DOJ Now Investigating Florida Sheriff's Office For Using A Federal Grant To Fund Its 'Predictive Policing' Harassment Programs

from the claw-it-back dept

The Pasco County (FL) Sheriff's Office believes in "intelligence-led policing." This is its formal slang for harassing residents until (in the office's own words) "they sue or move." The Sheriff's Office turns anyone with a criminal background into a suspect-for-life. Deputies visit residences and residents on the "intelligence-led" shit list multiple times a month, demanding answers to questions they have no business asking. When residents fail to comply, nuisance (in every sense of the word) citations are issued for things like uncut grass or missing mailbox numbers.

It doesn't really matter whether the Sheriff's Office believes its own PR bullshit. It is fully engaged in harassing as many residents as possible. That's why it's allowed its so-called predictive policing program to infiltrate local schools, subjecting minors (and their families) to the same harassment previously limited to adults with criminal records. Almost anything can trigger unwelcome interactions with the office's deputies, including slipping grades, missed school days, or simply being the victim of, or witness to domestic violence.

Local schools are apparently fine with this. They've been sharing student records with the Sheriff's Office. And the Sheriff's Office has been sharing this info with officers. Both of these actions appear to violate federal and local student privacy laws. Not that the Sheriff's Office cares. It says it has done nothing wrong -- only availed itself of records shared with it (unlawfully) by schools.

The exposure of these programs by the Tampa Bay Times has led to multiple investigations and accusations of lawbreaking. One of these investigations involves the federal government, which makes it clear it's not just the locals that find the Sheriff's Office's programs abhorrent. The Department of Education opened an investigation in April to determine whether the in-school "intelligence-led policing" violated federal student privacy laws.

There's a new federal investigation underway. The Department of Justice wants to know what the fuck is going on in Pasco County, Florida. (h/t WarOnPrivacy)

The U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an “intensive review” of the Pasco Sheriff’s Office’s latest intelligence program, federal officials said this week.

The Justice Department sent a letter to the Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 6 — two weeks after the Tampa Bay Times reported that the Sheriff’s Office had promised increased police scrutiny for people whose criminal histories included violent crimes and drug offenses.

The Justice Department’s letter raised concerns about the methodology used to identify targets, communications with the community and the “insufficient” coordination with relevant law enforcement agencies.

The DOJ's interest no doubt has something to do with the Tampa Bay Times' incredible reporting. But it also wants to know why it gave the Sheriff's Office $700,000 if it was just going to use it to violate the terms of the Bureau of Justice Assistance grant.

This is from the DOJ's letter [PDF] to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office:

Agencies that receive SPI funding are expected to engage members of their communities as allies in reducing violence, ensure transparency in their crime reduction approaches whenever feasible, and establish innovative and effective working relationships with citizens and community leaders to gain support for their proposed policing initiatives. Trust, and building trust, is at the core of SPI funding.

But:

PCSO recently circulated the attached letter to individuals regarding a PCSO-run program (the “PCSO program”), which claimed to be “in cooperation with the Department of Justice’s Strategies for Policing Innovation Initiative.” However, the letter does not adequately depict the dedicated training and technical resources under SPI provided by the Department, nor does it adequately describe the requirements for greater community engagement required for SPI’s success.

And:

We also have concerns regarding the methodology used to identify individuals for inclusion in the PCSO program; the name of the program; communications about the program; the lack of involvement and communication with the greater community about the program; and the insufficient coordination with relevant law enforcement stakeholder groups. These shortcomings have the unfortunate consequence of eroding trust in the community, rather than building trust. Given this, and given the goals of SPI, BJA will undertake an immediate assessment of the activities funded under this grant award.

Brace for some federal damnation. Also, brace for opening up the Pasco County coffers to… um… cough up the $700,000 misused by the Sheriff's Office to (and I will quote here) "erode trust in the community."

The Sheriff's Office has responded [PDF]. And it claims it is completely baffled that the DOJ would think its BS predictive policing/targeted harassment program would undermine trust in the community it's supposed to be serving. Instead, it says it followed the instructions given to it by the Trump DOJ.

