Police Memo Says Officers Raiding A Journalist's Home Were Instructed To Turn Off Their Body Cameras

from the police-cops-are-truly-an-inspiration-to-us-all dept

No one involved in the search of journalist Bryan Carmody's house last May is innocent. Every new piece of information shows the San Francisco police officers -- as well as any supervisors signing off on their paperwork -- knew raiding a journalist's home to find the source of a leaked autopsy report was going to treat the First Amendment and the state's journalist shield law as a doormat.

The leak originated in the police department, which is where the SFPD should have begun and ended its investigation. Instead, officers misled a judge to get search warrants approved to search Carmody's home and the contents of seized electronics. A few months later, all five warrants were being tossed by the five judges the cops lied to, who pointed out the SFPD had purposely withheld information that would have identified the warrants' target as a journalist.

This led to a settlement being paid to Carmody nearly a year after the raid of his home. The city agreed taxpayers should give Bryan Carmody $369,000 for the violation of his rights and lawful protections by the city's protectors and servants.

Three months later, more damaging news has surfaced, thanks to a public records request filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. It looks as though a cover-up was in place from the initiation of the bullshit investigation. It wasn't enough to lie to judges. Officers were instructed to create no impartial record of the raid of Carmody's home.

A San Francisco Police Department memo obtained by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reveals that police were instructed not to use body-worn cameras during last year’s high-profile raid of journalist Bryan Carmody’s home.

In the two-paragraph memo, which the Reporters Committee received through a public records request, Lieutenant Pilar Torres states that he told law enforcement officers conducting the raid “not to utilize our Department issued BWC’s for this operation” because the video footage could compromise the “confidential investigation.”

Whatever. Pretty much every investigation is a "confidential" investigation while it's still underway. This wording means nothing. And video footage can be redacted if confidential sources might be revealed during idle pre-/post-raid chitchat. Keeping the cameras off allowed officers to carry out the search in a way that best benefited them, eliminating any chance of them being caught doing something they shouldn't. (I mean beyond lying to judges, ignoring the state's journalist shield law, walking all over the First Amendment…)

The SFPD refused to comment on this memo, again citing an ongoing investigation -- this one targeting the SFPD officers involved in the unlawful raid of Carmody's home. I imagine this investigation will continue for as long as it has to, ensuring SFPD reps don't have to answer uncomfortable questions from journalists about their illegal abuse of other journalists.

And when everything has finally wrapped up and the lying officers safely returned to the streets, the report itself will vanish into the file cabinet in the basement until it is summoned by a public records lawsuit. That's the way this will go, because every step of the way, the SFPD has refused to be honest about its decision to target a journalist -- instead of its own officers -- in order to hunt down a leak it knew was in-house.

Filed Under: body cameras, bryan carmody, evidence, san francisco, sfpd

Unsealed Warrants Show SFPD Officer Told Judges He Was Targeting A Journalist, But Judges Approved Them Anyway

from the try-sucking-less-next-time,-your-honors dept

Three of the five warrants the San Francisco Police Department obtained to search journalist/stringer Bryan Carmody's home, office, and phones have been tossed by the judges who issued them.

The initial warrant, issued in February by Judge Rochelle East was the first be declared invalid. Judge East said the warrant application was misleading, omitting information that would have made it clear Carmody was a journalist and protected by the state's shield law. This warrant -- seeking access to phone call and text message records -- has been tossed. Since everything else in the Carmody investigation stems from this illegal search, the rest of the warrants are destined for the dustbin.

Judge East's findings have led to two more judges tossing warrants they issued. It also has led -- at least in Judge Victor Hwang's case -- to the judge possibly reading the warrant for the first time. This statement from David Snyder of the First Amendment Coalition says the warrant Judge Hwang tossed contained information about Carmody that made it clear the SFPD was targeting a journalist.

The search warrant application unsealed today shows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the San Francisco Police Department knew Bryan Carmody is a journalist before they sought a search warrant for his office — and that they provided ample evidence of that fact to the San Francisco judge that authorized the unlawful search of his office.

The warrant [PDF] contains passages that indicate Carmody is in the journalism business. SFPD Sgt. Joseph Obidi dances around it a bit but ultimately delivers enough information that an attentive judge would have rejected this attempt to bypass the state's shield law.

