30,000 Cameras Can't Be Wrong: Chicago Banks On Surveillance To Solve Violence Problem

from the here's-looking-at-you,-Chicago-[unblinking-eye-pans-to-follow-passing-citize dept

Chicago's gun violence rate -- now in the midst of a long period of decline, never mind what the Attorney General and President say in public statements/tweet -- has been a concern for a few years now. The DOJ, before being chased away from policing the police by Jeff Sessions, noted the PD had destroyed its relationship with city residents with unconstitutional policing and an antagonistic attitude. A couple of high-profile shootings of Chicago residents by police officers did nothing to help.

Chicago is the poster child for violent crime, despite its rate of crime being lower than under-the-radar cities like Ft. Worth, Memphis, and Houston. This had led to all sorts of solutions being suggested, including the return of unconstitutional policing (Attorney General), sending in the troops (President Trump), and a sharp uptick in surveillance (the Chicago PD).

The New York Times covers the city's surveillance expansion under the headline "Can 30,000 Cameras Help Solve Chicago's Crime Problem?" The answer is unclear, despite the many glowing reviews of the city's camera network delivered by law enforcement officers and officials. The subhed -- "But what does it mean for residents' privacy?" -- is barely discussed.

The network Chicago is deploying involves thousands of hi-def cameras, automatic license plate readers, mugshot databases, and predictive policing software. That the system went online roughly about the time homicide numbers began to decline has prompted praise -- perhaps unearned -- for the system's ability to rid the city of its violent crime problem.

The department tested the use of technology in two of its most violent areas in early 2017. When crime began to fall, the department ultimately set aside space in 13 of its 22 police stations for the surveillance centers, which tap into the city’s approximately 30,000 government-operated closed-circuit cameras.

Inside, civilian crime analysts from the University of Chicago Crime Lab — self-described “nerds” who are often learning data science on the fly — and uniformed officers work side by side at computer terminals, scrutinizing crime data as they search for trends.

Much of the technology is similar to equipment used by dozens of police departments around the nation: sensors to detect the location of gunshots, software designed to predict the time and location of crimes and license plate readers that photograph thousands of plates per minute.

Cops like the system. It provides a wealth of information, starting with location of reported gunshots and working from there to bring up arrest records of people in the area and vehicle locations of suspects. Fun stuff for cops. Not so much for the thousands of innocent people who live in heavily-surveilled areas. Predictive policing software's track record isn't much better than facial recognition AI. Both have a tendency to generate false positives, but predictive policing allows cops to conjure reasonable suspicion out of ambient temperature, moon stages, and someone's proximity to known criminals. You may think I'm being facetious, but here's the receipt.

The civilian analysts spend much of their time feeding a range of information into software called HunchLab, which considers a number of variables — from gang tensions and gunshot reports to the number of parolees living in an area — to forecast crime by giving probability scores, much like a meteorological report.

HunchLab also examines less obvious data points, like the location of liquor stores and schools, an area’s proximity to local expressways, and even weather conditions and phases of the moon (there is more crime during full moons; no one knows why).

In reality, it seems to do little more than shore up preconceived notions. This is what may have gotten the city into the mess in the first place. And the DOJ's inability to move forward with investigations of police forces means the PD may never have to answer fully for its unconstitutional behavior. What residents are getting instead of better police officers and policies is a massive surveillance network -- one deployed with almost zero public comment or oversight. Some transparency has been put in place, but only after the system has been fully deployed, and it largely consists of invitations to community leaders to tour local "strategic centers" to look at the people looking at screens showing images of their friends and neighbors.

As local activist Kofi Ademola puts it, residents weren't asked about the new system. They were simply told this was the way forward.

“There was not a conversation like, ‘Do you want this in your community?’ ” he said. “Instead, the Chicago police say, ‘This is in your community and it is going to cut crime,’ and unfortunately, people don’t question that. It’s now been normalized for these communities to be under constant surveillance, which contributes to the criminalization of people. It is problematic.”

The situation is unlikely to change. It won't be scaled back, even if current crime rate declines plateau. To its proponents, it's the only explanation for the decline in violence. Efforts have been made to overhaul stop-and-frisk policies, which may have helped community relations, but there's no weight backing it up or codifying the changes. The DOJ isn't going to step in and demand permanent changes and city officials have taken heat from law enforcement reps for the minimal corrective efforts they have managed to put in place.

Sure, the system may do some good, but at what societal cost? Will certain residents just assume their lives will be documented and stored in law enforcement databases so long as they live or work in certain neighborhoods? Will guilt by association increase the number of interactions with law enforcement just because they have the misfortune to live in gang territory or a few houses away from recently-released felons? Those are questions that no one can answer with anything but "yes" at this point. The police feel this is an acceptable tradeoff: lower crime for 24-hour surveillance. Those being surveilled have been given no say in the matter.

Filed Under: chicago, police, surveillance, violence

School Can't Take A Joke; Turns Student Over To Cops For Listing The School For Sale On Craigslist

from the adminstrators-stripped-of-human-traits-during-hiring-process dept

Recent school shootings have led to heightened reactions from school officials and law enforcement. An over-correction of sorts -- thanks to the shooter in Florida having been brought to law enforcement's attention several times prior to the shooting -- has resulted in the arrest of hundreds of students across the nation.

The problem isn't so much treating potential threats as credible until proven otherwise. The problem is there's so very little subtlety applied. Things that should not be perceived as threats are, and even when they're determined to be either unfounded or not actually a threat, some schools decide their misperceptions are more important than the reality of the situation. (h/t Reason)

The graduating class of Truman High School in Independence, Missouri brainstormed senior pranks. Kylan Scheele came up with a pretty decent idea. He posted his school for sale on Craigslist.