The Pasco Sheriff's Office (PSO) is in receipt of your correspondence dated August 6, 2021 re- garding the Smart Policing Initiative grant awarded to PSO in 2018. After careful review of the letter, we are left confused as to the origins of the concerns and intentions expressed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). Over the last two years, PSO has been working hand-in-hand with the subject matter experts (SMES)' assigned by BIA to implement this grant. In fulfilling the conditions of the grant, PSO actively collaborates with the BJA-assigned SMEs as well as the University of South Florida (USF) in research partnership and follows all guidance and directives they provide. The written feedback provided by these SMEs included phrases such as “excellent job!” and “the messaging was delivered well,” and referenced the “fantastic partnerships” PSO established with the SPI project. Yet for reasons unknown to PSO, your letter directly contradicts the guidance we have been provided over the last two years.

No doubt the current DOJ (headed by Merrick Garland) takes a different view of community-oriented policing than the DOJ led by Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr did. If there's any confusion, it's due to the DOJ reining in its focus on civil rights violations under Donald Trump and its reemergence post Trump as an agency that will at least engage in investigations of problematic law enforcement agencies, even if it's not that great at delivering sustainable results.

Too bad. Meet the new boss, not quite the same as the old boss. Flow my tears, the sheriff who didn't want to comprehend the new paradigm said:

We were excited to work with BJA on this innovative, research-driven initiative, and we are extremely disappointed by this abrupt change in direction.

That's weird. I thought law enforcement officers are trained experts on reacting to fast-moving situations. But maybe that only refers to the indiscriminate deployment of excessive and/or deadly force. Maybe the only ways cops can embrace change is with chokeholds and bullets.

Sure, it doesn't help that the DOJ sent contradictory messages to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. But as Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco surely is aware (being that his position is an elected position), the rules can change when the regime changes. The previous administration may have felt the public was the problem and shows of force by armed government employees was the solution. But the current administration doesn't feel that way. And it has every right to ask why the Pasco County Sheriff's Office spent nearly a million dollars in federal money alienating the community and harassing their kids.

Filed Under: doe, doj, florida, pasco county, pasco county sheriff's office, predictive policing, privacy, schools, surveillance

US Department Of Education Now Investigating Florida Sheriff's Student 'Pre-Crime' Program

from the Sheriff-showing-some-indicators-of-criminal-activity dept

The Pasco County (FL) Sheriff's Office decided to bring some of its predictive policing nonsense indoors. It also started looking for smaller targets. The program used to harass residents over things like uncut lawns and missing mailbox numbers was extended to schoolchildren, who were subjected to the same sort of spreadsheet bullshit. Low grades? Miss a few school days? Victim of domestic violence?

According to the Pasco County Sheriff "juvenile intelligence analysts," these were all risk factors that could signify future criminal behavior. The Sheriff claimed it wasn't trying to pre-crime children, but its own documentation said "analysts" should use the so-called "predictors" to "identify at-risk youth who are destined to a life of crime."

Not only is the program arguably morally wrong, it's also generally wrong. Predictive policing rarely works as intended since it relies on skewed data. Those inputs produce more skewed data, sending officers into the same areas they already believe criminal activity will occur and aims them at the same people they've already assumed are criminals. It's basically confirmation_bias.xls. But this program targets kids and uses data it's not clear the Sheriff's Office has any legal right to access.

That means the program may also be legally wrong. As in "illegal." Analysis of the program and the data-sharing agreements with schools by student privacy advocates resulted in the determination that this access to student data without parental consent violated FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) -- a federal student privacy law passed in 1974.

This conclusion prompted Congressional reps to step in and request a federal investigation into Pasco County's pee-wee league pre-crime program. Four months after that request was made by Representative Robert C. Scott, the US Department of Education is moving forward with its review of the program.

The Tampa Bay Times reported in November that the school district shared information on student grades, discipline and attendance with the Sheriff’s Office, which used the data to compile a secret list of schoolchildren it believed could “fall into a life of crime.”