The swearing officer notes that Carmody "is not currently employed at any of the news organizations" that published the leaked death report. But there are other passages in the affidavit's narrative that point towards Carmody's occupation.

Sgt. Watts asked Mr. Carmody if the [officers] that [leaked a copy of a death report to him] profited financially, he stated no. Sgt. Watts asked him if he profited financially, he responded by saying that he profits financially from every story he covers.

And, more explicitly:

It is my belief that Mr. Carmody still has the original copy of the police report in order to further his financial profits by selling it to other interested parties or news outlets at the time. I also believe Mr. Carmody kept the original copy the report as part of his portfolio/records of news stories he has participated in to keep track of his achievements. [...] I believe it is reasonable that someone who makes a career out of producing/selling hot news stories would keep a copy of that as part of his resume.

The affidavit also makes reference to the warrant obtained from another judge to search Carmody's residence. If so, Judge Gail Dekreon likely saw the same narrative and assertions, and yet still gave the SFPD permission to search a journalist's home. As Synder points out, this is unacceptable.

[T]hese statements represent a massive failure by both SFPD and the judiciary to recognize and safeguard the Constitutionally protected rights of Bryan Carmody and, by extension all journalists.

All the warrants will ultimately be tossed because every one of them is predicated on an invalid warrant and an illegal search of Carmody's phone records. But these should have been rejected by the judges who initially reviewed them, shutting down the SFPD's attempt to circumvent the state's shield law. The judicial branch's powers aren't just curative or restorative. They're also supposed to be preventative. Here they failed, leading to multiple rights violations that never should have been allowed to happen.

Filed Under: bryan carmody, journalism, rochelle east, sfpd

California Judges Nuke Two More SFPD Warrants Used To Search A Journalist's Home And Office

from the maybe-rushing-into-that-whole-police-state-thing-a-bit-too-quickly dept

The San Francisco Police Department's "investigation" of journalist Bryan Carmody has just about finished collapsing completely. The stupid "investigation" -- supposedly initiated to figure out which cop leaked sensitive documents to the stringer -- has been the equivalent of a claymore mine deployed in reverse. Several claymore mines, to be more precise. With each iteration of the news cycle, the SFPD has sustained consecutive, concussive blasts to the face.

What culminated in a raid of Carmody's house began with a warrant seeking phone call and messaging data covering two days in February. That warrant has already been unsealed and quashed, with the judge pointing out the swearing officer did everything he could to avoid telling the court the SFPD was looking to put a journalist under surveillance.

This warrant preceded everything else. Since that was the foundation for search warrants targeting Carmody's home and the multiple devices SFPD officers seized from there, the rest of the investigation -- along with any charges the SFPD thought it might get away with pressing -- is disintegrating. Nicholas Iovino reports for Courthouse News Service that two more warrants the SFPD obtained have been tossed by judges.

Records of phone calls between freelance journalist Bryan Carmody and an unnamed San Francisco police officer served as evidence that a leaked police report may have been “unlawfully obtained,” San Francisco Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang said in court Friday.

The warrant used to seize Carmody’s phone data was quashed by Superior Court Judge Rochelle East on July 18.

Because all evidence derived from the phone warrant must now be destroyed, Hwang said probable cause no longer exists to justify the warrant that authorized seizing Carmody’s computer, tablets and cellphone from his office in May.

That takes care of two of the warrants. There were five warrants, and this takes care of three of them. Judge Rochelle East tossed the phone warrant last month. Judge Hwang tossed this one -- targeting Carmody's office -- on August 2nd. And Judge Gail Dekreon appears ready to toss the warrant she signed to search Carmody's house.

Judge Dekreon said Friday that the 14-page affidavit she relied on when authorizing the raid on Carmody’s home also included information derived from the now-quashed phone warrant.

Dekreon said police never told her Carmody had a press pass issued by the San Francisco Police Department.

Dekreon's ruling isn't due until August 15th, but it seems pretty clear this one will be tossed when the official ruling is handed down. That just leaves one more warrant -- one for phone data covering a different time period. With everything following it apparently based on information obtained during the first illegal search, none of the warrants are valid.