The ad read:

Truman High School - $12725

Huge 20+ room facility.
Newly build football field.
Baseball Field to the SE.
Newly added 4 modern day rooms.
Has: Centralized air, heating, plumbing.
Next to Walmart for convenience
Huge parking lot, great for partygoers looking for somewhere to park
Bigger than normal dinning room.
Multi stove, oven, fridge and other appliances in the kitchen.
Reason for sale is due to the loss of students coming up.
Named after hometown resident U.S. President Harry S. Truman and his family.

About as innocuous of a prank anyone could have played on the school, one would think. But one would probably not be Truman High School administration. They turned it over to law enforcement.

Detectives with the Independence Police Department investigated the incident and found no probable cause or reason to pursue criminal charges. The had Scheele delete the post and advised him to talk to school adminstrators.

“They [detectives] didn’t see a credible threat,” Clark said. “They all kind of had a little chuckle about it but they wanted him to understand you could see how other people could see it as a threat.”

And how could people see this as a threat? Well, the school seized on one line of the faux ad: "loss of students coming up." Obviously, this referred to the pending graduation. The school, however, somehow read this to mean Scheele planned on harming the student body. That prompted the handover to police. And when it was handed back, the school doubled down on its "seriousness."

We take student safety very seriously and appreciate the students and parents who brought this to our attention. Out of an abundance of caution, administrators and police investigated and determined there was not a credible threat. A student who makes a real or implied threat, whether it is deemed credible or not, will face discipline. Due to the heightened concern nationally with school violence, we have extra police officers for the remainder of the school year and will have additional officers at graduations for all of our high schools.

Good lord. So, the non-threat the police considered non-threatening has resulted in Scheele's suspension and his ban from the graduation ceremony. The "implied threat" the school somehow read into a statement about graduating seniors is keeping one student from getting his diploma with his classmates.

It's also resulted in a lawsuit [PDF]. The ACLU represented Scheele in his demand for a restraining order blocking the school from blocking him from picking up his diploma at the graduation ceremony. Filed May 25th, the court has already ruled in favor of the school.

The school has also refused to back down, claiming the bogus ad caused "substantial disruption" and resulted in multiple parents retrieving their kids from school. (Wonder how much of that was due to the school informing parents it had turned over a "credible" threat to law enforcement?) As the lawsuit pointed out, there's no way the student intended to cause a disruption and no "reasonable" person could have imagined the outcome would have been school officials attempting to turn a satirical "for sale" ad into a criminal offense. The disruption was of the school's own making, but the punishment will be borne solely by the student who posted the ad.

Filed Under: humor, jokes, kyle scheele, missouri, police, pranks, threats, truman high school
Companies: craigslist

Court Has No Problem With Multiple Invasive Probings In Search Of Drugs That Didn't Exist

from the 'Your-Bodies,-Ourselves,'-by-CBP-and-El-Paso-County-healthcare-professio dept

If a government employee suspects you might be carrying drugs, be prepared to engage in a nonconsensual, highly-intimate relationship with the feds and their helpers. A New Mexico resident suspected of carrying drugs was subjected to multiple anal probings and enemas before law enforcement finally decided he wasn't actually carrying any drugs on him (or in him). An 18-year-old Arizona woman was subjected to vaginal and anal probing when attempting to return from a short trip to Nogales, Mexico. Again, no drugs were found but the helpful medical "professional" decided to go from CBP accusation to painful probing, bypassing less intrusive options (x-rays, etc.) in his earnest desire to save America from illicit substances.

Another incident with lots of probing and violations but zero drugs has landed in the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court. Gloria Bustillos (an American citizen) was attempting to return to El Paso, Texas after a visit to Juarez, Mexico when CBP agents decided she must be trafficking drugs. The indignities began immediately. From the decision [PDF]:

First, two female agents conducted a pat down. The agents found no drugs. The agents then held Bustillos for a K-9 search. The K-9 failed to alert to the presence of drugs. Two agents then took Bustillos to a restroom, where they ordered her to pull down her pants and underwear and bend over slightly. The agents conducted a visual inspection of Bustillos’ vaginal and anal area. Again, the agents found no drugs.

Free to go? Not a chance.

Despite no evidence of drugs, the agents placed tape on Bustillos’ legs and abdomen, handcuffed her, and transported her to the University Medical Center (the “Hospital”) in El Paso.

At the Hospital, Doctors Michael Parsa and Daniel Solomin (the “Doctors”) ordered a series of x-rays to search for drugs. The x-rays revealed no drugs. The Doctors then performed a pelvic exam. Again, the pelvic exam evidenced no drugs. Solomin then conducted a rectal exam. Yet again, Solomin found no evidence of drugs. As part of these searches, the Doctors, and Nurses Lynette Telles and Frank Mendez (the “Nurses”), allegedly “brutally” probed Bustillos’ cavities in the presence of hospital personnel. Bustillos did not consent to any of the above searches.

Having been violated multiple times in an attempt to confirm the CBP's verifiably-wrong suspicions, Bustillos sued. And the court has nothing for her. The district court upheld immunity for the medical personnel who performed the series of invasive searches and the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court affirms this decision.

Bustillos argues that the Doctors and Nurses violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by detaining her in order to conduct x-ray, pelvic, and rectal exams without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The district court held those allegations cannot overcome the Doctors’ and Nurses’ qualified immunity because the right at issue was not clearly-established. We agree and affirm on that ground.

