Arizona Judge Tells Sheriff "Reveal Password Or Face Contempt" 624
An anonymous reader writes "Four days ago, deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona conducted a raid against the county government building hosting computers for a law enforcement database. After threatening to arrest county employees who would stop them, the officers proceeded to secure the room and promptly changed passwords on many of the servers. In a hearing on Friday, a Superior Court judge threatened to hold members of the Sheriff's Office in contempt if they did not reveal the passwords by next Wednesday. Following this, the Sheriff's Office claimed to be conducting an investigation against other Superior Court judges. Courts have asked for passwords before, but never under conditions like this."
bad move (Score:5, Interesting)
The actions of the sheriff's office demonstrate quite clearly that they are not willing to abide by the law and therefore seem to have decided the case already against themselves.
Re:Summary doesn't make it clear... (Score:0, Interesting)
Actually, Joe Arpaio treats criminals the way they should be treated. That county has the lowest rate of repeat offenders. They know that his jail is hell and they definitely don't want to go back there.
Do they really need the password? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't they have an IT guy who can root those? Sounds like they have physical access, should be pretty easy.
How did they get control of the servers? (Score:5, Interesting)
But it also is a server and e-mail platform for several county agencies, including the Sheriff's and County Attorney's offices and the Superior Court.
That explains why the sheriffs department wanted them, they didn't want incriminating evidence coming out. But if we walk away from our servers, they're not going to be able to get into them. If they demanded admin passwords, I would have demanded a warrant. Arrest or not, that's a fight you can have later. If they arrested you for doing your job, then sue them later. Oddly, in this case you'd have the backing of the rest of the county board and the Superior Court. Seizing our computers wouldn't get them anything. I feel good about that but what happened in this case?
If they're Windows servers it shouldn't be too hard to crack them, right? I haven't used Windows servers since Server 2003, you could crack those. Is it much harder now? Especially when you have access to the hardware.
wow. (Score:1, Interesting)
I think i'm going to be physically ill.
I've never been so ashamed of my country, hell even my race as a whole.
I wish i wasn't agnostic, so i could rest assured these men had a VERY long and hot vacation waiting for them after death.
FWIW (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't even imagine why the Sheriff's office would want to seize the records relating to law enforcement within the state, but I'm sure he has a Very Good Reason.
Re:Summary doesn't make it clear... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that sentencing guidelines are rational though - drug dealers usually get heavier penalties than child rapists, at least in my area.
Well, then it clearly isn't about keeping them away from society, either. So what is it really about? Clearly, with the ever increasing numbers (and percentages of population), it isn't working in either case. I have no idea what could replace it, but something needs to be done.
On behalf of everyone else... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm wondering. What if there's incriminating evidence in those e-mail exchanges the Sheriff needs and wants to protect from tampering? It sounds a little like a Hollywood movie, but how do we know. Maybe he knew someone was going to remove that data and he needs it to expose corruption higher up.
I don't know anything about this Joe Arpaio, never heard of him, so it may be obvious this is not the case. But just exclaiming "Fuck you" didn't help me find out either.
HOW TO HANDLE THIS IN THE FUTURE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mods, please be responsible. (Score:2, Interesting)
It probably doesn't hurt that he's disenfranchised a significant portion of the population likely to have been directly wronged by his policies as well.
Re:FWIW (Score:1, Interesting)
The Police chief of Mesa, AZ publicly complained about Sheriff Joes immigration raids, The Sheriff ended up raiding Mesa City Hall! If I remember right it was about 30 armed masked deputies to arrest two or three suspected illegals working the overnight janitorial shift.
Hendershott, the guy who the judge is threatening to throw in jail, retired at full pay from the Sheriffs Dept and was rehired immediately by Sheriff joe. Now he gets double paid.
I could go on and on. The guy is a cancer.
I live in AZ and have been in his jails. I'm a convicted felon for possession of 1/2 oz of marijuana. Welcome to AZ. It's a travesty.
Re:Summary doesn't make it clear... (Score:4, Interesting)
According to his wikipedia page[1] it looks like he consistently gets reelected by double digit margins. It also looks like a group attempted to circulate a petition to have him recalled, and about 3/4ths of those that were asked refused to sign, with 65% expressing support for his behavior. At this point in a democracy, if you are really opposed to what is happening, your best option is to move.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio [wikipedia.org]
Re:Summary doesn't make it clear... (Score:3, Interesting)
Prison rape is there because of a lack of supervision. You can have the Panopticon concept, like Joliet in Illinois where no inmates are housed together and everyone is watched constantly 24 hours a day. But that is extremely expensive to build and operate. So expensive that the concept has been virtually abandoned.
