State Trooper Disciplined For Taking Photo With Person With 'Well-Known Criminal Background'

from the the-pettiness-of-the-powerful dept

Tired of hearing about just the bad cops? Here's one with a good cop, surrounded by worse cops, and the amazing amount of pettiness the latter group can display.

Texas State Trooper Billy Spears was working an approved security detail at the recent South by Southwest conference when he was approached by one of the performing artists and his publicist. The artist asked for a photo with the trooper, who obliged. The photo was taken by the publicist and later posted to Instagram. Here's the photo.

Trooper Spears is on the left.

In most other realities, this would have been the end of the story -- one Billy Spears would be able to tell for years. Instead, it's turned into something else. It's still a story that Spears will be able to tell for years, but there won't be many happy memories attached to it.

Much of what came next has been compiled by Spears' attorney, Ty Clevenger, who submitted this to Techdirt. Instead of nothing happening, a whole bunch of petty crap went down, starting with the response from his "superiors."

[H]ere’s an excerpt of the “deficiencies indicating need for counseling” in Billy’s official record: “While working a secondary employment job, Trooper Spears took a photo with a public figure who has a well-known criminal background including numerous drug charges. The public figure posted the photo on social media and it reflects poorly on the Agency.”

The "counseling" doesn't mean a psychiatric evaluation but it does mean the addition of disciplinary documentation that could negatively affect Spears' future employment or advancement opportunities. The Texas Dept. of Safety -- of which the State Troopers are a division -- has so far refused to comment on this action, something that appears to be vindictive rather than deserved.

First, there's the ridiculousness of demanding troopers not pose with anyone who has a "criminal background." Many people do. Far too many, given the law enforcement's willingness to criminalize all sorts of behavior under vague charges like "obstruction," "interference" and "resisting arrest." No small percentage of a population possess a "criminal background." As Clevenger points out, this sort of expectation is not only moronic, but it's completely nonexistent.

And of course DPS has no policy requiring a criminal background check on everyone who requests a picture with a uniformed trooper. In fact, DPS has no policy forbidding a photograph with someone who has a criminal conviction.

The other problem with the DPS's disciplinary action is that Spears didn't post the photo. Snoop Dogg did.

Despite Spears having violated no existing policies, his supervisors went out of their way -- way out of their way -- to assure he was punished for this non-misdeed. This is from Clevenger's letter to the director of the Texas Dept. of Public Safety.

At approximately 9 p.m., Trooper Spears was informed by Sgt. Michael Sparks that Lt. Jimmy Jackson would be driving from Tyler to Gilmer to serve him with a copy of the counseling form. Sgt. Sparks also told Trooper Spears that DPS is now requiring the presence of two superior officers for any incident involving him. I doubt there are any other troopers who must be served by at least two superior officers, and I must wonder why Trooper Spears was singled out for special treatment. I must also ask what is so special about Trooper Spears that a lieutenant would drive 80 miles round trip to serve him at 9:24 p.m. in the evening.

As Clevenger sees it, this is retaliation for Spears' willingness to cross the blue line.

Last year, Trooper Spears filed a complaint and requested a criminal investigation of Sgt. Marcus Stokke of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. The complaint arose from a May 10, 2014 off-duty incident at Lake Fork wherein Sgt. Stoke detained Trooper Spears, with no apparent probable cause, because he thought Trooper Spears had been disrespectful to him at a public event.

The detention appears to have been a straightforward violation of Section 39.03 of the Texas Penal Code, but neither DPS nor TABC investigated the complaint against Sgt. Stokke. Instead, Trooper Spears's superiors filed a disciplinary complaint against him, apparently because he “rocked the boat” by requesting an investigation of an officer from another agency.

The suspension was ultimately lifted, in large part because Sgt. Stokke was unable to keep his story straight during his testimony, which was also directly refuted by a number of eyewitnesses, including other troopers and game wardens.

What should have been nothing but a cool story is now an all-too-familiar story with bad cops as the antagonists. Someone who refuses to play within the confines of a broken system must be dealt with, and a pure BS disciplinary action predicated on policies that don't exist illustrates perfectly why most cops just shut up and ignore the bad behavior of their colleagues.

Clevenger also notes another detail that's a bit chilling on its own -- if it's what it appears to be.

Billy was informed by his sergeant that DPS monitors social media for photographs of DPS personnel. The photo contains no reference to Billy or DPS, and even Billy did not know that it had been posted to Instagram, so this begs the question of whether DPS is trolling social media with its facial recognition software.

This detail came directly from those involved in the disciplinary action against Trooper Spears.