If the SFPD had decided to keep an investigation of an internal leak internal, none of this would have happened. Instead, the department gave local journalists even less reason to trust local law enforcement.

Filed Under: bryan carmody, sfpd

Unsealed Warrant Shows SFPD Officer Misled Court About Journalist's Occupation

from the law-enforcement-still-the-best-at-law-stuff dept

One of the search warrants used by the San Francisco police department to go after a journalist for documents a PD employee leaked has been released. This is only one of the five warrants targeting "stringer" Bryan Carmody, whose house was raided by the SFPD back in May.

This search warrant targeted Carmody's phone records. It was granted on March 1st, allowing the SFPD to obtain records from Verizon. This was done supposedly to track down which cop called Carmody over a two-day period prior to the release of the leaked document to California news agencies.

Earlier this month, Judge Rochelle East quashed the warrant, saying it showed the SFPD omitted key info that would have made it clear it was targeting a journalist -- something forbidden by California's journalist shield law. The judge also unsealed the warrant. It has finally been released and it shows SFPD Sgt. Joseph Obidi writing his way around the fact that Carmody is a journalist.

In the application [PDF], Sgt. Obidi cut-and-pasted part of Carmody's LinkedIn profile. The officer included the part that said Carmody was a "Freelance Videographer." But he excluded the part that said Carmody "has decades of experience shooting, editing and reporting news," as well as the long list of new agencies he had worked with. It also excluded the fact that the SFPD had issued a press pass to Carmody -- one that was still current when the warrant was obtained.

This was pointed out during the hearing about the warrant by Judge East, who said the existence of a press pass should have told the SFPD to steer its investigation away from Carmody.

While under other circumstances in other cases there may be some question as to what a journalist is. In this case I think there is none. The fact that he has a press pass from the San Francisco Police Department indicates to this Court that he is a journalist.

The narrative in the application shows the SFPD suspected an officer or SFPD employee. Yet, the Department decided to go after a journalist for possessing and distributing a document that was illegally leaked by one of its own. It could have limited its investigation to its own staff and their phone records. But it didn't, and now it's only a few weeks away from seeing all of its warrants tossed (and hopefully unsealed) and presumably less than 365 days away from being sued by Bryan Carmody.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, bryan carmody, journalism, lies, sfpd, warrants

Judge Unseals, Tosses Warrant Used By The San Francisco PD To Obtain A Journalist's Phone Records

from the have-fun-sleeping-in-the-fucked-up-bed-you-made,-SFPD dept

Back in May, the San Francisco Police Department raided the home of a local "stringer," hoping to discover who had leaked a sensitive police report to the journalists. This raid violated the state's journalist shield law and the First Amendment. Since it was obvious the source of leaked document was an SFPD officer or employee, the raid was also incredibly stupid… unless the real point of the show of force was to discourage journalists from publishing leaked documents.

It took a few days before the SFPD police chief was willing to condemn the raid. According to the chief, the still-unseen affidavit glossed over the target's occupation -- an omission that likely would have seen the warrant application tossed if it had been included.

Speculation about the contents of at least one of the warrants is about to come to an end. The judge overseeing stringer Bryan Carmody's challenge of the warrant has ordered the affidavit to be unsealed.

“The search warrant will be unsealed with the exception of one portion,” San Francisco Superior Court Judge Rochelle East said in court.

One paragraph of the 11-page warrant must be blacked out to protect the identity of a confidential police informant. The unsealed file will be released by July 23 at 10 a.m. to attorneys for three press advocacy groups and a freelance journalist whose home was raided by police.

The same judge has also declared the warrant invalid. Matthew Keys has more details at the California Globe:

A judge in San Francisco tossed a search warrant she issued against a freelance journalist in May, saying police did not disclose to her that the target of the warrant worked in the news media industry.

The ruling, handed down in San Francisco County Superior Court, means materials gathered from the home and office of journalist Bryan C. Carmody cannot be used as evidence against him or anyone else as police continue their investigation into the leak of documents and photographs related to the death of former San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi.