This part sounds hopeful…

Nonetheless, we take this opportunity to clarify the constitutional duties of medical staff when they cooperate with law enforcement searches.

But it isn't. The appeals court holds that medical personnel are in no position to question the orders of government agents. CBP officers can make almost any statement and suggest courses of action and medical personnel should just shut up and do what they're told, even if less-invasive procedures suggest more-invasive procedures aren't any more likely to produce supposedly-hidden drugs. (Emphasis added.)

Accordingly, Bustillos’ allegations could potentially assert a constitutional violation. The complaint is, however, ambiguous on critical factual allegations. For instance, it is unclear who Bustillos alleges actually ordered the various searches. Further, it is unclear what the CBP officers told medical staff regarding their basis for requesting the various searches. These facts are important because the officers’ articulation of probable cause for a minimally invasive search, such as the x-ray, would not necessarily shield the Doctors and Nurses from liability for the more intrusive searches, such as the rectal probe, if the officers did not request that search or represent that sufficient suspicion justified it. However, if the officers requested all of the medical examinations, the Doctors and Nurses would have a strong argument that they had no duty to second-guess the Fourth Amendment basis for those searches.

But the appeals court stops there. It could have examined the sufficiency of the allegations. The court says the underlying facts (apparently not on the record) "are important" as they would what was done under the command of CBP officers and how many invasive searches were performed without direct instruction. Certainly medical personnel aren't well-positioned to questions law enforcement assertions -- and it may be ultimately correct that they should not be held liable for invasive tests ordered by the government. But the appeals court just discards the discussion without sending it back to the lower court to further assess the underlying facts. The appeals court simply says the right to be free of invasive medical searches performed possibly at the government's behest was "not clearly established." The "clarification" the court promised earlier in the decision materializes as a muddy paragraph that clarifies nothing because the court is unwilling to clarify it further than "maybe medical personnel shouldn't question law enforcement."

This failure of justice is made even more apparent when the court moves on to discuss Bustillos' challenge of the lower court's denial of discovery.

Bustillos claims that the district court abused its discretion by failing to grant her requests to conduct discovery prior to ruling on the motions to dismiss. We disagree.

Both motions for protective orders noted that the Doctors had asserted qualified immunity. “One of the most salient benefits of qualified immunity is protection from pretrial discovery . . . .” Backe v. LeBlanc, 691 F.3d 645, 648 (5th Cir. 2012). Thus, “[b]efore allowing discovery in a matter where qualified immunity is alleged, the district court must first find ‘that the plaintiff’s pleadings assert facts which, if true, would overcome’ a qualified immunity defense.” Williams-Boldware v. Denton Cty., 741 F.3d 635, 643 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Backe, 691 F.3d at 648).

Because Bustillos’ claims could not overcome the clearly-established prong of the qualified immunity defense, the district court did not err by declining to grant Bustillos’ discovery requests.

So, the court says plaintiffs in her situation are fucked. They can't sufficiently allege violated rights without more factual development, but the qualified immunity defense prevents discovery from even occurring. Plaintiffs apparently have to enter the court with all the facts on hand at the time of filing. Most government agencies are unwilling to hand over pertinent documents to victims of their malfeasance at any point, forcing plaintiffs to engage in an FOIA lawsuit (and secure a victory) before even attempting to file a civil rights lawsuit. The clock starts ticking on civil rights lawsuits the moment a violation occurs, making it all but impossible to win a public records suit (and secure helpful facts) prior to bringing allegations of rights violations to the court. Qualified immunity is an insanely high bar to meet, and it's only made worse when courts at the appellate level refuse to clarify constitutional duties of medical professionals beyond "if law enforcement is involved in any way, medical professionals can do whatever they want without worrying about being held liable for their actions."

Filed Under: 4th amendment, 5th circuit, cbp, drug searches, drugs, gloria butillos, police

Report On Milwaukee PD Body Cams Show Fewer Complaints, Fewer Stops, But No Reduction In Use Of Force

from the better-than-nothing,-but-how-much-better? dept

The Milwaukee PD is (or was) staring down the barrel of a DOJ consent decree for its unconstitutional policing (mainly stop-and-frisk) and routine deployment of excessive force. This is among the many concerns brought to light last year by the DOJ's draft report on the department.

The Milwaukee Police Department fails the community and its own officers by not communicating clearly, making too many traffic stops and applying inconsistent standards when disciplining officers, according to a draft of a federal report obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The draft report offers a particularly damning critique of Chief Edward Flynn's reliance on data, a signature component of his strategy since he took over the department in 2008. Federal evaluators found this approach is having a damaging, if unintended, effect on police-community relations.

“MPD’s attention to crime data has distracted the department from the primary tenet of modern policing: trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve,” the draft report states.

The DOJ also found officers had no idea what community policing entailed, suggesting it only applied to other officers officially designated as community liaisons. The DOJ highlighted the disconnection between the MPD's statements and actions on community policing using this depressing anecdote.

[T]he Milwaukee Police Department doesn’t have a strategic plan for community policing or a set of guidelines regarding it, the draft report says. And department-wide training on how to implement the strategy has not been offered in years.

Federal evaluators highlighted one example of an attempt at community engagement that fell flat.

Officers held a roll-call, or shift change, outside a Milwaukee school. The stated purpose was to let kids know officers wanted them to have a safe summer. The problem? There were no kids in sight, not even student leaders.

The evaluators noted the event may even have sent the wrong message: That the students on summer break were a problem, and the police planned to deal with them.

