DOJ Says Federal Agents Will Start Wearing Body Cameras

from the beware-the-asterisk-tho dept

At long last, Department of Justice agencies are joining the 21st century. Years after many local law enforcement agencies (with budgets that amount to rounding errors for DOJ components) have adopted body cameras, the DOJ is finally getting into the act.

Today, the Department of Justice announced the launch of the first phase of its Body-Worn Camera Program that requires department law enforcement personnel use body-worn cameras (BWCs) during pre-planned law enforcement operations. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Phoenix and Detroit Field Divisions began using BWCs today during these pre-planned operations. Over the course of the next several weeks, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) will begin the first phase of their BWC programs. The department’s plans include a phased implementation of BWCs, and rely upon Congress to secure the necessary funding to equip agents nationwide with BWCs.

Caveats, mfers. Caveats. "Pre-planned operations." Let's hope this makes up the bulk of federal law enforcement's interactions with the general public. This means that while federal agents may be wearing body cameras, they won't be using them to record off-the-cuff convos/searches/seizures/arrests that may come up during day-to-day business.

It's a start. It's a start years after the fact. While local cops were obtaining cameras, the DOJ -- as recently as 2015 -- was saying it would not do business with any cop shops rolling cameras during joint operations.

The obvious solution for cops seeking federal help during investigations would be to uninvite agencies unwilling to roll with rolling cameras. But it probably never worked out this way. Given law enforcement's love of opacity, local cops probably loved having a reason to remove their cameras while doing citizens dirty with their federal partners.

It took another five years before the DOJ agreed to allow federal agents tag along on raids and investigations involving local officers wearing body cameras. Now, less than a year into Attorney General Merrick Garland's leadership, federal agents have been ordered to start wearing body cameras.

Keep these public-facing, super-enthusiastic statements in mind when the lawsuits and investigations start rolling in, accusing federal officers of copying their local level compatriots by "forgetting" to activate cameras or being unable to retrieve recorded footage when demanded by plaintiffs in civil rights lawsuits or defendants in criminal trials.

This sounds like a lot of people being forced to smile at gun camera-point:

“ATF welcomes the use of body worn cameras by our agents,” said Acting Director Marvin G. Richardson of the ATF. “The department’s policy reflects ATF’s commitment to transparency as we work to reduce firearm violence in our communities.”

“The Drug Enforcement Administration is committed to the safety and security of the people we serve, our agents, and task force officers,” said Administrator Anne Milgram of the DEA. “We welcome the addition of body worn cameras and appreciate the enhanced transparency and assurance they provide to the public and to law enforcement officers working hard to keep our communities safe and healthy.”

“The FBI remains committed to meeting the need for transparency,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Phasing in the use of BWCs is another important way for us to meet that need.”

Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

OK.

Let's break this down.

The ATF welcomes no additional "transparency." Never has. Never will. And its efforts to "reduce firearm violence" are pretty much entrapment that targets impoverished minorities who the ATF feels will be much easier to bully into lengthy sentences.

The DEA doesn't care about the people it serves. It only cares about racking up incredibly cheap wins in a war it has been losing since its inception. Elvis Presely was given a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (the DEA predecessor) badge by Richard M. Nixon. Talk about setting yourself up for failure. The DEA does not keep communities safe and healthy. It cannot pretend otherwise.

And fuck the FBI. "Committed to meeting the need for transparency." Really? It's been almost 1,200 days since the FBI promised to correct its count of encrypted devices in its possession -- a number it had overstated by at least 5,000 devices during its neverending agitation against allowing innocent citizens to protect their devices and communications from outsiders. That's just one refutation of the FBI's allegiance to "transparency. " The rest of it is contained in the agency's litigious refusal to hand over documents in response to public records requests.

The FBI not-so-secretly wishes it was the CIA, if not the NSA itself. It does not care about transparency. And it will accept these cameras begrudgingly, ensuring they're turned off any time agents perform a "custodial interview" or engage in anything it considers to be national security related.

While it's great the DOJ says body cams are go, the actual implementation may be far less underwhelming than the GO TEAM TRANSPARENCY enthusiasm expressed in these public-facing statements. These agencies have operated under the public accountability radar for years. The addition of cameras won't change that much.

But let's not let our cynicism be used against us. They should have these cameras. And when footage goes missing or unrecorded in close cases, the benefit of doubt should be awarded to the non-moving (read: non-prosecutorial) party. If this happens often enough, we might finally see some meaningful deployment of cameras -- one that ensures officers are accountable to the people paying their paychecks.

Filed Under: atf, body cameras, dea, doj, fbi, transparency

The Challenge In Content Moderation And Politics: How Do You Deal With Bad Faith Actors?

from the don't-treat-bad-faith-actors-like-they're-good-faith-actors dept

We talk a lot about the various challenges of content moderation all the time here on Techdirt, but there's one aspect that really comes up all the time and is rarely addressed: how do you deal with bad faith actors? So much of the debate around content moderation tends to be based on the idea that there is merely a legitimate difference of opinion on what is and what is not appropriate -- or what is and what is not "misinformation." And there are important debates to be had about all that.

