Six More Houston Cops Involved In Deadly Drug Raid Are Now Facing Criminal Charges

from the looks-like-'judged-by-12'-it-is dept

We still haven't seen an end to the fallout resulting from a botched (and bogus) drug raid in Houston that ended with two residents killed by police officers. It also ended with five officers wounded -- one of them paralyzed. The raid was predicated on false statements made by Officer Gerald Goines, who secured permission from a judge to perform a no-knock raid, claiming the residents were armed and selling heroin.

While guns were recovered, no heroin was. Indeed, no evidence of drug dealing was recovered -- just personal amounts of marijuana and cocaine. The informant that supposedly made the heroin buy never existed and the supposed result of this controlled buy was actually heroin pulled from an officer's squad car. All of Goines' lies led to two deaths and five injured officers. Goines is currently facing a slew of charges, including two counts of felony murder.

Other participants in the raid are facing charges as well. KHOU reports six more Houston PD officers have been indicted for their involvement in the raid or for other criminal acts they engaged in while working in the department's narcotics unit.

On Monday, a Harris County grand jury indicted another officer for murder and five others for engaging in criminal activity.

The six officers indicted Monday are in addition to the six officers who have already been indicted.

Felix Gallegos, the officer charged with murder, fired the shot that killed Dennis Tuttle, according to court documents.

That's 12 officers, all under indictment, and all involved in the drug raid. Following the ill-fated raid, the Houston PD investigated its own narcotics unit, "discovering" that it had been given free rein for years. Paperwork routinely went unreviewed and unapproved. And that's when there was any case-related paperwork to be found. In some cases, no warrants were filed. In others, supporting documents were missing. Multiple discrepancies in evidence and expense reporting were also uncovered. This hands-off approach is directly responsible for the travesty the Houston PD calls a "narcotics unit."

And it's this hands-off approach that's led to the charges facing five of these recently indicted officers -- all accused of falsifying records to obtain pay for overtime hours they apparently didn't work. Some of this has been going on for a long time, which means the resulting sentences will be longer, too. Three officers are facing hefty felony charges for this time theft, ones that carry with them a maximum sentence of life in prison:

Oscar Pardo – (HPD) Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, to wit: Aggregate Theft by a Public Servant ($30,000 or more but less than $150,000) and Tampering with a Governmental Record (1st degree)

Cedell Lovings – (Status Unclear) Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, to wit: Aggregate Theft by a Public Servant ($30,000 or more but less than $150,000) and Tampering with a Governmental Record (1st degree)

Nadeem Ashraf – (HPD) Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity, to wit: Aggregate Theft by a Public Servant ($30,000 or more but less than $150,000) and Tampering with a Governmental Record (1st degree)

Two more officers -- Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood -- have had identical theft charges added to the charges they're already facing for their participation in the drug raid.

And another two officers are facing lesser theft charges, but ones that still carry potential 20-year sentences. Five of these officers retired as soon as it became clear they might face criminal charges. The other seven are apparently still employed, though that will likely change now that they're under indictment.

There was a lot of trust to go around in the Houston Police Department. Not a lot of verification, though. It took the senseless killing of two harmless Houston residents to force the PD to take a look at what its officers were doing. And it's probably going to take several criminal trials to force the PD to actually care about officer accountability so it doesn't get to the point of felony murder charges and hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegally obtained paychecks before the PD can be bothered to police its own.

This isn't the final postscript on this horrific incident. There will certainly be more to come, what with a dozen officers facing the possibility of a trial and the PD forced to provide what will certainly be damning information in response to discovery requests.

Filed Under: criminal charges, drug raid, gerald goines, houston, no knock raid, police

Georgia Gov't Employee Somehow Manages To Get Criminally Charged For Violating Public Records Laws

from the protections-for-records-requesters-no-longer-listed-as-'NIB' dept

In an event rarer than the stripping of qualified immunity from a police officer, a public official is being criminally charged for violating open records laws.