This draft may never coalesce into an official report. AG Jeff Sessions' full-blooded support for law enforcement includes allowing them to be a law unto themselves by killing off DOJ investigations of misbehaving police forces. What's in the draft report is damning, but it will probably remain a draft in perpetuity.

The PD's responsiveness to community unhappiness did at least result in one change: a pilot program equipping officers with body cameras. Unfortunately, the cameras appear to have done little to address one community complaint.

Milwaukee police officers with body cameras made fewer stops and were less likely receive a citizen complaint, a new study has found.

But when it comes to use of force — the primary reason residents clamored for officers to use the cameras — it didn't matter if officers had the cameras or not. They used force at roughly the same rates.

The PD claims this report [PDF] vindicates officers and the department itself, at least in terms of accusations of excessive force deployment. According to the PD, the conclusions make it clear officers have applied force in accordance with policy. But that's stretching the findings a bit much. It could also mean the deterrent effect one assumes the cameras would have simply hasn't materialized. Officers may feel footage is at least as likely to clear them as damn them and are willing to roll the dice.

And the dice come pre-loaded: officers are given weeks or months to make statements when accused of deploying excessive force. And while statements from witnesses are recorded, those made by officers are not, allowing them to retcon narratives if body cam footage refuses to align with the official narrative. The body cam footage may be a new twist, but the internal investigation process has been an issue for a long time. It, too, receives criticism in the DOJ's draft report.

When it comes to officer-involved shootings, the cases reviewed by the Justice Department were inconsistent and the documentation was inadequate.

In both non-fatal shootings and other uses of force, information about officers’ training, prior use of force, complaints and discipline were not included in internal affairs files.

That information also does not seem to have an effect on whether officers are promoted.

One number that did drop in the wake of camera deployment is street stops. Officers wearing cameras performed far fewer stops than officers without them. This suggests the stop-and-frisk program the PD is currently being sued over tends to make the Constitution an afterthought. Documentation of unconstitutional stops isn't going to help the PD emerge victorious in this lawsuit and the simplest solution is to leave those stops to officers without cameras.

It's not all negative, however. As noted above, officers with cameras received 50% fewer complaints, suggesting the presence of another "witness" causes both parties to treat each other with a little more respect. Camera use can result in de-escalation, which is something rarely willfully practiced by officers.

But we can't read too much into that either. The drop in complaints is tracked by a drop in stops, which may suggest the cameras aren't "civilizing" interactions so much as fewer of them are taking place.

Body cams are band-aids, at best. They can never be a panacea, but they're far from useless. Things do change when law enforcement operates under additional scrutiny. But they don't change as quickly or dramatically as proponents of cameras hope they will. A seismic cultural shift is needed in most departments and body cameras will only incrementally increase the speed in which bad apples are expunged from the barrel. But the barrel will still be filled with slightly-less-rotten apples. That being said, cameras should be a requirement as should the presumption that missing footage weighs against a cop's statements. Just because they're not working as well as many of us thought they would doesn't mean it's without its merits.

Filed Under: body cameras, milwaukee, police, use of force

The Attorney General Thinks Police Having To Follow The Constitution Leads To Violent Crime Increases

from the it's-not-just-him-unfortunately dept

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is an old-school law and order man. He wants asset forfeiture returned to its former glory -- no longer questioned by all and sundry for its ability to enrich law enforcement agencies without making much of a dent in criminal activity. He wants drug sellers jailed for as long as possible, suggesting the last time he read a policy paper was sometime during the mid-1980s. And he thinks people questioning law enforcement efforts should be ashamed of themselves, what with the dangers faced occasionally by officers whose workplace can't even crack the Top 10 Deadliest Jobs in America list.

Sessions goes where he's wanted when he speaks, ensuring he'll receive applause and accolades, rather than a bunch of "wtfs?" when he delivers bullshit like this:

I believe one of my highest duties is to call attention to your successes, and to encourage our fellow citizens to support you in your difficult and dangerous work.

But what has made times difficult recently for law enforcement is that—by the end of the previous administration—many of you came to believe that some of the political leadership of this country had abandoned you. Some radicals and politicians began to unfairly malign and blame police as a whole for the crimes and unacceptable deeds of a few. Amazing— their message seemed to be that the police were the problem, not the criminals. They wanted the ACLU to determine police policies, and that was enforced by a federal court order. They said police were violent while homicides in America increased by a total of 20% in 2015 and 2016, the largest jump since 1968. Law Professor Paul Cassell and economics Professor Richard Fowles established that in Chicago, homicide jumped 58% after the ACLU settlement ended proven and constitutional policing.

This was delivered to the National Association of Police Organizations -- a union of police unions -- so there was no one present to question the veracity of this statement, nor push back against its loaded, implicit assertions. No one would expect any more (or any less!) of an organization of organizations which are largely responsible for the general state of disrepair that passes for policing these days.

Law enforcement has never been abandoned. Even when the criticism rains down from the federal government, it's always hedged with phrases implying the problem is a few officers, rather than the culture itself. If all it takes is an incremental increase in accountability to make officers feel "abandoned," they're far too sensitive to be holding positions of public power.

Second, Sessions shows he doesn't care about police misconduct or public accountability by maligning those who demand accountability as "radicals." This suggests Sessions is more interested in a docile nation than upholding his duties as Attorney General, which (used to) include investigating and prosecuting officers who abuse their power.

Finally, his portrayal of the rise in violence in Chicago as the direct result of a consent decree is both dishonest and ugly. The consent decree dealt with the Chicago PD's stop-and-frisk tactics. The PD agreed to revamp its policies after a 2015 report by the ACLU found the program disproportionately targeted black residents. In other words, Sessions is claiming requiring cops to behave Constitutionally results in increased criminal activity.