However, one of the biggest challenges regarding content moderation is that things that might make sense when dealing with those acting in good faith make no sense at all when dealing with those acting in bad faith. An example of this is the question of requiring (or even just demanding) that any website give a clear explanation of what rule was violated and how. This feels perfectly sensible. And when your content is taken down for reasons you legitimately feel were mistaken, the inability to know why is genuinely frustrating (ask me how I know).

But, turn that around and apply it to someone who is purposefully pushing the boundaries and gaming the system, whether trolling for lols or grifting gullible suckers, and suddenly you realize how such a request creates even more problems. Because the bad faith actor doesn't care. They don't actually want to learn what they did wrong to be better. They want to (1) cause problems for the site and (2) collect information so that next time, they can exploit that knowledge to engage in further bad acts without getting caught.

I was thinking about this after reading a great Daily Beast article by Wajahat Ali, acknowledging a similar issue in politics. So many of the norms of politics (and political journalism) are based on the idea that -- even if you're disagreeing with people -- they're acting in good faith and there's simply a disagreement of assumptions or how you interpret those assumptions. But, as Ali has pointed out, all too frequently, that's not true any more in the political sphere, and treating bad faith jackasses as if they're acting in good faith cannot lead to any good outcome.

What will it take for the American majority to stop being hijacked by the bad-faith politics of an increasingly radicalized GOP that will stop at nothing to promote death and achieve minority rule?

Most of us in this country, who have chosen life during a pandemic, are asked to coddle the unhinged temper tantrums and violent extremism of a conservative base that continues supporting the Jan. 6 violent insurrection and attacking our voting rights, and is willing to sacrifice our children as canaries in the COVID coalmine to fuel their endless culture war during a pandemic that has killed over 600,000 Americans.

Yet their elected leaders and mouthpieces, like Rep. Steve Scalise, are still treated as credible sources and normalized by being invited on news channels and by papers of record to criticize President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a cartoonishly hardcore Trump loyalist, and ridiculous pseudo-intellectual Ben Shapiro, whom The New York Times once referred to as “the cool kid’s philosopher” and whose Daily Wire is hugely influential in pushing vaccine misinformation on Facebook, still get coveted platforms in Politico.

This is also true in the content moderation debates. Many of those pushing for new rules or changes to Section 230 are not making good faith arguments about how things should work. They're bad faith actors, simply seeking any advantage by changing the rules in their own favor. They are trying to scam the system by pretending to have serious concerns, when their only concern is "how can I keep being a deceitful jackass online."

Now, as with anything in content moderation (and perhaps in politics), it is often difficult to judge who is a good faith actor who might just be massively ignorant or confused, and who is just a bad faith actor looking to abuse the system. And that is a real concern -- and there can be problems when legitimately ignorant people who mean well are dismissed or judged as bad faith trolls. And, of course, there is a legitimate concern about what happens when good faith individuals are dismissed as being in bad faith without considering what they say. But at some point people need to recognize that you can't seriously bother debating with those acting in bad faith. They're not there to be convinced. They're not there to consider actual points.

They're just trying to be attention-getting assholes and they win just by the very process of engaging with them as if they have something worth saying.

Filed Under: bad faith actors, content moderation, politics, transparency, trolls

The Externalization Of Content Moderation: Facebook Explores 'Election Commission'

from the maybe-that's-not-a-bad-thing dept

We've covered plenty of stuff about the Oversight Board that Facebook set up. While we recognize the cynicism towards it and still think it's somewhat early to judge, for many of us following the Board's decisions closely, it's been really kind of eye opening how much the Board has really pushed Facebook to make real changes. Of course, there are many real structural issues with the way the Oversight Board is set up -- but the initial results have been fascinating.

And that's why it's interesting to hear that the company is considering creating another oversight board like setup for dealing with the challenges of moderation and elections, according to a report in the NY Times.

Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, said five people with knowledge of the discussions, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body.

The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. Facebook is expected to announce the commission this fall in preparation for the 2022 midterm elections, they said, though the effort is preliminary and could still fall apart.

I already know (and have seen) some people responding cynically, that this is, once again, Zuckerberg trying to avoid responsibility by fobbing off the tough choices on other people. And, honestly, given Zuckerberg's own past comments that might be exactly a key motivation for him.

But, here's the crazy thing: this could be good even if it's done for cynical, responsibility-avoidance reasons.

First, even if it's Facebook trying to dodge responsibility, um, since no one trusts Facebook at all, shouldn't we want the responsibility taken away from Facebook? Lots of companies that don't want to take responsibility just throw up their hands and do nothing. Here, at least, Facebook is looking to hand it off to others to actually do the hard work that the company itself doesn't want to do. And, even better, it wants to hand it off to a bunch of actual subject matter experts rather than a stressed out, overworked internal team that gets no respect in the first place and has to deal with all sorts of competing interests and incentives.

Second, a huge part of the problem that everyone is facing regarding the internet giants and their moderation choices is that there is zero transparency involved, and that's a big part of what makes things so uncomfortable for people. From the outside, the big decisions (especially on the content moderation policy side) are suddenly announced by the company, with no insight into who is making these decisions or how. Indeed, the few leaks from behind the blue curtain have not been pretty. Letting actual experts figure out better ways forward, where the public knows who they are, and (hopefully) gets to see some of the reasoning and thought process, might not only come up with better overall policies, but also create more transparency and understanding about the policymaking process itself.