The press secretary for former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has been cited for allegedly violating the Georgia Open Records Act in the first-ever criminal complaint filed in connection with the law, the state attorney general’s office announced Monday.

Jenna Garland, 34, the press secretary during Reed’s second term, is accused of ordering a subordinate in the city’s watershed department in March 2017 to delay handing over public records that contained information damaging to Reed and other city officials. The records were requested by Channel 2 Action News.

Both misdemeanor charges are potentially worth $1,000 in fines and a year in jail, but we're probably not going to see anyone locked up for screwing the public. We've only seen one other case like this in the history of Techdirt, and there's nothing indicating any of the politicians indicted for public records law violations have been jailed for breaking the law. In fact, one felt so unthreatened by the charges, she filed for re-election while still under indictment.

In this case, a pair of records requests led to the criminal charges. The first request was for water billing records, filed by journalists at Channel 2. The second request -- filed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution(AJC) and Channel 2 -- sought communications discussing the water billing records request. The second request was a goldmine for journalists and the impetus for criminal charges against Jenna Garland.

In March 2018, the AJC and Channel 2 published text messages Garland sent a year earlier to then-watershed spokeswoman Lillian Govus.

[...]

In the messages, Garland instructed Govus to “drag this out,” “be as unhelpful as possible” and to “provide the information in the most confusing format available.”

Garland later instructed Govus to “hold all” records until a Channel 2 producer contacted Govus for an update.

The records originally sought showed large amounts owed to the city's water department by a number of city politicians, including a councilwoman attempting to run for mayor. Those records were finally released to Channel 2 after it threatened to sue the agency.

There may be more charges coming, based on what's been seen in the text messages AJC obtained. Garland didn't work alone to withhold requested documents and quite possibly was following instructions from those above her when she started telling city employees to violate open records law.

This sort of thing should be happening more frequently, but it's difficult to convince prosecutors to go after fellow government employees. The laws themselves usually aren't much help, snaring only the most egregious violators. Still, it does show it's not impossible to punish government employees for violating open records laws, which should generate at least some minimal deterrent effect.

Filed Under: criminal charges, foia, georgia, jenna garland, public records

19-Year-Old Canadian Facing Criminal Charges For Downloading Publicly-Accessible Documents

from the making-citizens-pay-for-the-government's-sins dept

A 19-year-old Canadian is being criminally-charged for accessing a website. The Nova Scotian government's Freedom of Information portal (FOIPOP) served up documents it shouldn't have and now prosecutors are thinking about adding charges on top of the ten-year sentence the teen could already be facing. (via Databreaches.net)

Journalists first spotted the problem April 5th, when the FOI portal was taken offline. The Internal Services Minister, Patricia Arab, refused to provide details about the portal's sudden unavailability. It wasn't until the following week that the press was given more information and those affected notified.

Even once the government learned of the breach, it waited until Wednesday to begin notifying affected people. Arab said they held off notifying people was because police suggested it would help them in their investigation.

Seems logical, except…

But [Halifax Police Superintendent Jim] Perrin told reporters police did not make that request. He could not say if advising people would have compromised the investigation. The province's protocols for a privacy breach state it is supposed to inform people as soon as possible, unless otherwise instructed by law enforcement.

The suspect obtained 7,000 documents from the Freedom of Information portal. Apparently around 250 of those contained unredacted personal information. Here's how the government portrayed the supposed hacking:

Government officials said someone got in by "exploiting a vulnerability in the system." The person wrote a script allowing them to alter the website's URL, which then granted access to the personal information.

Internal Services found more than 7,000 PDF documents had been downloaded by a "non-authorized user" in early March. They filed a complaint with police on Saturday.

A script made it easier, but a script wasn't required. The URLs for FOI documents are incremental. As software engineer Evan D'Entremont points out, anyone could have done what the supposed "hacker" did.