That would be bad enough on its own, but there's not one single thing Sessions can point at to back up this claim -- not even the report itself. Correlation isn't causation and there's ample evidence a consent decree that requires Constitutional policing does not lead to increased crime. We have apples-to-apples comparisons that disprove this ridiculous theory.

The NYPD was forced to drastically alter its stop-and-frisk program for the same reasons (targeting minorities). Crime went down, despite then-mayor Michael Bloomberg's promise of a criminal apocalypse. That's only one example. Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post has several more.

Philadelphia has been working under a settlement agreement on stop-and-frisk practices like Chicago’s since 2011, and its homicide rate fell for several years afterward before rising again in 2016 and 2017 (albeit at much lower rates than in Chicago).

Seattle has been under a consent decree that includes stop-and-frisk provisions since 2012, and its yearly homicide rate has been mostly steady, hovering between 19 and 27, in the following years.

In Newark, N.J., a consent decree imposing requirements for stop-and-frisk practices, among other provisions, was adopted in 2016. The city reported 72 homicides in 2017, a 25 percent drop, although nonfatal shootings increased.

“The consent decree was signed and the monitor appointed in the spring and summer of 2016, and Newark continues to have the lowest crime in 50 years since then,” said Paul J. Fishman, the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, who implemented the consent decree.

Sessions is correct in terms of quoting the report's findings. But the findings cannot possibly be correct. Even if the stats are right, the rationale is wrong. Fewer police stops may lead to increased crime, but connecting the two is far from a foregone conclusion. And yet, there it is, in a still-unreleased report that provides ammo for supporters of unconstitutional policing.

Even the authors of the report find it difficult to make this conclusion stick. To do so means throwing out other contradictory evidence, which is exactly what appears to have happened.

Cassell and Fowles called New York City an “anomaly” and wrote that it had a much lower rate of homicides committed with firearms than Chicago, “a small number of guns and gun crimes (relative to Chicago and many other cities),” and a police force that is about 25 percent larger than Chicago’s on a per-capita basis.

The other "anomalies" (Philadelphia, Seattle, Newark, etc.) were ignored. The DOJ itself -- which Sessions heads -- did not arrive at this conclusion either. Its report on increased violence suggests a few factors, none of which are the consent decree governing police stops.

“Over the year-plus since release of that video, and while we have been conducting this investigation, Chicago experienced a surge in shootings and homicides,” the DOJ report says. “The reasons for this spike are broadly debated and inarguably complex. But on two points there is little debate. First, for decades, certain neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and West Sides have been disproportionately ravaged by gun violence. Those same neighborhoods have borne the brunt of the recent surge of violence. And second, for Chicago to find solutions — short- and long-term — for making those neighborhoods safe, it is imperative that the City rebuild trust between CPD and the people it serves, particularly in these communities.”

While Chicago may be grabbing headlines with its high number of homicides, several other US cities have experienced higher spikes in the violent crime rate -- Ft. Worth, Houston, Memphis, and Baltimore have seen far more significant increases than Chicago's. But no one is claiming these spikes are due to ACLU meddling, consent decrees, or the actions of "radicals" opposed to abusive policing. Nope, it's just AG Sessions cherry-picking a single report with anomalous "findings" -- one that refers to data that doesn't agree with its theory as "anomalous." Speaking in front of cops makes it that much easier to peddle bullshit. But that doesn't change the fact it's still bullshit, no matter how much uncritical applause is offered in return.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, chicago, jeff sessions, police, police brutality, police misconduct, stop-and-frisk
Companies: napo, national association of police organizations

ACLU Obtains Documents Showing Amazon Is Handing Out Cheap Facial Recognition Tech To Law Enforcement

from the Prime-membership-not-required dept

More bad news on the privacy front, thanks to one of America's largest corporations. Documents obtained by the ACLU show Amazon is arming law enforcement agencies with cheap facial recognition tech, allowing them to compare any footage obtained from a variety of sources to uploaded mugshot databases.

The company has developed a powerful and dangerous new facial recognition system and is actively helping governments deploy it. Amazon calls the service “Rekognition.”

Marketing materials and documents obtained by ACLU affiliates in three states reveal a product that can be readily used to violate civil liberties and civil rights. Powered by artificial intelligence, Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces, according to Amazon.

It's already been deployed to several areas around the country, with Amazon acting as the government's best friend a la AT&T historic proactive cooperation with NSA surveillance efforts. The documents [PDF] obtained by the ACLU show Amazon has been congratulated by local law enforcement officials for a "first-of-its-kind public-private partnership," thanks to its deployment efforts. On top of providing deployment assistance, Amazon also offers troubleshooting and "best practices" for officers using the tech. It has even offered free consulting to agencies expressing an interest in Rekognition.

These efforts aren't surprising in and of themselves, although Amazon's complicity in erecting a law enforcement surveillance structure certainly is. Amazon is looking to capture an underserved market, and the more proactive it is, the more market it will secure before competitors arrive. To further cement its position in the marketplace, Amazon is limiting what law enforcement agencies can say about these public-private partnerships.

In the records, Amazon also solicits feedback and ideas for “potential enhancements” to Rekognition’s capabilities for governments. Washington County even signed a non-disclosure agreement created by Amazon to get “insight into the Rekognition roadmap” and provide additional feedback about the product. The county later cited this NDA to justify withholding documents in response to the ACLU’s public records request.