So, yes, sure, this very well may be a cynical move. And maybe Zuckerberg gets to laugh at people for letting him off the hook, but frankly, I don't want Zuckerberg personally to be on the hook for these kinds of decisions. Hand it off to experts, make the process public, let us learn about it and see what happens, rather than trusting Mark or his band of former political operatives to make the decisions.

Filed Under: content moderation, election commission, elections, mark zuckerberg, responsibility, transparency
Companies: facebook, oversight board

Documents Show NYPD Has A Secret Surveillance Tech Slush Fund

from the pre-approved-dark-funding dept

About a half-decade ago, public records requesters discovered the Chicago Police Department had been spending seized funds on surveillance equipment like Stingray devices. The forfeiture fund was apparently completely discretionary and the PD used this steady supply of cash to make purchases not specifically approved by the city. It also allowed the department to elude direct oversight of surveillance activities and ensure the public was unable to interrupt the procurement process with pesky comments and questions.

It appears the New York Police Department has been doing the same thing for at least as long. But it's not doing it with "discretionary" funds lifted from New York residents using civil forfeiture. Documents obtained by Wired show the infamously secretive agency has even more secrecy up its sleeves -- a fund that is specifically exempt from its own oversight.

New York City police bought a range of surveillance tools—including facial-recognition software, predictive policing software, vans equipped with x-ray machines to detect weapons, and “stingray” cell site simulators—with no public oversight, according to documents released Tuesday.

In all, the documents show that the NYPD spent at least $159 million since 2007 through a little-known “Special Expenses Fund” that did not require approval by the city council or other municipal officials. The documents were made public by two civil rights groups, the Legal Aid Society and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), which say the practice amounted to a “surveillance slush fund.”

Millions of dollars went to Idemia Solutions, a facial recognition tech provider. Hundreds of thousands went to an Israeli defense contractor, which has provided some sort of "devices" to the PD (details on the devices are redacted). Three-quarters of a million went to a mobile x-ray van manufacturer. The list continues, encompassing a cell site simulator provider and other surveillance tech/software contractors whose documents have been redacted into near-uselessness.

Unfortunately, it appears the city gave its explicit blessing to being cut out of the approval process. A memorandum of understanding between the NYPD and the city's Office of Management and Budget allows the NYPD to withhold contracts and other information dealing with tech/tools used in "confidential operations." So, the city is completely complicit here, which differentiates this from the situation in Chicago. In New York, taxpayers are (or rather, aren't) seeing their tax dollars spent on secret tech from a fund no one is allowed to oversee.

Combining secret tech with zero accountability is only the NYPD's idea of a good time. Hopefully this national exposure will prompt the city to shred its memorandum of understanding and start over with some accountability measures in place.

Filed Under: discretionary funds, nypd, police, slush fund, surveillance, technology, transparency

There's a Growing Backlash Against Tech's Infamous Secrecy. Why Now?

from the the-time-has-come dept

“How Silicon Valley’s Tech Giants Use NDAs to Create a Culture of Silence,” stated a Business Insider piece on July 27, 2021. “To understand how Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) have come to form the backbone of Silicon Valley's culture of secrecy,” explained Matt Drange, “Insider reviewed 36 agreements shared by tech workers.” It showed how management mistakes and misconduct hide in the silence of those NDAs. “The secrecy is by design … leaving the true extent of wrongdoing in the workplace a mystery.”

“The use of NDAs, including in trivial or routine circumstances like visiting a tech office, is ironic in an industry that praises openness and transparency,” elaborated Shira Ovide in her New York Times newsletter. She called it an unnecessary “exercise of power.”

Yael Eisenstat, a former Facebook employee, criticized this power in a Washington Post OpEd on August 3, 2021. “A handful of technology companies have unprecedented - and unchecked - power over our daily interactions and lives. Their ability to silence employees exacerbates that problem, depriving the public and regulators of a means to analyze actions that affect our public health, our public square, and our democracy.”

This recent backlash against tech’s infamous secrecy is long overdue. It became possible as a result of a broader uprising against Big Tech, AKA the Techlash (tech-backlash). But for decades, it wasn’t the case. In the power relations between the tech giants and the media, journalists’ access to sources within those companies was tightly controlled, and “access has always been a bargaining chip.”

The Roots of Tech’s Secrecy Culture

In the mid-1990s, when the dot-com boom started to gather steam, Silicon Valley went from semiconductor fab plants in South San Jose to an industry of hot technologies. The tech coverage focused on the brilliance of the tech CEOs who were daring to take on established industries and old hierarchies. The consumers wanted a ‘backstage pass’ to those rock stars. It was also all that the tech reporters wanted, access.

But the common experience for tech journalists was that if their coverage were critical or hard on the companies, their level of access would either go on hiatus or disappear altogether. Many of them complied with this tradeoff.

The most secretive company was always Apple. Tim Cook once said, “One of the great things about Apple is: We probably have more secrecy here than the CIA.”

By keeping the communication channels closed, the companies had leverage over those to whom they give access. “If you want access to Apple, you can’t upset them,” a Gizmodo reporter described. “Apple and Google are masters of grooming reporters to do what they want and provide access only to folks they think will make them look good,” the freelancer journalist Rose Eveleth explained.