The way the documents are stored is simple. They’re available at a specific URL, which David Fraser, a Halifax-based privacy lawyer, was happy to provide:

https://foipop.novascotia.ca/foia/views/_AttachmentDownload.jsp?attachmentRSN=1234

Document number 1235 is stored at https://foipop.novascotia.ca/foia/views/_AttachmentDownload.jsp?attachmentRSN=1235.

Guess where document 1236 is stored? This is not a new problem. In fact, it was recognized over a decade ago as one of the top ten issues affecting web application security. All [the "hacker'] had to do is add.

All this "hacker" did was automate the retrieval of published documents from the government's FOI portal. That's it. This wasn't an attempt to access personal info. That problem lies with the government, which did not properly secure documents it hadn't redacted yet. As D'Etremont points out, plenty of other government websites use the same software for document access. (Searching "inurl:attachmentRSN"will bring up a handful of government websites, including Nova Scotia's temporarily disabled FOI portal).

But other sites have taken care to wall off publicly-available documents from others they're not prepared to make public by using a PublicPortal subfolder. Nova Scotia's site apparently did not, hence the teen's ability to access unredacted documents. This isn't evidence of fraudulent access or malicious hacking. This is evidence of government carelessness.

The question remains, was the access fraudulent?

Remember what I said about the other installations being called “PublicPortal”? And how 6750 of the 7000 records were public anyways, and how this system is literally designed for facilitating “access to information?” Looking at it further, there are no authentication mechanisms, no password protection, no access restrictions. It’s very clear that the software is intended to serve as a public repository of documents.

It’s also very clear that there at least 250 documents improperly stored there by the province. Documents that the province had a responsibility to protect, and failed.

This wasn't a criminal act. This was simply efficient harvesting of publicly-available documents. If some documents weren't supposed to be publicly-available, the blame lies with the government for failing to secure them. The fact that the government decided to get police involved gives this the ugly appearance of scapegoating. This is an embarrassed government body trying to turn its mistake into the malicious works of teen hacker.

It would be very surprising to see these charges stick. The URLs -- and the documents they held -- were publicly-accessible. But if they do stick -- and the Halifax PD has stated it may add more charges -- it will be due to the Nova Scotia government's unwillingness to take responsibility for its own carelessness.

Filed Under: canada, criminal charges, downloading, foia, foipop, nova scotia, transparency

Student Hit With 70 Criminal Charges After Exposing Himself During Yearbook Photo Shoot

from the another-school-outsources-its-disciplinary-processes dept

When will schools tire of involving law enforcement in routine disciplinary matters? Not soon enough, apparently.

Hunter Osborn, a senior at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, AZ, did a "teen" thing. Prompted by other teens who enjoy a good bit of teen lowbrow comedy, Osborn slipped the tip of his penis over his waistband during the football team's photo shoot. Osborn and his crotch-level co-star went unnoticed as yearbooks and game programs containing his exposed penis were published and handed out.

The school, of course, was furious. Instead of handling its own problems, it decided to turn it over to law enforcement -- for reasons only completely understood by school administrators who believe "school discipline" is pronounced "police matter." Perhaps this overreaction was fueled by the school's own editorial lapse, as it only noticed the exposed penis in the photograph after Osborn bragged about it on "social media."

Insanity ensued.

[Osborn] faces 69 counts of indecent exposure, based on the students and staff who were present when the photograph was taken, and one count of furnishing harmful items to minors, according to Mesa Police Department spokesman Steve Berry. He said the investigation is ongoing.

One penis. (And not even a whole one.) 70 criminal charges. And that includes a felony that rubs elbows with producing and distributing child pornography. Never mind the fact that his "victims" (the 69 misdemeanor counts cover the teammates and staff involved in the photo shoot) included the same teammates who dared him to expose himself. And who also "exposed" themselves to him on repeated occasions with no complaints, as one particularly astute AZ Central reader pointed out.