Documents also suggest Amazon is looking to partner with body camera manufacturers to add its facial recognition tech. This is something body camera manufacturers are already considering, and licensing an established product is far easier than building one from the ground up.

The system is powerful and can apparently pull faces from real-time footage to compare to databases. It also allows agencies to track individuals. It puts passive cameras on surveillance steroids, giving any person who strolls past a government camera a chance to be mistaken for a wanted suspect. To date, facial recognition software has managed to generate high numbers of false positives, while only producing a handful of valid arrests.

These efforts have been deployed with zero input from the largest stakeholder in any government operation: the general public.

Because of Rekognition’s capacity for abuse, we asked Washington County and Orlando for any records showing that their communities had been provided an opportunity to discuss the service before its acquisition. We also asked them about rules governing how the powerful surveillance system could be used and ensuring rights would be protected. Neither locality identified such records.

It may be the NDAs discourage public discussion, but more likely the agencies acquiring the tech knew the public wouldn't be pleased with having their faces photographed, tracked, stored indefinitely, and compared to pictures stored in law enforcement databases. And if public agencies are unwilling to discuss these programs with the public, they're far less likely to create internal policies governing use of the tech. Amazon's push to secure a sizable portion of this market is only making things worse, and its use of NDAs is going to further distance these public agencies from being accountable to the people they serve.

Filed Under: face recognition, law enforcement, police, privacy, rekognition, surveillance
Companies: aclu, amazon

Congressional Members Decide It's Time To Make Assaulting A Police Officer A Federal Hate Crime

from the knock-it-off-with-this-stupid-shit dept

It's apparently time for a legislative update to The War on Cops. Apropos of nothing, legislators from both sides of Congress have flung some more "cops are more equal than others" legislation into the ring. Senators Orrin Hatch and Heidi Heitkamp have joined their House counterparts in attempting to make any crime against a police officers a hate crime. From Hatch's press release:

Protect and Serve Act of 2018:

The legislation adds a new section to Chapter 7 of Title 18 that:

Makes it a federal crime to knowingly cause bodily injury to any person, or attempt to do so, because of the actual or perceived status of the person as a law enforcement officer;

Prescribes a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment for a violation, or up to a life sentence in cases that result in death or involve kidnapping;

Requires that the offense have a federal nexus;

Requires certification by the Attorney General that a state has waived jurisdiction or that federal prosecution is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice; and

Requires the Attorney General to issue guidelines for determining whether a crime was committed because of the actual or perceived status of person as a law enforcement officer.

Why do we need this law? We don't. But don't let that stop the bill's sponsors from arguing otherwise.

“In rural and urban areas alike, law enforcement officers face heightened risk every time they put on their uniforms,” Heitkamp said.

They actually face historically low risks, with last year's death stats being even lower than the year before. But let's not let actual death totals get in the way of increasing penalties for anyone who has the misfortune of dealing with cops. It doesn't just cover murder -- even though "targeted killings" are the main talking point. It covers any bodily injury, which makes it perfect for stacking charges on arrestees. Anything from an aborted fist swing to an accidental bump can be turned into an assault charge and this law gives federal prosecutors the chance to escalate the side effects of resisting arrest into a federal prison sentence. And it's a great way to keep abused citizens from filing complaints, as Radley Balko explains:

What harm could come of this bill? An assault on a police officer charge is often used a cudgel — it’s a way of dissuading legitimate victims of police brutality from filing complaints. If such an assault charge could soon come with an additional federal charge punishable by up to 10 years in prison, that cudgel grows by about 10 sizes. It gets awfully persuasive.

Lest there's any doubt this bill is a "hate crime" bill, the press release makes it crystal clear.

Since May 2016, several states have enacted laws that make attacking police because of their occupation a hate crime. The Protect and Serve Act takes a similar approach and is modeled after the federal hate crime statute, 18 U.S.C. § 249.

It's true. Several stupid state legislatures have decided to elevate some of the most powerful public servants in their jurisdictions to the status of "protected victim." Never mind the reason most hate crime laws are enacted is to bring more power to the powerless -- a (clumsy) way to address criminal acts predicated on hatred of someone's race or sexual orientation. Police officers are neither a race nor a sexual orientation. There is no conscription involved in a law enforcement career. It's strictly voluntary, unlike the personal traits involved in most hate crime laws.

It's not as though there's a lack of aggressive prosecution when officers are killed or injured. There's never a shortage of charges to be brought or a dearth of zeal to see this criminal act punished. Many states already provide sentencing enhancements if the crime victim is a police officer. This bill simply gives the federal government the option to swoop in and punish certain criminals more harshly, ignoring any lack of "Blue Lives Matter" state statute.

It's a stupid legislative proposition built on the ridiculous delusion that there's a War on Cops being waged day in and day out when it's really a lot of isolated incidents scattered across an ever-moving timeline. Being a cop in America is safe. Officers do not suffer for a lack of physical or legal protections. They are some of the most-protected individuals in this nation. A law like this is more than redundant and needlessly punitive. It's an implicit message sent to all Americans, telling them their public servants -- at least these ones -- are better and more deserving of protection than they are.

Filed Under: congress, free speech, hate crime, police

Researchers Find Breathalyzers To Be Just More Faulty Cop Tech Capable Of Putting Innocent People In Jail

from the may-as-well-just-go-back-to-hunches dept

Good news for motorists: law enforcement is using something just as unreliable as $2 field drug tests to justify arrests and searches. Field drug tests have been known to declare donut crumbs meth and drywall dust cocaine. Yet they're still in use, thanks to their low price point. A costlier apparatus, used to determine blood alcohol levels during sobriety tests, appears to be just as broken as cheap drug tests.

