs its officers to verify the validity of the identified hit before executing a stop.

Patrol officers are instructed to take two steps to verify a hit before acting on an ALPR read. The first step is to visually confirm the license plate (to ensure that the vehicle actually bears the license plate number identified by the camera); the second step is to confirm with the system that the identified plate number has actually been reported as stolen or wanted.

The opinion notes that the SFPD, at the time of the incident, actually had no official verification policy in place that designated which officer(s) should perform this task. The expert testifying on behalf of the PD indicated that it would most likely be performed by the operator of the "camera car" (the vehicle with the ALPR) but was unable to point to any policy actually stating this.

So, there's one level of failure. It could be that all of the officers involved (at least four, according to court documents) thought someone else had handled the verification. That would be an "honest mistake," but that shouldn't allow the department to escape being held accountable for its lack of clear verification procedures.

On the night of March 30, 2009, Appellant Denise Green, a 47-year-old African-American woman with no criminal record, was driving her vehicle, a 1992 burgundy Lexus ES 300 with license plate number 5SOW350, on Mission Street in San Francisco. At approximately 11:15 PM, Green passed a police cruiser equipped with an ALPR operated by SFPD Officers Alberto Esparza and Robert Pedersen. When Green drove past Esparza and Pedersen’s camera car, the ALPR misread her license plate number and identified her plate as belonging to a stolen vehicle. It was late and dark outside, which rendered the ALPR photograph blurry and illegible. As a result, Officer Esparza could not read the ALPR photograph, nor could he get a direct visual of Green’s license plate.

Esparza was currently involved in an arrest, so he radioed in the hit. He identified the vehicle as a dark Lexus with the plate number 5SOW750, one digit off from Green's actual number. Dispatch ran the number and found that the plate belonged to a stolen gray GMC truck. The opinion notes that Esparza never bothered to inform dispatch that he had not verified the plate number himself and was working from a lousy ALPR photo.

Sergeant Kim was in the area and heard the radio traffic linking the plate (5SOW750) to a grey pickup and Esparza's observance of a dark Lexus. Kim had plenty of chances to clear up the misidentified plate, but he never did so.

Sergeant Kim saw that the first three numbers of Green’s license plate matched the plate read over the radio, but he did not visually identify all seven numbers on Green’s license plate. He also radioed Officer Esparza for a description of the vehicle, and Officer Esparza confirmed that the vehicle he saw was a dark burgundy Lexus. Sergeant Kim then decided to make a “high-risk” or “felony” stop...

Because Sergeant Kim believed that Green posed a risk, he waited for backup before pulling her over. While he waited, he followed her vehicle for a brief amount of time and, at one point, even stopped behind her at a red light. At no point while he was following or stopped behind Green’s vehicle did Sergeant Kim visually confirm the entirety of Green’s license plate number, even though nothing obscured his ability to do so. Furthermore, Sergeant Kim did not confirm Green’s plate number with dispatch, but he did hear Officer Esparza inquire whether the vehicle with the plate number 5SOW750 was stolen. Sergeant Kim admits that if he had read the full plate, he would not have had the reasonable suspicion to effect the stop.

But the stop was made and Green was approached by at least four officers with weapons drawn. She was restrained, cuffed and held while the SFPD officers finally got around to verifying the plate number on her vehicle.

The SFPD, while fighting Greene's Fourth Amendment claims, chose to spin Officer Esparza's lack of verbal confirmation that he had personally observed the plate (rather than the ALPR's lousy photo) as a credible, non-verbal assertion that could "reasonably" prompt other officers into action. Sergeant Kim took Esparza's lack of information to be an affirmation of his visual verification of Greene's plate, giving him the reasonable suspicion to effect the stop. The court approaches this argument from another angle, stating that Esparza's lack of confirmation should have been an indication that Kim needed to perform additional verification.