The companies also increased their tendency to brief reporters “on background.” In this method, the tech PR teams and companies’ employees agree to talk, but the reporter cannot quote anything said in the conversation. Thus, the information cannot be transmitted to the readers. The experience can be infuriating, as Adrienne LaFrance from The Atlantic described: “I got through an entire interview with a product manager at Apple, only to be told, after the fact, that it was presumed to be ‘on background.’ ‘Everyone knows this is how we do things,’ a spokesman explained apologetically.”

Tech journalists and bloggers acknowledged getting used to “not having an oppositional journalistic culture.” Those who were asking the tough questions had to walk a tight rope when the combination of access and unfavorable coverage was quite rare.

The Intensifying Revolt During the Techlash

The turning point in tech journalism followed Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016. According to research about the emerging tech-backlash, the pivotal year was 2017 as a result of various tech scandals, including foreign election meddling; disinformation wars; extremist content, and hate speech; privacy violations; allegations of an anti-diversity, sexual harassment, and discrimination culture. The accumulation of those issues created a profound sense of concern around content moderation, algorithmic accountability, and monopoly power. The companies’ secrecy became a means of evading responsibility.

“Corporations such as Apple, Google, and Uber have become infamous for their secrecy and unwillingness to comment on most matters on-the-record. Tech reporters, myself very much included, have not done enough to push them to do otherwise,” claimed Brian Merchant from Vice. He called his fellow journalists to push back against these ossified norms: “I am no longer going to listen to a public relations representative try to change my mind ‘on background’ with unquotable statements attributable to no one. No reporter should, not when the stakes are as high as they are.”

His article, from July 2019, generated a ‘call to arms’ by leading journalists, unwilling to propagate it any longer. It reflected a more profound change in the power dynamics between Big Tech and the journalists, who had enough. Later on, the Covid-19 pandemic acted as an accelerator, and the Tech vs. Journalism battle intensified into a full-blown “cold war.” The stakes were even higher than before.

In June 2021, a Mother Jones piece took the allegations against the PR tactics to the next level. It focused on Amazon and described how it “bullies, manipulated and lies to reporters.” Amazon’s press team was accused of engaging in deceitful behavior. The tech reporters also pointed out that “Amazon has recently begun providing more access before a story is published,” but complained it is done “in limited and often unhelpful or unrelated ways, by offering things like off-the-record or background interviews with the press team or approved employees.”

It is often the case that the more important stories are coming from “un-approved” employees. This is how Casey Newton revealed Facebook’s content moderators’ working conditions in The Trauma Floor or Bodies in Seats exposés. The workers openly described how they developed severe anxiety while still in training and struggled with trauma symptoms long after they left.

Other tech employees, who experienced a reckoning around their companies’ role in society, also started approaching the reporters with allegations of corporate misdeeds. Some of them didn’t speak anonymously but instead put their name on it, agreeing to full exposure. The fact that whistleblowers experienced legal risks, retaliation, and emotional scars did not stop additional workers from joining their colleagues. Breaking their NDAs or handing them to a reporter are parts of this growing trend of employee activism.

“You can’t have it both ways,” Scott Thurm from Wired explained in an interview. “If you don’t give us access, then, of course, we are going to rely on other people to tell the story.” The current story is not the one the tech companies want the media to tell. However, in the Techlash, it is precisely what the media is doing.

Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt is the author of The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication

Filed Under: accountability, big tech, nda, secrecy, techlash, transparency

Redaction Failure Shows Grayshift Is Swearing Cops To Secrecy About Its Phone-Cracking Tech

from the paying-for-the-privilege-of-being-told-to-shut-up dept

Law enforcement loves its new tech advances. It also hates to talk about them, operating under the assumption that the business of serving the public isn't the public's business. When pressed, officials will say something about staying one step ahead of criminals. But more often the opacity is nothing more than antagonism directed at people who expect transparency from those cashing publicly funded paychecks.

In some cases, this antagonism extends to the courtroom. The desire to keep secret methods secret upends the evidentiary process. When evidence can't be laundered through parallel construction, prosecutors may drop cases if it means discussing cop tech in court. This includes devices like cell tower simulators, which have been publicly discussed for years.

Added to the mix are non-disclosure agreements foisted on agencies by government contractors. Some of these NDAs go so far as to demand agencies route public records requests through them. The FBI has occasionally pitched in, telling prosecutors to drop cases rather than discuss "sensitive" tech.

This opacity isn't just for Stingray devices. It also applies to cellphone-cracking tech sold by a handful of companies. Public records obtained by Motherboard show Grayshift -- the maker of GrayKey -- is trying to keep information about its products out of the public's hands. In a case of apparent redaction failure, the documents provide a few more details about GrayKey… as well as Grayshift's demands that this information remain secret.

"Without limiting and foregoing, you acknowledge and agree that you will not disclose the existence of any GrayKey features and solutions designed to circumvent USB Restricted Mode released in iOS 11.4.1 and updated throughout future iOS versions made available to you on or about the date hereof," one section reads.

The original document redlines the part about the Restricted Mode, suggesting this was supposed to be redacted before releasing the confidentiality agreement to the public. Unfortunately for the Illinois State Police, this slipped out.

So did some other stuff from other law enforcement agencies. Motherboard's quest for Grayshift documents also turned up a request to create an exception in public transparency laws for this specific law enforcement tech.