Unfortunately, this only takes care of one of the warrants targeting Carmody. This one sought phone records linked to the numerous cellphones Carmody owns. The other warrants -- targeting Carmody's home and office -- are still being challenged.

The good news is those warrants are likely to meet the same fate. It's highly unlikely the affidavits attached to those search warrants included the fact that the target was a journalist. Two more hearings are set to discuss those warrants, but it seems pretty clear from the ruling here that SFPD officers lied to a judge (or judges) to get around the state's shield law.

If those hearings go the same way, the SFPD will lose all the evidence it collected during its bullshit raid. It won't have anything to use against Carmody, but it seems unlikely a prosecution would even be pursued at this point. But a stack of bad warrants also invalidates anything it might have wanted to use against the employee who leaked the document. The SFPD probably should have kept its internal investigation internal, rather than bring it to the doorstep of a journalist's house.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, bryan carmody, investigation, journalism, phone records, san francisco, sfpd, warrant

San Francisco Police Union Steps Up To Criticize Police Chief Over His Handling Of The Leak Investigation

from the seems-to-be-OK-with-raiding-a-journalist's-home,-though dept

This is fantastic. Not in the way something amazing and pure is fantastic, but fantastic in the way that only an oft-maligned profession feeding on itself can be. It could be lawyers or debt collectors or Instagram influencers. In this case, it's law enforcement.

Someone in the San Francisco Police Department tried to disparage a dead public defender/police critic by leaking a police report on his death. The person apparently on the receiving end -- stringer Bryan Carmody -- shopped it to a few local journalists. The SFPD decided the leak investigation should wend its way through Carmody's house. So, officers raided his place and walked off with $10,000-worth of laptops, phones, tablets, and other electronics.

Sidestepping the state's journalist shield law has not worked out well for the SFPD. After some momentary commiseration from San Francisco public officials, the SFPD is now surrounded by critics. And it's not just the normal critics. Even the District Attorney has publicly stated he doesn't see how this search could possibly have legal -- a surprising turn of events considering most prosecutors tend to support the local PD (or stay silent) when the PD fucks things up.

The chief of police has also issued an official apology for the actions of the officers he oversees. Chief Bill Scott turned over the leak investigation to an outside department and said the warrant obtained to search the journalist's home lacked "clarity" and was "concerning."

This public statement has led to criticism from another surprising source: the local police union. The SF Police Officers Association is unhappy -- not because of the raid itself, which it has no comment on -- but because Chief Scott threw officers under the bus rather than take responsibility for an investigation he was directly overseeing.

Yesterday, SFPD Chief William Scott showed everyone in the SFPD, and all San Franciscans, what his character consists of and it was a pathetic, deceitful and shameful display of self-preservation, finger pointing, and political kowtowing. We all deserve better.

The investigation into whomever disseminated the initial Adachi police report is a righteous one and whomever is responsible should be held accountable. What we know is that Chief Scott ordered that investigation. Chief Scott not only followed every twist and turn of the investigation but he knew every element of the investigation, directed the investigation and has clearly either come down with the most debilitating case of amnesia or is flat out not telling the truth about his direct involvement and the horribly flawed direction he gave to find the leak of the police report.

In either case, it is time for Chief Scott to go.

At least the union has gone on record that the officer who leaked the report should be punished. This will come in handy when the PD does decide to punish that person and the union inevitably starts protesting whatever punishment is handed down. But it's on point in its criticism of Chief Scott. If he was directly overseeing this, he had a chance to stop it before it became a national embarrassment.

Thus endeth the things I agree with here. The SFPOA remains wrong in its assessment of what's happening now. It claims turning this investigation over to an outside agency is a "diversion" and that Chief Scott should a.) be investigated, and b.) have the courtesy to resign before the investigation is over. Somehow, the SFPOA believes the PD -- with its untrustworthy Chief and its leaky officers -- should be trusted to police itself.

There will likely be additional angry statements from the police union as this investigation rolls on. The SF Chronicle reports a bunch of search warrants were served in this case, most of them targeting people the union never wants to see targeted by search warrants.

San Francisco police executed seven search warrants as they tried to find out who leaked a police report to a freelance journalist, including searches of officers and one of the journalist’s phone records, police officials and an attorney in the case said.