As reader Jim McManus wrote, “This young man is being charged for exposing himself to his teammates during the picture taking, which no one noticed at the time. Approximately 15 minutes later he and all the people he ‘abused’ went back to the locker room and all took off their (clothes) exposing themselves to each other.”

Yes, there's a difference between expected penis exposure and surprise penis exposure, but the bottom line here is that many of Osborn's "victims" had seen his penis repeatedly. No one expects a penis in a group photo, but hey, peer pressure and stupidity can all be found in large quantities on the average high school campus. That the photo was published unaltered is unfortunate, but there's absolutely no reason law enforcement should have been brought in. And if law enforcement was summoned, officers should have told administrators to handle their own problems, rather than amuse themselves by tallying up 69 + 1 criminal charges.

Fortunately, after allowing insanity to have the run of the yard for a few days, rational thought was allowed to cautiously make its way back onto the propety. First, prosecutors dropped the ridiculous "furnishing harmful items to minors" felony charge.

In announcing that his office would not prosecute the felony charge against Hunter Osborn, Montgomery issued a statement reading: “An assessment of the available evidence for the felony charge of Furnishing Harmful Items to Minors, ARS 13-3506.A., leads us to conclude that the evidence does not establish a violation of the statute. MCAO has furthered review of remaining misdemeanor charges submitted by the Mesa Police Department for possible submittal to the Mesa City Prosecutor's Office.”

Shortly thereafter, prosecutors decided the 69 misdemeanor counts weren't worth pursuing either.

A Mesa police spokesman said Wednesday that the case against Hunter Osborn, 19, was returned to police for further investigation but that the case would be closed.

A good thing, too. A strict reading of the state's statute behind the single felony charge suggests Osborn could not have possibly violated it. Indecent exposure, maybe. But not furnishing harmful material to minors.

It is unlawful for any person, with knowledge of the character of the item involved, to recklessly furnish, present, provide, make available, give, lend, show, advertise or distribute to minors any item that is harmful to minors.

The only entities who performed any of the actions were the school and its photographer -- and neither of those did so knowingly.

Even though this ended relatively well, the sad fact is that if it had been handled with any sort of common sense, we never would have heard about it at all.

Filed Under: arizona, criminal charges, high school, hunter osborn, kids, mesa, pranks, red mountain high school

Patrick Zarrelli Claims He's Filing Criminal Charges Against Us Because He Doesn't Like Our Post About Him

from the dude:-do-you-even-first-amendment? dept

So... a week and a half ago, we published an article, written by Tim Cushing, discussing the rather poor decisions of a self-proclaimed "reputation management" guy named Patrick Zarrelli. Zarrelli, it appeared, had been hired by Florida attorney Gary Ostrow, to improve his reputation, but instead, Zarrelli proceeded on a course that seemed more likely to destroy his own reputation, and potentially drag Ostrow further down with him.

The background: Ostrow, back in 2012, put out a ridiculous press release, claiming that he was "taking on all celebrity criminal cases in Florida." The press release was so ridiculous and silly that it resulted in mocking and scorn from lawyers online, including Scott Greenfield and Mark Bennett. Apparently, three years later, Ostrow decided he wanted those posts to disappear from the internet. As we've seen, trying to make things disappear from the internet is generally a bad idea that has a history of backfiring spectacularly, often generating renewed interest in that which you wish to delete.

It tends to be even worse when you attempt to delete the content in the most ham-fisted manner possible, which appears to have been Zarrelli's strategy. He called up Greenfield and Bennett, and did a weird passive-aggressive combination of threatening them with totally baseless legal threats, and a weird sort of "hey we're all buddies, let's just take this content down" ridiculousness. If you haven't, you really need to listen to the voicemail that Zarrelli left Greenfield. I could describe it, but no description could do that voicemail justice. It includes a bunch of nonsense legal terms ("hot news exemption"?), a bizarre attempt to "trade" website design if Greenfield will take down the article ("let us improve your blog for you"), threats ("it's not going to be fun for you") and a bizarre listing of his family tree of "high-end lawyers."