The federal education department is now looking into the arrangement, a spokesman said Friday.

The investigation follows calls for a review by U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott, who leads the House Committee on Education and Labor. In a statement, Scott said he was “encouraged” that the education department had accepted his request. He called the Pasco program “disturbing.”

Now that the federal government is involved, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office appears to be hastily revising its program. While it still claims the program does not label kids as criminals (despite what its own documentation says), it has started to change what data it accesses and how it obtains that access.

The law enforcement agency said that deputies, who serve in the role as school resource officers, do have access to student grades. But the agency said for the first time that students were being added to any list for review only if they had committed a crime. Aside from its school resource deputies, the agency said that Sheriff’s Office employees can see whether a student has been flagged by the district’s early warning system — not whether they had been flagged for a specific reason, such as grades or attendance.

Starting to do the right thing after months of negative press and multiple investigations isn't really doing the right thing. It's just damage control. But the Sheriff's Office already spent months or years screwing up and that's going to still come to light even if it's not trying to stop violating federal regulations.

And the Sheriff's Office still seems pretty defensive for an agency that believes it's done nothing wrong. Rather than simply defer comment until the investigation concludes, the Sheriff's Office issued a multi-paragraph comment to the Tampa Bay Times that starts out by attacking the credibility of the paper whose initial report was based entirely on the Sheriff Office's own documents.

We have no additional comment beyond what was previously provided to the Tampa Bay Times. However, we’re proud of our partnership with Pasco County Schools and the work our members do to ensure safety to students, staff and families in our community. Additionally, I’m providing you with the below, which details much of the misinformation the Times has misconstrued through the course of their reporting and sets the record straight on facts vs slant.

As always, it is our sincere hope that the Times uses this opportunity to set the record straight on their own reporting and the previous fallacies they’ve published.

The statement does its own misleading by claiming the things the Sheriff's Office is doing now are the things it has always done, despite that clearly not being the case. It's trying to backdate its culpability with this statement and that may work for small parts of the court of public opinion, but it's not going to change the course of the ongoing investigation.

Even if one is inclined to take the Sheriff's Office at its word, the fact that it "only" determined 330 students to be "at risk" for future criminal behavior is still disturbing. While identifying at-risk students can be helpful and perhaps head off future criminal acts, the Office's predictive policing program mainly serves up constant harassment to anyone selected by the software as a potential criminal. Rather than deter criminal activity, the program makes it impossible for people to break free of the criminal justice deathcycle by subjecting them to meaningless citations, extra court appearances, and frequent visits from deputies who apparently have nothing better to do with their time.

This sort of harassment isn't going to help at-risk students. And it will definitely negatively impact those caring for them, making it all the more likely something already tenuous will break completely, resulting in further hardship for everyone involved. The Pasco Sheriff's Office had made it clear it's not there to help. It has openly stated the program is there to harass people into suing or moving. And it thinks it okay to direct this same attitude at kids.

Filed Under: department of education, doe, florida, pasco county, pre-crime, predictive policing

Appeals Court Rolls Its Eyes At Goverment's Attempt To Dodge FOIA Litigation By Pretending It Didn't Know Who Was Seeking Documents

from the stop-being-deliberately-stupid dept

Government agencies, for the most part, treat public records requesters as weeds in the garden of governance: a pest that can never be fully eradicated, but rather tolerated with as much annoyance as possible. Whatever can't be made to disappear with hefty fee demands or months of stonewalling will be given as little attention and compliance as possible. This attitude has turned FOIA requesters into frequent litigators seeking to hold one branch of the government accountable by using another.

When Cheryl Brantley, a member of activist group A Better Way for BPA, requested records from the Bonneville Power Administration (run by the Department of Energy), she filled out the agency's online FOIA form and waited. And waited. And waited some more before finally suing.

BPA responded by declaring A Better Way had no standing to file a lawsuit. It decided to get hypertechnical about Brantley's FOIA submission, claiming no one but Brantley herself should be allowed to sue.