According to Sgt. Sparks, the disciplinary action was initiated by Asst. Director David Baker after Trooper Spears's photograph was detected during routine scanning of social media.

This is a legitimate concern. If the DPS is only monitoring known social media accounts of its employees for anything questionable, that would be one thing. (And still a misuse of its power.) But the only tie to this photo was Trooper Spears' presence, something not noted anywhere in the posting, which originated from an account about as far removed from any DPS employee as possible.

Clevenger notes the DPS has already put biometric data to use in its system, comparing millions of stored drivers license photos to those stored in criminal record databases. This would be in addition to its quiet rollout of a demand for a complete set of prints in exchange for a drivers license. If it is using its database in conjunction with "social media monitoring," it has far overstepped its bounds. It may be that certain vindictive parties performed this "scan" without authorization, which would limit the abuse to person or persons performing this search, but that still wouldn't explain why or how the DPS is able to use biometric data to scan social media postings. Clevenger is demanding answers from the DPS, but it's hardly likely he'll receive them.

That's the puzzling part. The other part -- the vindictive display of power -- isn't. It's so routine it's almost banal.

Filed Under: austin, billy spears, snoop dogg, sxsw, texas

Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

from the fo-shizzle-my-copyrizzle dept

One of the key things that you recognize as you look more closely at how intellectual property is used, the reality is often quite different than the "theory." The theory is that intellectual property is most important for those up and coming artists who need the "protection" to have the incentive to create and to build up support. The reality is often that the up and comers ignore copyright law because it makes little sense to them and often gets in the way of what they're trying to do. Those who rely on copyright as a crutch are often those who have already been successful, and are looking for ways to squeeze more out of their previous success (and to slow down upstarts and competitors). We recently talked about how up-and-coming jazz musicians were struggling because copyright law was getting in the way of their ability to build on the works of others -- as their jazz forefathers had done from the beginning of the jazz era forward.

And now it appears that some jazz greats, who relied on just the same ability to build on the works of others, are now using copyright law to try to stop other artists from building on their own works. Michael Henderson, a bandmate of Miles Davis, and an incredibly influential jazz musician is now suing Snoop Dogg for sampling.

The legal battles over sampling have gone on for years, with some really, really terrible rulings on the books (basically, look for any lawsuit involving Bridgeport). Notably, Henderson appears to have brought this lawsuit in the 6th Circuit, where the Bridgeport v. Dimension Films bizarrely declared that there was no "de minimis" defense to sampling music. It would be nice to see a court decision recognizing that sampling isn't illegal, but we're unlikely to see that any time soon...

Filed Under: copyright, michael henderson, sampling, snoop dogg

Sample Troll Sues (And Loses) Over Sample Of A Song It Claims Sampled Its Song

from the follow-that? dept

We've written a few times about Bridgeport Music, which has been called a "sample troll". The small company claims ownership of numerous copyrights on songs written by George Clinton -- about which George Clinton claims the main guy at Bridgeport forged Clinton's signature to obtain. Bridgeport is largely responsible for many of the lawsuits you hear about these days concerning "samples" being used in music, as it effectively convinced the Sixth Circuit Court that there was no fair use when it came to samples, and any sample requires royalty payments. However, in its latest lawsuit, it may have even overstepped those boundaries. William Patry points us to the details that show the lengths to which Bridgeport will go to try to squeeze money out of songs it may not even really own the rights to. The case involves a Snoop Dogg song that apparently used a sample of an old Clinton tune (something that Clinton encourages (video clip)). But, that's not the problem. The problem appears to be that two other musicians later sampled the Snoop Dogg tune (not the Clinton tune), and therefore Bridgeport is now claiming that Universal Music (who owns a small fraction of the rights associated with the Snoop Dogg tune) owes it money for licensing a song that had a sample that may or may not have been owned by Bridgeport. Luckily, the courts have tossed out the suit, noting that Bridgeport's evidence is incredibly weak.

Either way, just the fact that Bridgeport thinks it has a claim shows to what ridiculous lengths people are taking copyright laws these days. To recap: Bridgeport may or may not own the copyrights to some George Clinton songs (Clinton himself claims that Bridgeport does not own those rights and forged signatures to pretend it does). However, Bridgeport is suing Universal Music who owns a tiny fraction of the rights for a Snoop Dogg song which may or may not have sampled a tiny portion of a George Clinton song, and, in turn had a small section of the Snoop Dogg song sampled by two other musicians. The connection here between the two parties involved in the lawsuit is so distant that the idea that copyrights even play a remote part here is laughable. Unfortunately, though, that is the length to which companies will go these days thanks to our overly broad copyright laws.

Filed Under: samples, snoop dogg
Companies: bridgeport music, universal music