"I am requesting a public records exemption to disclosure for the purchase of the GrayKey system for the Digital Forensics Lab," a City of Orlando law enforcement official wrote to the chief of police in 2018, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Motherboard. "This will prohibit Purchasing from posting notice of the purchase and disclosing acquisition of this system. This will assist in protecting our forensic examination techniques, and capabilities."

This isn't the way to handle this. Agencies can attempt to withhold documents by citing exceptions, but it's up to the state Attorney General (and the courts if a lawsuit ensues) to make the final call. Law enforcement officials shouldn't be asking for new exceptions or blanket application of existing exceptions. They also shouldn't be asking to undermine part of the public procurement process by seeking to withhold even more information from the public.

As for Grayshift, it says there's nothing wrong with these confidentiality agreements. It says they only apply to "intellectual property," not the mere existence or use of the devices. So, there's no reason to redline information about tech advancements, since it's not technically intellectual property, but rather just an undetailed discussion about one application of its tech. Grayshift also says the NDAs are not meant to be read as affirming the withholding of evidence (or the source of evidence) in prosecutions. But there's no telling how its customers are interpreting the agreement and -- given the history of other tech utilized by law enforcement -- it's safe to say someone's going to believe this means cases should be dropped or evidence laundered if it involves tech they haven't discussed publicly.

Filed Under: accountability, foia, graykey, nda, police tech, secrecy, surveillance, transparency
Companies: grayshift

Oversight Unable To Discover Which FBI Agents Leaked Clinton Investigation Info Because Goddamn Everyone Was Leaking Stuff

from the selective-transparency dept

Selective leaking has always been a part of the federal government's day-to-day business. When there are narratives to massage, controlled leaking is tolerated. Leaks that make the government look bad tend to result in prosecutions, but leaks that act as highly unofficial PR or align with the motivations of the agencies they're leaked from are largely ignored.

Every so often, though, oversight is asked to keep an eye on leaking, if only to make it appear that all leaks are considered equal. In the interest of perceived fairness, the FBI's Office of the Inspector General has taken a look at the incidents surrounding the selective release of information about the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server during her stint at the State Department under Barack Obama.

There were questions about political motivations -- ones not helped at all by selective leaks about the investigation. This was on top of supposedly official actions, like then-FBI director James Comey's decision to hold a press conference to announce the outcome of the FBI's investigation. In the agency's determination, what Clinton did was unwise and gave the appearance of impropriety, but was not illegal.

That would have been it. But shortly before the 2016 election, James Comey decided it was time for him to act unwisely and give off an air of impropriety by announcing the FBI would be reopening its investigation of Clinton and her email server, thanks to developments in an unrelated case. Comey's actions were also questionable, but apparently not actually illegal.

The OIG tried to dig into the FBI's use of selective leaking during this time period. And it has arrived at the conclusion that it's almost impossible to accurately point fingers, much less discourage powerful federal agencies from doing whatever the hell they want to, policies and laws notwithstanding. (h/t Brad Heath)

The report [PDF] leads off with a summary of the undoubtedly frustrating investigation. First, it points out how things should be handled…

Among the issues we reviewed in that report were allegations that FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information regarding the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. FBI policies strictly limit the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, and require all other employees to coordinate with or obtain approval from the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) in connection with such communications.

And follows that up with a resigned statement about how things actually are…

Nonetheless, as described in our 2016 pre-election report, we found that these policies appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. Specifically, in our analysis of FBI telephone records, FBI email records, FBI text, and Microsoft Lync instant messages, we identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.

The Federal Bureau of Sunk Ships (feat. Loose Lips). This would be a national embarrassment if it weren't so hilarious. The FBI screws over public records requesters on a regular basis and issues tight-lipped "no comments" or Glomars whenever it's being scrutinized by critics. But apparently everyone on staff is handing out secrets to half the Rolodex whenever they're feeling particularly chatty about politically-tinged investigations.

And if this seems damning, imagine what the OIG would have found if it was actually engaged in an investigation determined to root out criminal activity.

Because this was a non-criminal administrative misconduct review, there was no legal basis to seek a court order to compel Internet service providers to produce to the OIG the content of any personal email communications for these FBI employees.

As much as I'd like to see some federal agents suddenly jobless, I appreciate the restraint of the OIG, which would have been treading into First Amendment waters by seeking content of communications with journalists. All the same, it appears the FBI doesn't really need to keep paying people to staff its Public Relations department. It has all the unofficial help it needs to get the word out.

Those who were caught chatting it up with reporters tended to pass the buck, offering the Inspector General facts not in evidence to justify their casual disregard of FBI policy.

Employees interviewed by the OIG generally claimed that they believed their contacts were either authorized by OPA or a field office Special Agent in Charge (SAC) or Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) to provide background about an FBI initiative or completed investigation, or were personal in nature. Given the absence, in most instances, of any documentary evidence reflecting the substance of these communications, the OIG was unable to determine whether these communications were consistent with the explanations provided by the FBI employees or instead involved the sharing of non-public information with reporters.

Behold the Federal Office of the Future! It's not just telecommuting and flexible staffing. It's also paper trail-less, which probably helps the environment in some way. God bless America.