Because of the SFPD's lack of clear policy and the Officer Kim's willingness to believe Esparza's unstated claims, the officers effected a felony stop based on very little information and a whole lot of belief. Neither of these are enough to rise to the level of "reasonable suspicion," and certainly not enough to justify the amount of force deployed -- especially considering Greene was "physically unthreatening" and compliant during the whole stop.

Once again, we see law enforcement deploying technology without guidelines for usage. (We also see Sgt. Kim's reluctance to spoil a felony stop by actually reading a license plate that was directly in front of him for several minutes...) Many police departments tend to prefer unsupervised tech, an attitude that is increasingly resulting in policy being set by lawsuit. Abuse first, settle later, and lastly, institute guidelines. It's a hell of a way to "enforce law," when everyone's being policed but the police.

Filed Under: alpr, failure, license plate reader, police, san francisco, sfpd

Homeland Security Pays San Francisco To Buy Surveillance Equipment That Records Video AND Audio On City Buses

from the surveillance-society dept

We all know that law enforcement has been regularly expanding its ability to spy on people at every turn, especially with surveillance cameras installed all over the place. But it still seems a bit shocking to find out that many municipalities are installing systems on public buses that record both audio and video of everyone on the bus -- including in San Francisco. That doesn't just seem like overkill, it raises significant legal questions. California -- for better or for worse (and I'd argue, for worse) is a two party consent state when it comes to recording, meaning everyone has to know they're being recorded. So it seems like recording without getting consent should be seen as an illegal, warrantless form of wiretapping. Even more troubling: the reason San Francisco is doing this upgrade? The Department of Homeland Security paid them to do it. It gave them a grant covering the entire cost. Is Homeland Security really worried about drunks getting into a brawl on the bus? Or do they see this as an opportunity to do significantly more involved surveillance? The whole program seems pretty troubling, and yet more and more places are adding the devices, with little to no public recognition.

Filed Under: buses, homeland security, san francisco, surveillance

SF Students Suspended & Barred From Walking At Graduation Because They Joked About Teachers On A Blog

from the what-are-we-teaching-students dept

We just recently talked about the famous Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court ruling that establishes that students have First Amendment rights. Apparently some schools still don't realize this. Thankfully, there are some organizations willing to step in and remind them when they get confused. The ACLU of Northern California and the Asian Law Caucus were apparently able to successfully convince a San Francisco high school to reverse a previous ruling in which three students were suspended for posting some parody/joking blogs about some teachers:

In March, after students at a San Francisco high school posted parodies and irreverent memes from their home computers about teachers and school administrators on a Tumblr blog (“Teaches Pink Floyd for 3 Weeks; Makes Final Project Due In 3 Days”; “Nags Student Govt About Being On Task; Lags On Everything”), the principal dragged three students she suspected of creating the blog posts into her office and interrogated them at length. (The blog has since been taken down.) The principal then immediately suspended the students for three days, accusing them of bullying and disrupting school activities. The students were also barred from attending a school dance and prom, and even from walking with their classmates at graduation. In addition, the principal did not provide the students with an opportunity to resolve the concerns through a restorative justice approach prior to imposing the punishments, which disregards the School District’s prioritization of restorative justice as an alternative, when possible, to suspension and expulsion.

That seems like a pretty extreme reaction. When I was in high school, I actually remember doing something similar -- parodying the teacher -- in a paper for that teacher. Thankfully, he had a sense of humor. But either way, this is something that tons of high school kids do all the time. And it's clearly protected speech. Once these groups contacted the school and explained the law, the school backed down:

After we contacted the San Francisco Unified School District, they took prompt action to investigate the matter and reverse the discipline. Although the students already missed three days of school, the suspensions have been removed from their records, and they’ll be dancing at prom, and walking with their classmates at graduation.

It's too bad it even needed to go that far. What's really disturbing in all of this is what the school officials are teaching kids. Joking and parody are key forms of education and creativity. It's too bad some schools still don't recognize that (or what the law actually says).