All this resulted in more blog posts from Bennett and Greenfield. Another attorney, Brian Tannebaum, apparently also was on the receiving end of ridiculous threats from Zarrelli.

Throughout it all, Zarrelli kept publicly (on Facebook and Twitter) putting up a show of bravado, and a few times suggested that the reason that everyone was pissed at him was because of some sort of "lawyerly bravado" that he felt they believed they needed to show before capitulating -- rather than the truth: which is that these lawyers know Zarrelli has no legal basis for his claims, and they have little time for censorious jerks who are threatening them with bogus legal threats.

Now we get to the rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging.

We had thought that, as with many such cases, Zarrelli might calm down, get a little perspective and move on with his life -- possibly in a different business than "reputation management." But, apparently, he (unwisely) chose plan B.

Yesterday afternoon a large envelope stuffed with hundreds of pages of paper showed up at my office, which appears to be a hilariously stupid threat that he's suing basically everyone who made fun of him. If you can't read that "cover page," here's what it says:

Dear Tech Dirt [sic] Team,

A writer of yours named Tim Cushings [sic] is using your website to harass, stalk, libel, and cyber bully me online. We have filed criminal charges and bar complaints in seven states. We are now in the process of filling [sic] a federal lawsuit in Florida. Due to your companies [sic] high page rank, there [sic] attack articles about me dominate the search results. They are even above my own Facebook page.

Thank you,

Patrick Zarrelli

And, as you can see, there are large packets for the lawyers mentioned above -- Scott Greenfield, Mark Bennett and Brian Tannebaum, as well as one for Tim Cushing, who is listed together with Sam Glover (I have no idea why). Each "cover page" lists a "criminal case #": "Criminal Case #15-172076FLPD." I can't wait to see what criminal law it violates to "rank better than my Facebook page in search results," but I get the feeling that the Florida police won't be doing much with this.

Beyond the misspellings, the cover letter is just ridiculous. It doesn't actually make any request to us. It doesn't say that anything has actually been filed against us, or Tim directly, despite the clear attempt to imply as much. There is no effort to (as you're kinda required to do) name what actual statements constitute violations of the law (he can keep looking, 'cause he's not going to find any). Also, "harass, stalk, libel, and cyber bully." Dude, he wrote an article about you fucking up. That's not harassing, stalking, libeling or cyber bullying. That's called reporting, and it's damn well protected by the First Amendment. Whatever "criminal charges" he thinks he's filed are not what he seems to think they are. Individuals don't file "criminal charges." That's law enforcement's job. It sounds like he may have just whined to some law enforcement folks in Florida who probably filed it in the garbage file where it belongs. Obviously, he's not filing "bar complaints" against us or Cushing, since Cushing isn't a lawyer. He very well may have against the lawyers listed, but those will all go nowhere fast.

If he's seriously contemplating "filling [sic] a federal lawsuit in Florida" -- well, then he should have had his lawyer contact us, rather than himself -- and he might want to acquaint himself carefully with Florida's brand new anti-SLAPP law, which we would almost certainly make use of in seeking legal fees for filing a bogus lawsuit whose sole purpose was an attempt to stifle Constitutionally protected speech.

Oh, and you might wonder what's in all the pages in those packets. It is not -- as you might think from the cover pages -- any actual lawsuit or bar complaint or anything of the sort. It is not any actual demands or explanation of what laws he thinks we broke. Rather, each packet is just pages upon pages of screenshot printouts of the articles that we wrote, the comments on those articles, and comments found on Twitter and Facebook where people were mocking Zarrelli.

Dude: let it go. You messed up and people made fun of you for it. There's nothing illegal about that (in either the criminal or the civil sense).