In conclusion: holy shit.

Our ability to identify individuals who have improperly disclosed non-public information is often hampered by two significant factors. First, we frequently find that the universe of Department and FBI employees who had access to sensitive information that has been leaked is substantial, often involving dozens, and in some instances, more than 100 people.

Second, although FBI policy strictly limits the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, we found that this policy appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks. For example, during the periods we reviewed, we identified dozens of FBI employees that had contact with members of the media.

Forget FOIA. Maybe all anyone needs is a barely targeted "request for comment." And it would be ridiculous to believe the FBI is the only agency that behaves this way. The federal government -- as multiple presidents have discovered -- is staffed by the leakiest bunch of leakers who ever leaked. The problem isn't the leaks. It's the selective prosecution of leaks. If the leaks serve the government, they're just part of the public service infrastructure. But if they embarrass the government or expose wrongdoing, they're suddenly criminal acts. And that unequal treatment cannot be addressed by internal investigations. It's a mindset problem -- one the government has no intention of changing, no matter who's occupying the Oval Office.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, hillary clinton, inspector general, james comey, journalism, leaks, oversight, reporting, transparency

Facebook Acting Badly: Shuts Down Researchers Accounts Over Claims Of Privacy Violations That Don't Stand Up To Scrutiny

from the oh-stop-it dept

Last year we wrote about Facebook threatening NYU researchers who had set up a browser extension that would allow users to voluntarily collect information about ads and ad targeting on Facebook -- information that Facebook does not publicly reveal -- and provide it to the researchers' "Ad Observatory" project. As we noted at the time, Facebook's threats were definitely going too far, though you could see how it came about, as it could be argued that there were technical similarities to what the NYU researchers were doing, and what an academic from Cambridge did many years ago that turned into... the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which resulted (in part) in a massive fine from the FTC for privacy violations.

But, as we explained then, the NYU Ad Observer story is clearly distinguishable from the Cambridge Analytica story. The Ad Observatory involves people installing an extension on their own computer in their own browser, and choosing to share that information. That's not something Facebook should have any right to block.

Unfortunately, this week, Facebook took things up a notch and shut down the accounts of everyone associated with the project, effectively cutting off all their access to Facebook's Ad Library and other tools they were using in their research. Facebook's own explanation for this is... to claim that it was compromising people's privacy, though that appears to be bullshit (as we'll get to in a moment). Here's part of what Facebook said:

We told the researchers a year ago, in summer of 2020, that their Ad Observatory extension would violate our Terms even before they launched the tool. In October, we sent them a formal letter notifying them of the violation of our Terms of Service and granted them 45 days to comply with our request to stop scraping data from our website. The deadline ended on November 30, long after Election Day. We continued to engage with the researchers on addressing our privacy concerns and offered them ways to obtain data that did not violate our Terms. 

Earlier this year, we invited researchers, including the ones from NYU, to safely access US 2020 Elections ad targeting data through FORT’s Researcher Platform. This offered the Ad Observatory researchers a more comprehensive data set than the one they created by scraping data on Facebook. The researchers had the opportunity to use the data set, which is designed to be privacy-protective, instead of relying on scraping, but they declined.

We made it clear in a series of posts earlier this year that we take unauthorized data scraping seriously, and when we find instances of scraping we investigate and take action to protect our platform. While the Ad Observatory project may be well-intentioned, the ongoing and continued violations of protections against scraping cannot be ignored and should be remediated. 

Collecting data via scraping is an industry-wide problem that jeopardizes people’s privacy, and we’ve been clear about our public position on this as recently as April. The researchers knowingly violated our Terms against scraping — which we went to great lengths to explain to them over the past year. Today’s action doesn’t change our commitment to providing more transparency around ads on Facebook or our ongoing collaborations with academia. We’ll continue to provide ways for responsible researchers to conduct studies that are in the public interest while protecting the security of our platform and the privacy of people who use it. 

This is... nonsense. I challenge the idea that "data scraping" is a problem, first of all. I mean, that's what the entire search engine business is built on. It's all data scraping. The problem is when private information is somehow exposed. But that's different. And here we're talking about individuals installing an extension in their own browsers, to collect information that is sent to their own computers. That's not Facebook's data to control. Once it's in my browser, it's mine to make use of. Facebook's argument here makes no sense.

And, indeed, a few others have stepped in to point out the same thing. For one, Mozilla, makers of the Firefox browser, called bullshit on the claims pretty directly:

Facebook claims the accounts were shut down due to privacy problems with the Ad Observer.  In our view, those claims simply do not hold water. We know this, because before encouraging users to contribute data to the Ad Observer, which we’ve done repeatedly, we reviewed the code ourselves. And in this blog post, we want to explain why we believe people can contribute to this important research without sacrificing their privacy.  

Anytime you give your data to another party, whether Facebook or Mozilla or researchers at New York University, it is important that you know whether that party is trustworthy, what data will be collected, and what will be done with that data. Those are critical things to consider before you potentially grant access to your data. And those are also key factors for Mozilla when we consider recommending an extension. 

Before Mozilla decided to recommend Ad Observer, we reviewed it twice, conducting both a code review and examining the consent flow to ensure users will understand exactly what they are installing. In both cases the team responsible for this add-on responded quickly to our feedback, made changes to their code, and demonstrated a commitment to the privacy of their users. We also conducted an in-depth design review of Ad Observer, the results of which can be found here. 