Filed Under: aclu, asian law caucus, first amendment, high school, san francisco

Park Ranger Tases Guy Walking Dogs Without A Leash

from the watch-your-back dept

In the latest example of questionable taser use, a man walking his two dogs off-leash at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area was tased in the back by a park ranger, who was apparently trying to make an example of him. The problem was that the guy, Gary Hesterberg, was walking the dogs at Rancho Corral de Tierra, which used to be an off-leash walking area until it was just recently incorporated into the National Park. When the park ranger confronted Hesterberg and asked for his identification, for reasons unknown, Hesterberg gave her a fake name, and then tried repeatedly to leave. Finally, when he started to walk away, the ranger shot him in the back... because she was trying to "educate residents of the rule." Then, he was arrested "on suspicion of failing to obey a lawful order, having dogs off-leash and knowingly providing false information."

It seems that the use of a taser in this situation was excessive and unwarranted. The guy wasn't threatening the ranger in any way, and even if he had lied about his name (not that lying should be a reason to tase someone), the ranger wouldn't have known that at the time, since Hesterberg only gave his real name to the authorities after he got tased. Did the ranger accomplish her goal of "educating" visitors of the park rules? Yes, if educating means "scaring into submission." As Eric Cartman would say, "Respect my authoritah!"

Filed Under: dogs, san francisco, taser

SF Entertainment Commission Says Attending Any Gathering Of 100 Or More People Means You Lose All Privacy Rights

from the how-about-that... dept

Jim Harper points out some ridiculous rules being considered by the San Francisco Entertainment Commission concerning any event that would exceed 100 people. The two key rules:

3. All occupants of the premises shall be ID Scanned (including patrons, promoters, and performers, etc.). ID scanning data shall be maintained on a data storage system for no less than 15 days and shall be made available to local law enforcement upon request.

4. High visibility cameras shall be located at each entrance and exit point of the premises. Said cameras shall maintain a recorded data base for no less than fifteen (15 days) and made available to local law enforcement upon request.

As Harper notes:

The First Amendment right to peaceably assemble takes a big step back when your identity data and appearance are captured for law enforcement to use at whim simply because you showed up.

Of course, this is similar to data retention rules being pushed on online service providers. The reasoning is basically because law enforcement wants it. However, there are all sorts of things that law enforcement wants but which it can't get because it violates our privacy. That's what the 4th Amendment is supposed to be about. But here we have the SF Entertainment Commission pushing rules that suggest that attending an event that has more than 100 people means you've automatically agreed to give up private info to law enforcement.

Filed Under: gatherings, privacy, san francisco, surveillance

Company Making Cab/Limo Rides More Efficient Ordered To Stop

from the regulatory-mess dept

I do a fair amount of traveling, and I've found that one of the more interesting things to do on arriving a new city is to chat with a cab driver about whatever is they feel like talking about. Inevitably, I end up hearing about the absolutely ridiculous bureaucratic nightmares involved with being a taxi driver. Now, you can tell that many of the issues started out as legitimate issues, involving safety and route control, but over time, almost everywhere I've gone, they've turned into pure regulatory capture in an attempt to keep competitors out. We've seen in the past how these sorts of rules have gotten in the way of innovative new startups. There was the situation in Ontario where an operation called PickupPal that set up carpool rides was deemed illegal and fined. Then there was the situation in Tampa, where some startups had started offering "pay what you want" taxi rides, subsidized by advertising, and the existing taxi regulatory committee shut it down.

In the latest example, a company named Ubercab, which lets you use your mobile device to hire a car service/limo (not a taxi) on the go, and handle all the payment through the device, has been ordered to cease & desist. The details are not entirely clear in that report, but it appears the complaint is that this service turns car service/limos into "unlicensed" cabs. Most rules forbid car services from "picking up" rides on the fly. Instead you have to book them ahead of time. But Ubercab allows you to book them on the fly. From what I can tell, it's more expensive than a cab, but cheaper than a normal car service (which makes sense). Now, the SF Metro Transit Authority & the Public Utilities Commission of California, who sent the cease & desist will almost certainly claim it's a "safety issue" or some such nonsense. But, the reality is that it's an attempt to limit competition.