Alcotest, made by German medical tech company Draeger, is used by a large number of US law enforcement agencies. Challenges to test results led to Draeger turning code over to defense attorneys, who soon discovered a lot of variables affected breath tests -- many of which weren't addressed by the device's software or default settings used by officers. Zack Whittaker at ZDNet has the full report:

One attorney, who read the report, said they believed the report showed the breathalyzer "tipped the scales" in favor of prosecutors, and against drivers.

One section in the report raised issue with a lack of adjustment of a person's breath temperature.

Breath temperature can fluctuate throughout the day, but, according to the report, can also wildly change the results of an alcohol breath test. Without correction, a single digit over a normal breath temperature of 34 degrees centigrade can inflate the results by six percent -- enough to push a person over the limit.

The quadratic formula set by the Washington State Patrol should correct the breath temperature to prevent false results. The quadratic formula corrects warmer breath downward, said the report, but the code doesn't explain how the corrections are made. The corrections "may be insufficient" if the formula is faulty, the report added.

The Washington State Patrol, whose device/software was being examined in this case, said it did not install the breath temp component. That eliminates one questionable variable in this case. Other law enforcement agencies may have installed the component without realizing it could result in false positives. But it's far from the only variable affecting test results the examination of Draeger's software uncovered. The Washington State Patrol also disabled another feature that might have prevented false positives.

The code is also meant to check to ensure the device is operating within a certain temperature range set by Draeger, because the device can produce incorrect results if it's too hot or too cold.

But the report said a check meant to measure the ambient temperature was disabled in the state configuration.

"The unit could record a result even when outside of its operational requirements," said the report. If the breathalyzer was too warm, the printed-out results would give no indication the test might be invalid, the report said.

The State Patrol was more equivocal in its repudiation of this finding. It said it had been "tested and validated in various ambient temperatures." Draeger itself insisted the unit will not produce readings if the device is operating outside of recommended temperature ranges.

The report also noted there appeared to no steps taken to counteract normal wear-and-tear. The fuel cell used to measure alcohol levels decays over time -- a time period accelerated by frequent use (sobriety checkpoints, for instance). This can also affect test results if the decay isn't factored in. Draeger says its devices should be re-calibrated every year. The Washington State Patrol only require one recalibration six months into the device's lifespan.

Challenges against the device's test results have occurred in other states. Massachusetts -- a state where substance abuse-related evidence has never been more unreliable -- hosted one legal battle over the devices' reliability. A ruling in 2014 declared test results obtained over the previous two years "presumptively unreliable" after it was discovered that only two of the state's 392 breathalyzers had ever been properly calibrated.

This battle between critics of the devices and their deployment methods (untested, uncalibrated) and a judicial system that still insists the devices are reliable enough has gone on for most of a decade. Added to the mix is Draeger's own legal action. This preliminary report, distributed to defense lawyers at conference last year, was the subject of a cease-and-desist letter from Draeger, which claimed the report violated a protective order it had obtained from a US court, prohibiting the distribution of its source code. But no source code was distributed and the C&D appears to Draeger attempting to prevent questions about its device's reliability from spreading further than a handful of court cases. And in those legal challenges, Draeger has been able to keep discussion of its devices and software under wraps via injunctions.

While the report's authors claim the report is still in its preliminary stages and should not be considered the final word on breathalyzer reliability, this initial examination doesn't suggest deeper digging will find a more reliable machine underneath the surface-layer flaws.

Filed Under: alcotest, breathalyzers, drunk driving, false positives, police, source code
Companies: draeger

Police Realizing That SESTA/FOSTA Made Their Jobs Harder; Sex Traffickers Realizing It's Made Their Job Easier

from the who-could-have-predicted dept

For many months in the discussion over FOSTA/SESTA, some of us tried to explain how problematic the bills were. Much of the focus of those discussions were about the negative impact it would have on free speech on the internet, as the way the bill was drafted would encourage greater censorship and more speech-chilling lawsuits. But as we heard from more and more people, we also realized just how incredibly damaging the bill was going to be to those it was ostensibly designed to protect. Beyond the fact that it was passed based on completely fictional claims about the size of the problem, those who actually were victims of sex trafficking began explaining -- in fairly stark terms -- how SESTA/FOSTA would put them in greater danger and almost certainly lead to deaths.

While supporters of the bill seem to insist that because the bill puts legal liability on platforms that are used for sex trafficking that it will magically make sex trafficking disappear, the reality is more complex. While we can argue about Backpage's complicity in what happened on its platform, for years it was used as a tool to protect sex workers, giving them more control over their lives and who they worked with. As we've pointed in the past, a recent study found that Craigslist, back when it had its "erotic services" section, appeared to decrease female homicide rates by an astounding 17.4%. Backpage picked up the slack when Craigslist was bullied into closing that section, but now it's gone too.

And stories are already coming in about the damage done. A recent episode of the Reply All podcast all about SESTA/FOSTA had some scary stats at the end, noting that there are already many stories of sex workers who have gone missing or been killed since the bill became law.

Motherboard has a story with much more details, noting that the passing of SESTA/FOSTA has emboldened pimps to take advantage of more victims of sex trafficking. As many sex workers had explained, Backpage actually allowed them to have more control themselves, and helped them get away from pimps. But without Backpage?

“Pimps seem to be coming out of the woodwork since this all happened,” Laura LeMoon, a sex trafficking survivor, writer, and co-founder and director of harm reduction nonprofit Safe Night Access Project Seattle, told me in an email. “They’re taking advantage of the situation sex workers are in. This is why I say FOSTA/SESTA have actually increased trafficking. I’ve had pimps contacting me. They’re leeches. They make money off of [sex workers’] misfortune.”