We decided to recommend Ad Observer because our reviews assured us that it respects user privacy and supports transparency. It collects ads, targeting parameters and metadata associated with the ads. It does not collect personal posts or information about your friends. And it does not compile a user profile on its servers. The extension also allows you to see what data has been collected by visiting the “My Archive” tab. It gives you the choice to opt in to sharing additional demographic information to aid research into how specific groups are being targeted, but even that is off by default.

You don’t have to take our word for it. Ad Observer is open source, so anybody can see the code and  confirm it is designed properly and doing what it purports to do.

And then, the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection weighed in with a letter to Mark Zuckerberg also calling bullshit on the idea that the Ad Observatory extension might somehow violate Facebook's various consent decrees with the FTC regarding privacy protection.

I write concerning Facebook’s recent insinuation that its actions against an academic research project conducted by NYU’s Ad Observatory were required by the company’s consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. As the company has since acknowledged, this is inaccurate. The FTC is committed to protecting the privacy of people, and efforts to shield targeted advertising practices from scrutiny run counter to that mission.

While I appreciate that Facebook has now corrected the record, I am disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter. Only last week, Facebook’s General Counsel, Jennifer Newstead, committed the company to “timely, transparent communication to BCP staff about significant developments.” Yet the FTC received no notice that Facebook would be publicly invoking our consent decree to justify terminating academic research earlier this week.

Had you honored your commitment to contact us in advance, we would have pointed out that the consent decree does not bar Facebook from creating exceptions for good-faith research in the public interest. Indeed, the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising. While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims.

I do think that some of the pressures that people put on Facebook about "protecting" privacy do more harm than good and lead to situations that backfire and actually give Facebook more control and less transparency. But this case seems to be Facebook cynically using this as an excuse to shut down academic research they were uncomfortable with and punish the researchers.

There are two simple answers here: give the academic researchers access to the data they need to do this research (Facebook's claims of making the data accessible leave out that not everything the researchers are asking for is actually in those data sets) and don't block people from installing things on their own computer. That's not Facebook's job.

Filed Under: ad observatory, data, excuses, ftc, privacy, scraping, transparency
Companies: cambridge analytica, facebook, mozilla, nyu

DC Court Dumps Police Union's Attempt To Block Release Of Recordings, Officers' Names Following Police Shootings

from the maybe-just-shoot-fewer-people-if-this-transparency-is-such-a-problem dept

Last year, a number of police reforms were passed by the city of Washington, DC. These efforts angered the Fraternal Order of Police -- which represents a number of DC Metro police officers -- enough for it to sue. It sued over two reforms in particular: the release of police recordings (body cam or otherwise) and the names of officers involved in shootings of residents.

The FOP insisted this was a bad idea. According to the union, releasing this information would place officers in danger. The FOP speculated making officers' names public would subject them to humiliation, possible armed retribution by city residents, and make it ever so slightly more difficult for them to be employed by other law enforcement agencies.

It also suggested releasing footage would violate the privacy rights of citizens, including victims and witnesses at the scene. And it insisted the entire thing reeked of due process violations, since there was a chance (probably a pretty good one) that officers would be cleared of any wrongdoing.

Well, the court has rejected all of the FOP's arguments and Metro PD officers are going to have to get used to the new level of transparency that now surrounds their use of deadly force. The court likes exactly zero of the FOP's arguments. First, the court [PDF] points out the police union has no standing to bring this suit, no matter which version of standing it attempts to use.

Speculating that the FOP will be involved in more defense of officers accused of wrongdoing following use-of-force incidents isn't an injury the court's willing to recognize. (And it's unclear how releasing footage and names would result in more litigation or internal investigations.)

Simply stating that more resources will be expended is insufficient because the passing of the Temporary Act did not prevent the plaintiffs from performing tasks or actions that they previously could prior the Temporary Act.

[...]

Further, plaintiff’s alleged future injuries are too speculative to establish organizational standing. The plaintiff alleges that it will have to expended resources to challenge improper transfers of Detectives, but as the defendants pointed out, such an allegation is based a series of potential future events. It is not concrete or imminent injury when the allegations involve a chain of events that essentially start from the Mayor’s release of the footage, to less witnesses willing to testify, to a more difficult investigation, to a lower closure rate, to potential transfers or disciplinary action, and then to plaintiff’s decision whether to represent the officer, assuming that the officer is one of plaintiff’s members. [...] Therefore, plaintiff’s pure speculation about potential future harm is insufficient to establish organizational standing.

The court says the FOP also can't sue because it feels release of footage will infringe on the privacy rights of residents who aren't cops.

In the Complaint, the plaintiff alleges that the Temporary Act will infringe on the rights of citizens of the District, such as infringing on their privacy rights. However, it is unclear how the plaintiff can establish a close relationship with every member of the general public who are not members of the plaintiff’s organization. Furthermore, there is no allegation of any “hindrance” to the ability of the public to protect their own interests.

There's no associational standing either.