The search of phone records preceded the now-notorious May 10 raids on journalist Bryan Carmody’s home and office.

New info -- none of which is making the SFPD or its leadership look any better -- continues to trickle out. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions, as Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation points out. Many have to do with the warrant Chief Scott apparently approved, but couldn't recall the details of until everyone in the country was asking questions. It certainly seems the warrant wouldn't have been approved if judges knew it targeted a journalist, so there's a good chance this warrant contains crucial omissions or flat-out lies.

But the SFPD wasn't the only agency involved in the raid, detention, and questioning of Brian Carmody. The feds stepped in and the Freedom of the Press Foundation has its own list of unanswered questions:

• Why did the FBI attempt to conduct an interview of Carmody after his house had been raided?

• Why was the FBI involved in this case at all, since it dealt with a local matter?

• Did the FBI follow its own guidelines involving an investigation into a member of the media?

• Did the FBI gain access to Carmody’s equipment following its seizure and if so, did they search it, too?

As slowly as this is developing, it's likely the answer to these questions are many, many months away. This has made headlines around the nation over the past couple of weeks and the SFPD has yet to release the search warrant affidavit publicly. It has only recently gotten around to admitting the raid was likely unlawful.

The PD won't be able to keep everyone in the dark forever. The affidavit will be published eventually and then everyone else can see the stuff the police chief called "concerning" and "unclear." It will probably be both, but the public's unlikely to use these vague euphemisms. Until then, we can all enjoy the small amount of pleasure from watching the San Francisco law enforcement community attack itself, rather than members of the public.

Filed Under: bill scott, bryan carmody, journalism, police, sf poa, sfpd, warrants

SFPD Finally Admits The Search Of A Journalist's Home Over A Leaked Document Was Probably Illegal

from the at-least-a-day-late-and-several-dollars-short dept

The raid of stringer Bryan Carmody's home by the SFPD has detonated directly in the face of the department. After someone in the department leaked a police report in an effort to smear a prominent public defender following his unexpected death, an internal investigation was opened to determine which SFPD employee was the source of the leak.

This internal investigation quickly went external. Bryan Carmody had shopped copies of the police report to a few news stations, which resulted in the SFPD raiding his home and seizing $10,000 of his equipment, including phones, laptops, and storage devices.

After a brief round of "this is all by the book" by a number of SF officials, it soon became apparent this was not at all by the book. In addition to Carmody's First Amendment protections, the stringer was also likely shielded by state law, which forbids searching and seizing journalists' property for the sole purpose of trying to identify a source.

The mayor walked back her statement defending the SFPD for its actions. So did a couple of council members. The District Attorney delivered the harshest criticism of the police force, saying he couldn't imagine a situation where this search would have been appropriate.

At long last, the department itself is coming around to how much it fucked this whole thing up. A qualified apology has been delivered, as Evan Sernoffsky reports for SF Gate.

After two weeks of growing outrage, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott apologized Friday for raiding a journalist’s home and office in a bid to unmask a confidential source, admitting the searches were probably illegal and calling for an independent investigation into the episode.

Police “should have done a better job,” Scott said in an interview with The Chronicle. “I’m sorry that this happened. I’m sorry to the people of San Francisco. I’m sorry to the mayor. We have to fix it. We know there were some concerns in that investigation and we know we have to fix it.”

Among Chief Scott's concerns are the possibility the search warrants didn't specify Carmody's occupation. It seems clear they didn't. If they did, they likely would have been rejected as impermissible under state law, not to mention the First Amendment.

“One of the issues that I saw in this is in the initial warrants,” he said. “There’s one that’s particularity troubling and concerning. The issue is the clarity in the warrant. The description of what his role entails as a journalist — there should have been more clarity there. That is going to be a concern that has to be explored further.”

Scott has seen the underlying documents, so this hedging is a little disingenuous. But it's probably necessary, at least from the department's perspective. The SFPD is likely planning its defense against Carmody's inevitable lawsuit, so it does the agency no favors if the chief states plainly officers conducted illegal searches using warrants obtained untruthfully. The SFPD may also be holding out hope the judge presiding over the coming lawsuit will find stringers aren't journalists, but that eventuality seems unlikely.