The Verge also has an excellent deep dive into how SESTA/FOSTA has put more women's lives at risk.

What about the claims that SESTA/FOSTA would help law enforcement (many of whom pushed for the law)? Yeah, about that: police are now realizing that it's more difficult for them to find sex traffickers without Backpage. I mean, it's not like people were explaining this a decade ago.

Meanwhile, given how many SETSA/FOSTA supporters insisted that the bill was necessary to prevent the sex trafficking scourge, you'd think that sex trafficking prosecutions and arrests would show an upswing, right? Instead, we see things like how a special court in Delaware set up specifically to focus on dealing with sex trafficking cases is shutting down due to the lack of actual sex trafficking victims. The reason the court was shut down according to the judge who shut it down?

... there was "little evidence to suggest the defendants of this court are the subjects" of sex-trafficking enterprises.

So, I'm still wondering why all of the supporters of SESTA/FOSTA seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth in the last couple months as all of this has happened. Can one of them step forward and actually defend what they've done as the evidence is showing they're literally getting people killed and making it more difficult to stop sex trafficking?

Filed Under: consequences, fosta, intermediary liability, pimps, police, sesta, sex trafficking

Cops 'Help' Naked, Possibly-Suicidal Schizophrenic Man By Tasing Him To Death

from the barging-in-[electric]-guns-blazing dept

"Excited delirium" makes an appearance in another case where medical help for a mentally ill person was sought, but instead, police arrived and delivered someone to an early grave. (h/t Radley Balko)

22-year-old Adam Trammell was spotted wandering the halls of his group home completely naked. Feeling the young man was experiencing a psychotic break, the neighbor whose door Trammell had knocked on called the police. When officers arrived, they found Trammell in a distinctly non-threatening state: naked in the shower.

The first officer to reach for Trammell was pushed away. After that, the deluge began.

Two West Milwaukee police officers who broke down a mentally ill man's door and tased him in the shower 18 times before he died will not be criminally charged, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has decided.

More than 30 minutes elapsed between the first time the officers deployed their Tasers and the time Adam Trammell lost consciousness in the hallway of his apartment building, known to officers as a place that housed people with mental illnesses, according to police reports.

In between, Trammell suffered a black eye, a broken rib and more than two dozen cuts and bruises, according to the medical examiner's report.

On the officers' body camera footage, Trammell can be heard screaming in agony.

He spent some of his last conscious moments vomiting profusely.

As is noted in the article, none of the officers will be charged. The DA's office [PDF] has already cleared them of wrongdoing, claiming the force was not excessive and there was no malicious intent present in responding officers. All they wanted to do was "help." And they helped the only way they knew how: by hurting.

Trammell did not respond to verbal commands, so naturally officers deployed their Tasers, hitting a naked, wet man standing in his own bathroom multiple times with five-second cycles. In between tasings, Trammell was told to "relax" and stand up. Officers claim in the recap [PDF] of the body cam video that Trammell was "resisting" and "not following orders." In order to achieve their goal of bringing Trammell to a waiting ambulance, officers felt the need to tase Trammell roughly every 30 seconds for nine straight minutes.

The coroner's report cleared the officers. Manner of death: undetermined. Cause of death? Excited delirium. The DA's report notes there is some skepticism about whether or not "excited delirium" is a real thing (rather than a convenient cause of death determination hand-rolled by Taser's in-house counsel) but ultimately decides to side with the coroner. This means the DA has decided to side with Taser against science, as no medical body (the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association) recognizes "excited delirium" as an authentic medical condition.

If nothing else, the actions taken by the responding officers appears to violate departmental policy. According to the policy quoted in the DA's report, officers are instructed to minimize use of restraint or engage in physical struggles. They are also supposed to hold off on Taser deployments until EMS is on the scene, and then only if absolutely necessary to approach the subject. Officers are also told to use force only in cases where the subject presents a danger to others.

In this case, the EMS unit does not appear to have arrived until after the routine, repeated tasings began. Considering Trammell's condition and location -- soaking wet in bathroom whose floor was "covered with water" -- the decision to deploy an electric shock seems to have posed more danger to Trammell and the officers than anything Trammell himself was doing, or could possibly have done. According to police reports, no one officers spoke to expressed a concern Trammell might harm others. Every single person recorded stated they were worried Trammell might harm himself. If this was the only concern, allowing the situation to de-escalate would not have resulted in harm to Trammell, who was naked, contained in a small room, with no apparent access to weapons.

Even the Taser deployments were sloppy. An additional Taser deployment, triggered by one officer after a discussion with other officers about the limited utility of their Tasers, is given the instant exoneration treatment in the officer's report. The unbelievable wordsmithery conjures up a dangerous electronic device that apparently triggers itself if it senses people are talking about it.

Rohleder pulled the trigger of his Taser one more time from the hallway, while the leads to its wires were still embedded in Trammell’s body. Rohleder told investigators “this was not an intentional deployment, but occurred spontaneously when the West Allis police asked him if the Taser wires were still connected,” according to Chisholm's letter.

No officers will be charged. It's quite possible no one will even be disciplined, despite their inability to follow internal policies. A man who posed no threat to anyone but himself died at the hands of officers who simply couldn't fathom why a schizophrenic man who was found wandering the halls naked muttering about the devil wouldn't quickly respond to shouted commands by strangers who had barged into his bathroom to "save" him.

Filed Under: police, police brutality, tasers