In the Amended Complaint, the plaintiff alleges that the release of the camera footage and names of officers will result in “unjust reputational harm, result in “immediate risk of a significant bodily harm,” and lead to “psychological trauma” to an officer and his/her family. However, these allegations are purely speculation and conclusory allegations that the Court has no obligation to accept under the relevant standards. The pure possibility that something might happen does not constitute an injury.

In addition, there's nothing connecting this speculation to the actions of the city government, which passed the order governing the release of footage and names.

Further, the Amended Complaint also fails to allege how any alleged injuries can be “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s actions. The defendants are not in control of public opinion and cannot be held responsible if a citizen or citizens criticizes or condemns an officer’s use of force in a particular incident.

The court saves the best for last in this dismissal. It dispenses with the union's due process violation allegations by pointing out there's no difference between the officers' body cameras and cameras operated by citizens. You can't say one is protected speech but the other somehow violates the privacy rights of police officers.

In Count II, the plaintiffs contend that Subtitle B of the Temporary Act “violates the fundamental right to privacy held by D.C. Police Union members.” Specifically, the immediate public release of names of officers and body-worn camera footage “will allow criminal suspects and their associates to identify the officer and potentially seek retribution.” First and foremost, there is “no authority that the Constitution imposes on the government an affirmative duty—untethered to specific constitutional provisions such as the First Amendment—to ‘safeguard personal information’ from the criminal acts of third parties.”

Importantly, as the defendants mentioned, MPD policy explicitly states that members of the general public have a First Amendment right to record MPD members during official business, unless they interfere with police activity. See MPD General Order 304-19 at § 1. If the public is legally able to record officers during official business, it is unclear how any reasonable officer can assume that they have the right to privacy when conducting said official business.

The lawsuit is dismissed. Presumably this will be appealed, but even when given two chances to fill a lawsuit with actionable claims and firmly establish standing, the FOP failed. Once this is appealed, it's stuck with the arguments that have already failed once. It should probably save its time and money for future Hail Mary litigation in the event of impending release of footage and names.

Filed Under: body cameras, dc metro police, fraternal order of police, police, police recordings, police unions, transparency

Texas Legislature Sees Florida's Social Media Bill Go Down In Unconstitutional Flames; Decides 'We Can Do That Too!'

from the seriously,-guys? dept

The Republican grievance culture wars about the internet are never ending. The Grand Old Party -- which once presented itself as believing in private property rights, keeping government out of business, and mocking "snowflakes" for playing victim all the time -- has shown its true colors as being for everything it previously insisted it was against. As we noted earlier this year, a bunch of states with Republican controlled legislatures and governors have been proposing blatantly unconstitutional bills to try to prevent social media companies from moderating disinformation and propaganda. Utah was the first state to pass such a bill, but Governor Spencer Cox wisely vetoed it, noting the Constitutional concerns.

Next out of the gate was Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis chose poorly, signing the bill that was thrown out last week for being blatantly unconstitutional under basically any standard of review. As we've noted, this is all performative nonsense, playing to a base that wants to insist it's the aggrieved victims, because sometimes when they violate a website's policies, they face consequences.

Incredibly, though not surprisingly, Texas legislators have looked at Florida's giant constitutional mess of wasted taxpayer funds and said, "yeah, let's do that!" Earlier this year, Texas proposed another awful social media content moderation bill, but the legislative session ended without it being voted on. Rather than move on to dealing with actual problems, Texas launched a special legislative session with a long list of culture war grievances -- including the social media bill.

And so the bill has be re-introduced and it's arguably even more blatantly unconstitutional than the Florida bill. Most of the first part of the bill is just creating a ton of silly and wasteful compliance paperwork -- requiring social media websites to do a lot more to actually moderate content on their site, including having someone people can call, having an official appeals process, and explaining to people in exact terms why they were moderated (this gambit is a favorite of trolls and assholes, who want this information solely to disingenuously insist that they didn't break the rules, or to insist that others who broke similar rules were treated differently, usually by removing any and all context from those decisions).

But then the bill veers into even more ridiculous territory. First, it defines "censorship" to mean things that are clearly not censorship. Even if you disagree with the basic premise that moderation is not censorship, the Texas bill defines "censorship" so broadly to make the term meaningless:

"Censor" means to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.

De-monetizing is censorship? De-boosting is censorship? In what world? I mean, Fox News refuses to put me on the air to express my views about their propaganda. Is that censorship? The bill does exempt news organizations, but still. Under this bill, it seems that search ranking is censorship. After all, whoever is ranked below the top spot has been "de-boosted" and not provided "equal access or visibility." I can't wait until I can sue Google for not putting Techdirt at the top of every search!

The bill then tries to prohibit its definition of "censorship" for viewpoints.

CENSORSHIP PROHIBITED. (a) A social media platform may not censor a user, a user ’s expression, or a user ’s ability to receive the expression of another person based on:

(1) the viewpoint of the user or another person;
(2) the viewpoint represented in the user’s expression or another person’s expression; or
(3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.

So, you cannot ban Nazis any more. Or bigots spewing hatred. Sounds great, Texas. I mean... actually, sounds totally blatantly unconstitutional, and a clear waste of Texas taxpayers money, as you will have to go to Court and defend this law that will easily be tossed out as unconstitutional. But, who cares about that when there's a culture war to fight, and an opportunity to whine about how you're the victim again?

Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, content moderation, florida, section 230, texas, transparency