Furthermore, "issue of clarity" just sounds like fancy words for lying. It's incredibly unlikely the officers didn't know what Carmody did for a living. Stringers are fixtures at crime scenes, car accidents, and other emergency calls. This information appears to have been downplayed in the affidavit, if not omitted completely.

The independent investigation could lead to additional charges. Not only will this investigation try to find the source of the leak, but it's going to go after the officers who used a bogus affidavit to violate the state's journalist shield law. The end result of all of this is the stripping away of another layer of trust and a widening of the gap between the police and the policed.

Filed Under: 1st amendmentbill scott, 4th amendment, bryan carmody, journalism, san francisco, searches, sfpd, warrant

SFPD Earning Universal Condemnation For Raiding A Journalist's Home During Its Internal Leak Investigation

from the way-to-project,-guys dept

When the San Francisco Police Department decided to externalize its internal investigation of a leaked document, things got unlawful and unconstitutional in a hurry. Deciding the best way to sniff out the leaker of a police report detailing the death of prominent public defender Jeff Adachi was through the front door of a local journalist, the SFPD now has a lot of explaining to do.

The SFPD raided journalist Bryan Carmody's home supposedly to find information that would lead them to one of its own officers. Carmody is a stringer and had shopped around a copy of the police report someone inside the SFPD leaked to him. None of this is criminal. Nothing about Carmody's information-gathering fell outside of the law. If anyone broke the law, it was the officer or PD employee who gave him the report.

That fact notwithstanding, officers showed up at Carmody's house and -- after waging a losing battle with an impressive front gate -- handcuffed him for six hours while confiscating $10,000-worth of electronic devices and computers. It's safe to assume these items contained plenty of information Carmody had gathered from other sources, as well as information about those sources. Again, this search and seizure violated the state's journalist shield law, if not the US Constitution itself.

Carmody has released security footage of the SFPD's arrival. One can only assume his front gate will be facing obstruction of justice charges.

This case has numerous disturbing aspects, starting with the leak itself. Jeff Adachi was an elected public defender and a fierce critic of local law enforcement. This likely motivated the leak of the police report, which alleged Adachi had died of a possible cocaine overdose while enjoying the company of a woman who wasn't his wife. A chance to smear a vocal opponent of law enforcement abuses was too good to pass up.

When the news first broke, city officials claimed law enforcement did nothing wrong. These were knee-jerk assertions but that doesn't excuse officials for responding this badly when confronted with unexpected (and unexpectedly bad) news.

Now that everyone's given it a bit more thought, the SFPD is on its own, bereft of high-level defenders.

The [San Francisco] Board of Supervisors’ longest-tenured member, Aaron Peskin, blasted both the police and the judges who issued the warrants.

“[T]he State Penal Code clearly states that ‘no warrant shall issue’ to compel a journalist to disclose a source. The fact that the Superior Court nevertheless signed warrants authorizing police to conduct a raid on a journalist’s home and to confiscate their belongings boggles my mind,” Peskin said in a written statement on May 15.

“Regardless, the police have clearly gone about this the wrong way,” the statement continued. “Last month, the Board of Supervisors held a hearing to hold the San Francisco Police Department accountable for its role in the release of confidential and highly sensitive, personal information related to former Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s tragic death, which I co-sponsored. That they took this as license to break down a journalist’s door with a sledgehammer is an obvious deflection from their own accountability.”

The mayor has also issued a new statement, undoing the "I'm sure the cops were doing the right thing" assertions they made right after the news broke. Mayor London Breed walked back support of the SFPD, but still hedged a bit when it came to criticizing the judges who had approved the search warrant.

[T]wo judges issued the search warrant, and I have to believe that the judges’ decision was legal and warranted, and therefore so was the search.

Whether or not the search was legal, warranted and appropriate, however, is another question.

And the more we learn, the less appropriate it looks to me.

How appropriate the search was remains to be seen. The search warrant application remains sealed. The only upshot of this search backfiring so spectacularly is that the SFPD is returning Carmody's property to him -- likely months before it would have if this had managed to fly under the radar.