So instead we house four or five inmates per cell and trust that nothing bad is going to happen. When bad things do happen inmates that report it are punished by fellow inmates. Because of the lack of supervision there is no stopping it.
So we can choose to spend 5 or 10 times as much on prisons or we can close our eyes to it. As we have pretty much disproven the idea of rehabilitation, it means that a lot of crimes result in life inprisonment - either through repeat offenses or through three-strikes laws. Either way, the criminals are going to end up in prison for most of their lives because you can't really rehabilitate them and make law-abiding citizens out of them. Increasing spending on prisons isn't going to help this, all it is going to do is divert more and more money towards maintaining a population that cannot coexist with the rest of society.
Arizona Fascism (Score:4, Interesting)
Joe arpaio has gang of sherrifs who go down into the barrio and round up any "mexican-looking" persons, detain them, and try to deport them. this is done simply by checking the color of their skin.
i have spent a nite in arpaio's jail (wrongfully arrested) and eating the substandard "ladmo" bags with green bologna.
i have seen lives crushed and destroyed. i have heard journalists who were kidnapped from their homes at 4 am by men driving a car with sonora license plates. This was because they uncovered joe's illegal real estate investments
arpaio is a murderer, a torturer, rascist, and a fascist. he should be in PRISON
Re:HOW TO HANDLE THIS IN THE FUTURE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On behalf of arizona... (Score:3, Interesting)
What results? The study 'Sheriff Joe' commissioned to show that his methods cut down on repeat offenders didn't show any such thing, and got buried deep.
Re:On behalf of arizona... (Score:4, Interesting)
What do all the lawsuits against Sheriff Joe for civil rights abuses, deaths while in custody, constitutional rights violations and the like have to do with illegal immigration? There's what, 1500-odd cases against him filed so far in Maricopa County courts at the moment?
Re:On behalf of arizona... (Score:2, Interesting)
Physician, heal thyself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyoLuTjguJA [youtube.com]
Hint: Gun control actually increases violent crime. When there are more guns in the hands of citizens violent crime decreases.
It's counter-intuitive I know, but there you have it. <shrug>
Re:Summary doesn't make it clear... (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, I don't think I advocated locking anyone in solitary confinement up for years, or even weeks.
Nor would I advocate using the current concept of solitary confinement which, as I've said elsewhere, is an attempt to harm people, not to remove them from the population.
The actual definition of 'solitary confinement', however, is simply 'prisoners don't get to interact with other prisoners'. It doesn't require them to have no human contact, it doesn't require them to have nothing to do. It simply requires them not speaking to people they've demonstrated they threaten. (Aka, other prisoners. The guard can live with threats.)
And it should not be used as punishment for general stuff. It should be used simply when a person has demonstrated they cannot interact with other prisoners without threatening them.
But I love how you're worried abut the psychological impact that solitary confinement might have on people, but don't seem to be worried about the hundreds of other people in prison who currently go through it in fear of their lives from that person, often joining racist gangs and committing violence because of that fear.
Re:On behalf of arizona... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is where the "well-regulated" part of the 2nd Amendment should come in: gun ownership should come with an obligation of training and practice (including both gun safety and marksmanship) on a regular, ongoing basis.
No it doesn't. It means that people would be allowed to bring guns into the building. Whether or not they're also allowed to subsequently get drunk is a separate question, one which your statement does not address. Now, I'm not saying you're wrong; it's just that your chain of logic is missing a link.
Personally, I think it's entirely reasonable for people to bring guns to bars (along with everywhere else -- after all, if you've got it with you and have to go somewhere it's not allowed, where are you supposed to put it?!), but that it should be very illegal to actually get intoxicated while they have them. It's analogous to how driving to a bar is fine, but DUI is not. Of course, the ideal solution would be for bars to go back to checking guns at the door, like they used to do a hundred years ago.
Re:On behalf of arizona... (Score:3, Interesting)
He was making an argument by analogy that since cops are (theoretically) always safe with their guns due to their training, that non-cops with the same training would be safe too.
I apologize: when I mentioned gun safety and marksmanship I intended them to be merely examples, not an exhaustive list. I would want citizen gun owners to complete all the relevant gun-related training that police receive, including (but not limited to!) remaining calm under pressure and defending their weapon from an attacker trying to take it away. Making the average gun owner subject to "a little more scrutiny" is exactly what I propose.
Besides, a broad definition of "gun safety" includes that stuff anyway!