Of course, all this has really done is give Ubercab that much more attention, which they're milking (as they should -- hello Streisand Effect). They're refusing to cease and desist and appear to be poised to fight this. One of the company's founders/investors has said that they'll hire any taxi dispatcher who's fired, though I'm not entirely clear how that fits. If their service focuses on car services/limos, what's that got to do with taxi dispatchers? Either way, this does seem like a case where yet another bureaucracy, fueled by regulatory capture by the industry it regulates, is seeking to block out innovative competition.

Filed Under: cabs, efficiency, limos, regulations, regulatory capture, san francisco
Companies: sf metro transit authority, ubercab

Journalist: Oh No! Student Journalists Will Destroy Journalism!

from the oh-please dept

So for the last few years, all we keep hearing about from professional journalists is how there is less and less reporting going on, and how we'll all miss "real" reporting once it's gone. They complain that without new business models journalism itself is doomed. Leave aside how ridiculous all of that is (and, yes, it's totally ridiculous), when a new project comes along that will enable more reporting in the San Francisco Bay Area, via a partnership between radio station KQED and journalism students at Berkeley, along come the professional reporters complaining about how this is the death of journalism and must be stopped. That's the view of the East Bay Express's Robert Gammon. Why? Well, because it involves students instead of pro journalists, and thus is unfair competition:

The venture also threatens traditional news media in the Bay Area, because it will rely on 120 journalism students at Cal who will work for free. The massive free-labor workforce will give the new venture a huge advantage over established Bay Area media organizations that depend on paid, veteran journalists to gather and put together news stories.

I read that and all I can think is, Mr. Gammon, did you really just mean to suggest that your years of experience and professional connections are so worthless that a group of students will automatically beat you in the marketplace? Because that's what he said. After we keep being told how pro journalists are so important, and all their experience, knowledge and reporting chops differentiates them from the unwashed masses, here is a guy who is flat-out admitting that he has no advantage over some pure amateurs.

Let's hope UC Berkeley and KQED seriously rethink this plan before it goes live early next year. The idea of a non-profit news organization has merit, but using what amounts to slave labor to make it happen is bad for journalism.

So, let me see if I get this straight. Things have been really bad because there were fewer reporters working on the news, and we'll all miss them when they're gone... but as soon as anyone new enters the market, it will be bad for journalism? And even if the journalism is done by students who have no experience, the amazing pros simply won't be able to compete? Yeah, that's believable.

Filed Under: bay area, journalism, local news, san francisco, students

SF Reveals Usernames And Password To City Network In Accidental Effort To Prove Terry Childs' Case For Him

from the that-would-be-an-oops dept

In the ongoing lawsuit against the disgruntled city of San Francisco tech worker, Terry Childs, who held the city's network somewhat hostage for a few days (before finally coughing up the admin password to Mayor Newsom), the San Francisco DA has now entered into evidence approximately 150 usernames and passwords of individuals who log into the city's network via a VPN from home. City officials don't seem too concerned that they're revealing the usernames and passwords, even though that would appear to be a huge security violation.

From the description, it sounds like the system uses two-factor authentication, so beyond username and password, users also have to enter in a second code (perhaps provided by an RSA key or something like that). However, that still doesn't mean that revealing the usernames and passwords was smart. It's still a tremendous security violation. It's hard to see why they couldn't have submitted that as evidence that needed to be kept secret, given the nature of it. Also, it would seem that revealing all this info actually does much more to help Childs' case: he claims he was keeping the admin password secret because city officials weren't very good with security, and would have compromised the system. And, indeed, it appears that's what they've now done.

Filed Under: passwords, san francisco, terry childs