More surprisingly, the District Attorney's office has turned against the SFPD and is openly questioning the search of Carmody's home.

My office has not seen the warrant or the facts upon which it was based, but absent a showing that a journalist broke the law to obtain the information that police are looking for, I can’t imagine a situation in which a search warrant would be appropriate.

Even if there were such a showing, however, no search should have been conducted without the use of a special master. Journalists have multiple sources to whom they owe confidences, similar to an attorney who has multiple clients to whom they owe attorney-client privilege.

Seizing the entire haystack to find the needle risks violating the confidences Mr. Carmody owes to all his sources, not just the person who leaked the police report.

The SFPD has stepped in it... hard... with both jackboots. Carmody was originally questioned by the SFPD prior to the raid but refused to provide any answers and asked to speak to a lawyer. It should have ended there. But rather than raid the homes of suspects wearing badges, it chose to violate state law by raiding the home of an uncooperative journalist.

Filed Under: bryan carmody, jeff adachi, journalism, sfpd, source protection, sources, warrants

San Francisco PD Raids Journalist's Home To Find Out Which One Of Its Cops Leaked An Autopsy Report

from the tfw-an-internal-investigation-ends-up-inside-a-civilian's-house dept

If someone at your police department has leaked a sensitive documents, how should you respond?

A. Conduct an internal investigation to find the source of the leak

B. Raid a journalist's home

If you're the San Francisco Police Department, you do both.

San Francisco police on Friday raided the home of a freelance journalist who provided three Bay Area television stations with a copy of a police report into the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, the journalist and police officials said.

Bryan Carmody, a freelance videographer known in the industry as a stringer, told The Chronicle that San Francisco police executed a search warrant at his Outer Richmond District home and Western Addition office and seized his computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.

Whoever leaked it, did it quick. The autopsy report appeared on newcasts only hours after the public defender collapsed in his apartment. An internal investigation was opened following some public criticism of the PD's handling of sensitive info. The leaking of this document suggested someone in the force wanted to take a shot at the public defender (and fierce critic of the PD) only hours after his passing by letting the public know about the illegal substances found in Adachi's system. City officials recognized this and came down hard on police officials.

In response, the SFPD has apparently decided to externalize its internal investigation. While it's possible this raid will ultimately result in the discovery of the leaker, this end does not justify the means. Law enforcement does serious damage to protected speech when it goes after journalists to out their sources. If the SFPD had restricted its investigation to its own officers, journalists wouldn't be feeling a chill descending on their line of work.

And this all came about because the SFPD can't take "no" for an answer. Journalists should protect their sources. If they don't, they soon won't have any. Courts have recognized the need to protect sources, as have a handful of journalist shield laws around the nation.

“The search warrant executed today was granted by a judge and conducted as part of a criminal investigation into the leak of the Adachi police report,” said David Stevenson, a police spokesman.

He added that the “actions are one step in the process of investigating a potential case of obstruction of justice along with the illegal distribution of a confidential police report.”

[Journalist Brian] Carmody said two inspectors with the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau “politely asked” for his source on the Adachi report two weeks ago, but he declined to reveal the person’s name.

This is a dangerous game the SFPD's playing. It's betting a court won't find a stringer protected by California's journalist shield law. There's no case law stating affirmatively that freelance journalists are covered by this law, but the text of the law suggests stringers who sell footage, photos, and information to other journalists are probably protected.

A publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or employed, cannot be adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative, administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas, for refusing to disclose, in any proceeding as defined in Section 901, the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for publication in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public.

That's not going to play well in court. The state's shield law provides absolute immunity in criminal prosecutions and contempt hearings when the journalist is not being criminally charged. It doesn't appear anyone's planning on charging this journalist with a criminal act… at least not at this point. And yet, the PD decided to treat him like a criminal to search for evidence needed to close its internal investigation. There's a good chance the SFPD misrepresented what Carmody did for a living to sneak the warrant past the judge and the state's shield law. And with this possibly bogus warrant, it seized 15 computers, "numerous tablets," and Carmody's personal cellphone. If Carmody decides to sue, it's going to be very difficult for the SFPD to defend its actions.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, bryan carmody, jeff adachi, journalism, sfpd, source protection