Update: After a bunch of requests, we've scanned in the full packets. You can see them below:

Filed Under: anti-slapp, brian tannebaum, criminal charges, defamation, free speech, gary ostrow, mark bennett, patrick zarrelli, reputation management, sam glover, scott greenfield, threats

Attorney General Threatens To Prosecute Reporters For Doing Their Job

from the with-great-power-comes-great-ridiculousness dept

Following a trail blazed by Maryland councilman Kirby Delauter, a Virgin Islands Attorney General is making an ass of herself by threatening journalists for having the audacity to do their job. Delauter infamously publicly attacked a reporter for daring to publish his name in her paper, apparently unaware that this sort of thing happens to public officials roughly all the damn time. The ensuing internet maelstrom forced a retraction and apology from Delauter.

The Virgin Islands Daily News is still waiting for an apology from acting Attorney General Terri Griffiths for this wholly inappropriate response to acts of journalism. [via Jim Romenesko]

Acting Attorney General Terri Griffiths told executives of The Virgin Islands Daily News on Thursday morning that she will prosecute the newspaper on criminal charges because of its telephone calls to obtain comment and information from her.

"I'll be filing criminal charges against you," Griffiths said as she abruptly left a meeting at The Daily News' offices on St. Thomas.

She also claimed a quote appearing in one of the paper's stories was "fabricated." This is the quote:

"I will not comment on the Parole Board hearings."

This quote seems like something an attorney general would be very likely to say. In fact, the refusal to comment has long been a hallmark of law enforcement-press relations. Not commenting is the national pastime of law enforcers, who are often the first party to issue a solid "no comment" after controversial incidents. But Griffith claims this completely innocuous and completely boring quote was fabricated. The Daily News found otherwise.

The Daily News has reviewed Griffiths' allegations that a quote attributed to her had been fabricated and stands by its published report, Robbins said.

"We take any report of inaccuracy very seriously, and we publish a clarification or correction if an error appears in print," Robbins said. "In this case, we found that the reporter was accurate."

But Griffiths is more upset that Daily News reporters are calling her on her cell phone to obtain additional "no comments" on various stories involving her office. This would almost be a legitimate complaint (provided you ignore the ensuing "I'll put you in jail" threat that accompanied it), if it weren't for the fact that Griffiths herself provided the cell phone number to the paper.

Griffiths spoke at length about her desire not to be called on the cell phone or after hours, and she termed the calls "telephone harassment."

Daily News reporters have called Griffiths on her cell when unable to reach her on her office phone. The cell number they used is the one she provided to the newspaper.

The meeting broke down when Robbins asked Griffiths to answer specific questions about her grievances.

Griffiths objected to that and said she did not want to be "blindsided."

"I don't want to talk to your reporters ever. There will be no communication between me and The Daily News ever again," she said.

She asked Robbins whether he would instruct reporters not to call her on the cell phone.

Robbins said, "No."

Griffiths then left the meeting, announcing, "Then I am going to file criminal charges against you."

Welcome to the life of a public figure, Ms. Griffiths. Reporters are going to call you when your input is needed or desired. It won't always be during business hours, especially if your office can't provide "I will not comment" (non)comments in your absence. Certainly, an excessive amount of calls after "business hours" (whatever that means to powerful law enforcement figures/journalists -- I would imagine those timetables have significant differences) would be irritating, but it doesn't rise to the level of harassment.

And Griffiths' comment about resenting being "blindsided" strongly suggests she'd rather not deal with this part of the job at all. Any question can be deferred to a later time if the answer isn't immediately apparent, but the pattern of calls Griffiths calls "harassment" suggests she's not exactly forthcoming or timely in her responses.

Harassment may be a crime, but journalism isn't. If Griffiths would rather not answer questions, she can place that burden on her staff. Or she can communicate only through official statements and press releases. Or she can give the newspaper guidance on what times are acceptable to call. But what she definitely can't do -- or at least shouldn't -- is abuse the power of her position to mute pesky guardians of public accountability.