The district court granted the BPA's motion to dismiss for lack of standing. A Better Way appealed this decision, placing it before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court is completely unimpressed with the BPA's attempt to turn a meaningless technicality into a motion to dismiss. From the decision's [PDF] summary: [h/t Brad Heath]

The government challenged the group’s standing and the district court dismissed the suit, saying that the submitted form did not adequately identify the organization as the requester. We disagree. FOIA forms should not be a “gotcha” proposition requiring a lexicographer to discern who made the request.

Brantley's request identified two parties as requesters: herself and A Better Way.

Further down in the form, she clicked a box designating this as a request by an "individual" for personal use. Later comments on the same form indicated Brantley was requesting this on behalf of A Better Way, referring to "technical advisers" who would help disseminate info obtained "to our members."

Even if the BPA wanted to get technical about Brantley's choice of "individual" on the online form, its own communications with Brantley made it clear the agency felt it was dealing with a group, rather than Brantley herself.

[O]n February 18, 2015, the agency sent a letter addressed to “Cheryl Brantley[,] A Better Way for BPA,” stating that BPA had been in touch with [David] Bricklin [A Better Way's attorney], granting a fee waiver, noting the complexity of the request, and estimating completion by September 30, 2015. On September 28, 2015, BPA sent another letter, addressed the same way, advising of its need to submit certain records to third-party entities for review and thus “extending the target date for BPA’s response to your request to March 31, 2016.”

The agency continued to communicate with A Better Way’s counsel. Significantly, on November 13, 2015, BPA sent an email to Bricklin with the subject line: “BPA-2015- 00597-F-Brantley (A Better Way for BPA) - DEIS for I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project - 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(4) determination letters.” Two days later, BPA sent another email to Bricklin with a similar subject line: “BPA-2015- 00597-F-Brantley (A Better Way for BPA) - DEIS for I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project - communication with the requester’s counsel.”

The appeals court makes short work of BPA's attempt to dodge litigation predicated on its own failure to produce responsive documents.

Viewing the form as a whole, it is clear that the request was made on behalf of A Better Way, that the request was not for commercial purposes, that there was an obvious public interest related to BPA’s I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project, and that the requester had “members,” hardly a characteristic of an individual requester. Any confusion in the electronic form was of BPA’s own making and could easily be fixed by including a place to check that the request is made “on behalf of” an organization or by adding “public interest organization” or “other” options under Type of Requester.

The court goes on to note that BPA certainly knew the group requesting documents and acknowledged -- through multiple communications with A Better Way's counsel -- that A Better Way was the ultimate recipient of the sought documents. Pretending otherwise is just conveniently disingenuous.

To the extent ambiguity exists with how Brantley filled out the form—and we do not think that any does—the follow-on correspondence between BPA and the requester affirms that A Better Way was the requester and that BPA treated A Better Way as the requester. For example, BPA addressed letters to “Cheryl Brantley[,] A Better Way for BPA,” twice placed “A Better Way” in the subject line of emails concerning the request, and regularly communicated with the organization’s lawyer. This treatment was unsurprising, as A Better Way and BPA were hardly strangers. During a six-month period from December 2009 to June 2010, for instance, the organization submitted ten FOIA requests to the agency. BPA cannot reverse course now and convince us that the organization with whom it was regularly corresponding and which it acknowledged as the requester should be out of court.

Finally, the court says common sense must be used when dealing with FOIA requesters, who are usually citizens untrained in the art of obfuscatory bureaucracy. The court points out BPA, on multiple occasions, made it clear through communications with the group's counsel that it knew it was dealing with A Better Way, not Cheryl Brantley acting of her own accord. The case is sent back to the lower court to allow A Better Way to continue suing BPA for records it still hasn't turned over. And hopefully the BPA will act in good faith in the future when being sued for unresponsiveness. But probably not. After all, it's not the agency's money being wasted. That comes from US taxpayers -- an apparently bottomless source of revenue.

Filed Under: cheryl brantley, department of energy, doe, foia
Companies: a better way, bonneville power administration