Filed Under: criminal charges, free speech, freedom of the press, intimidation, journalism, terri griffiths, virgin island

Megaupload Asks Hong Kong Court To Drop Restraining Order On Megaupload Assets, Claiming Legal Violations

from the frozen dept

In the continuing global legal fight over Megaupload, the company apparently is asking the Hong Kong high court to set aside the restraining order on the company's assets that was put in place over two years ago, following a request from the US Justice Department. Megaupload was always legally based in Hong Kong, even if the company itself was based in New Zealand. Megaupload appears to be claiming that the Hong Kong Justice Department did not properly follow the law in going along with the US DOJ's request. The main issue, which has been debated back in the US, is that, technically, the DOJ cannot serve Megaupload (the company) since it has no US employees or presence. The DOJ can go after foreign individuals, but when it comes to foreign companies, the law is pretty explicit that they can't. While the DOJ is actively seeking to change that law, it doesn't change the basic problem with the original request.

Megaupload is pointing out that the US DOJ's request to the HK DOJ depended on Megaupload being served the criminal summons. But since that hasn't been satisfied, it argues the HK DOJ has no basis for restraining Megaupload's assets:

The order was granted on the basis of an ex parte application by the HK DOJ made at the request of the US DOJ. The grounds for discharge of the order is the failure by the HK DOJ—acting on the basis of information provided by the US DOJ—to fully and frankly disclose in that ex parte application serious legal issues relating to the US DOJ’s inability to serve Megaupload with a criminal summons in accordance with United States federal law. Among other things, the US DOJ failed to explain how it intended to comply with the service of process requirements imposed by the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which, as argued in Megaupload’s application, are an essential prerequisite to initiating any criminal proceedings against Megaupload and cannot be satisfied for a corporation that has no physical presence or subsidiaries in the United States. Megaupload has submitted those filings with its application to the High Court.

Megaupload claims it's seeking to free the assets in order to attempt to regain control over the leased servers from Carpathia, which the DOJ has been hoping would be destroyed (leading to the destruction of evidence in a criminal case, at the DOJ's urging). While the issue of serving Megaupload is something of a technical snafu, it's one in a rather long line of sloppy lawyering by the DOJ throughout this case.

Filed Under: criminal charges, doj, frozen assets, hkdoj, hong kong, service
Companies: megaupload

Feds Threaten To Arrest Lavabit Founder For Shutting Down His Service

from the either-you-help-us-spy-on-people-or-you're-a-criminal dept

The saga of Lavabit founder Ladar Levison is getting even more ridiculous, as he explains that the government has threatened him with criminal charges for his decision to shut down the business, rather than agree to some mysterious court order. The feds are apparently arguing that the act of shutting down the business, itself, was a violation of the order:

... a source familiar with the matter told NBC News that James Trump, a senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., sent an email to Levison's lawyer last Thursday – the day Lavabit was shuttered -- stating that Levison may have "violated the court order," a statement that was interpreted as a possible threat to charge Levison with contempt of court.

That same article suggests that the decision to shut down Lavabit was over something much bigger than just looking at one individual's information -- since it appears that Lavabit has cooperated in the past on such cases. Instead, the suggestion now is that the government was seeking a tap on all accounts:

Levison stressed that he has complied with "upwards of two dozen court orders" for information in the past that were targeted at "specific users" and that "I never had a problem with that." But without disclosing details, he suggested that the order he received more recently was markedly different, requiring him to cooperate in broadly based surveillance that would scoop up information about all the users of his service. He likened the demands to a requirement to install a tap on his telephone.

It sounds like the feds were asking for a full on backdoor on the system, not unlike some previous reports of ISPs who have received surprise visits from the NSA.

Filed Under: criminal charges, doj, email, ladar levison, nsa, nsa surveillance
Companies: lavabit