Woman With Police-Monitoring Blog Arrested 847
Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"
publicly available, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's publicly available. But what she did sounds a lot like stalking to me, which unless I'm mistaken IS illegal.
Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
We have seen this many times in the past, and no doubt we will see it into the future.
The system is flawed, but the flaw is supposed to be secret because it is readily used by law enforcement and the like to violate the privacy of individuals. If it were public knowledge that we could access public records for such things, the laws might need to be changed and inadvertently protect the people from abuse by government and we just can't have that.
Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say: "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".
Funny how law enforcement always trots out that line, but goes ballistic when the people apply it to them instead.
Mart
Age old debate (Score:5, Insightful)
This just another case of rights vs responsibilites. I don't think she has done anything wrong per se but she has acted in an irresponsible manner. These police officers deal, on a day to day basis, with people that range from mostly harmless to exceedingly dangerous. Posting their movements, home addresses and other information all on one place, I would argue, diminishes their safety. The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it. I would imagine a large number of the people these police officers interact with couldn't be bothered to put in that effort themselves but if it's as easy as just going to a blog maybe they would do something.
In an ideal world the police would have been allowed to just go round to her and ask her to act more responsibly. Let her have her blog just make the infromation a little less specific and perhaps throw in some dummy data for good measure.
Intelligence Gathering (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the peculiar things about gathering intelligence on someone or a group is that most of the information you need is not secret. It's right there out in the open.
This is a classic example of what happens when someone gathers public data and then uses it. The Police are upset because they didn't take precautions and they never thought anyone would be so obsessive about their identities and behaviors. This is exactly the same reason that so many police are scared of trunk-tracking scanners. They would like to think their communications amongst their group is private.
If the police are truly interested in maintaining a deep cover, they should do it with full legal backing and not make any half assed efforts, hoping that nobody will bother to track them down.
My guess is that this woman will beat the charge and teach cops across the nation an important lesson: The public is watching.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
This is pure manure. It is in the public interest to know what the police are doing.
Sounds like she got what she asked for! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's one thing when people want to give away the last shreds of their own privacy by blogging and posting everything they do and everywhere they go on sites like Facebook and Twitter. However when you start screwing with other people's privacy - or worse yet with law enforcement who are trying to protect a community - you certainly deserve to be locked up. Our privacy is one of the fundamental rights this country is based on. We should be protecting that right, not screwing it up.
Re:Intelligence Gathering (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The purpose it serves is to express her freedom of speech. She needs no other reason, other people can held liable for their own actions.
Something you are forgetting is police officers serve the public and are on public payroll, thus their jobs are public information and so is what they do.
Now doctors on the other hand are not on public payroll (for the time being), especially abortion doctors who are private practice.
You are trying to compare a civil servant to a civilian. Nice try at fuzzing the line there.
Ironically enough your name is very fitting.
Public information - the cops use it too. (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny : not that long ago a judge allowed the putting of tracking-devices on a car without a warrant with as reasoning that such a tracking-device would not gather any more data than could be gotten by any member of the public by simply watching (and no doubt following) the car itself.
Now some member of the public is doing exactly that to the police, but suddenly it is something that should be disallowed ?
And before someone brings it up : Have those officers done anything to hide their identity while doing their (high-profile!) jobs (indicating their wish to remain secretive) ?
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure you wouldn't mind a bit if she followed your every move at work, at home, while spending time with your family...and then posting this information online.
Why is it OK when its a police officer?
Big Brother doesn't like it (Score:5, Insightful)
When the boot is on the other foot.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
So formally charge her and prove it in court, or release her.
Re:Sounds like she got what she asked for! (Score:4, Insightful)
Too much time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:4, Insightful)
It's certainly okay when it's, say, a Senator. Our legal system seems to think it's okay when it's Michael Jackson.
The police, as public servants who wield a great deal of power in a rather unique way (the sanctioned use of violence), probably fall somewhere in between senators and Joe Schmoe.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and NO. The flaw isn't a flaw, it is just ignored. You never really had privacy in the regards that they are talking about. However Since the information hasn't been obvious then people didn't notice it.
This woman took public information gathered it together. However because took public information and posted in a public place, about public officials, who are supposed to do work in discretion, she put their lives, and the their family lives in jeopardy. I can make a threatening statement to you over the internet and you won't care. However if I use your ID, to track you down using google, google maps, and started posting pictures of your home, your wife and kids, on my blog and then threatened you would you believe me then?
There is a lot of general knowledge public information out there about nearly everyone. This isn't a flaw, it is our society. In general it is a good thing. However what can be used for good can also be used for bad. Such information is why we know things like a governor selling positions. or cheating on his wife. Or getting a BJ in the Oval Office.
The "Flaw" as you put it is the original wikileaks. It is gossip, and general knowledge shared by many. it is what put societal pressure on people to do the right thing. However it doesn't always work.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Being inciteful is not a crime. We may not agree with neo-nazis, anti-abortionists, etc, but public information is public. Free speech is a right.
How many times have we at Slashdot had sympathy for similar situations involving piracy and hacking. Where legal and litigious means are employed to silence "inciteful" uses of technology.
While we don't know the real details of this individuals arrest, the likelihood is that she was targeted by the police for her blog posts. Charging someone for something trivial or finding something ancillary to justify the arrest is usually easy enough for law enforcement, even if the charge gets dropped, its a massive inconvenience and expensive on the accused.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite frankly, anyone who stalks Michael Jackson (before or after his demise) has enough issues already.
She's obviously a stalker (Score:4, Insightful)
Folks, whether you like her blog or not, and whether you think the cops are over reacting or not, one thing is for sure. If she's following officers and photographing them, that sure sounds like stalking to me. I bet each and every one of you who is voicing support for her would feel differently if someone were following you around with a camera.
Re:Intelligence Gathering (Score:1, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the cops know that she's going to have to hire a lawyer and have large out of pocket expenses to beat the charges.
That's generally how they punish people they don't like who aren't guilty of anything.
Re:Age old debate (Score:5, Insightful)
The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it.
I'm sorry, did you misunderstand what publicly available information means? You talk as if you're one of the people I deal with daily in local government. I am probably considered one of those "one-percenters", people who are doing their due diligence to request the information of government that is to be posted for the public to see but the government elects to make extremely difficult to retrieve. I spend hours every week trying to retrieve the information which local governments are hiding from public view (I don't bother with pictures of police officers because, well, that's not my thing) but constantly run into roadblocks because, while this information should just be posted for the public to read, city staff and councilmembers really don't want you to know what they're doing w/your money.
So for you, as a member of the general public, to say that it's completely ok to put up these roadblocks to protect the safety of officers, is exactly the reason that they use for everything else. This is something which you should be championing against and certainly not supporting. City governments need to realize that information must be free (god, where have we heard that before?) and they should preempt the public by posting it on their own sites instead of allowing third-parties become the central location for documents and information they really don't want disseminated.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still protected speech. The constitution doesn't say "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech... unless you're being a vindictive bitch."
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope.
Police are the government. They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job.
We have the absolute right to monitor and comment on how the government does its job. If such scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Insightful)
Because the fascist dickhead gets paid by us? (Maybe you didn't know that taxes, which come from the people, fund the police ?)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
Re:Sounds like she got what she asked for! (Score:2, Insightful)
No, you deserve to be locked up only if you broke the law.
If what she did isn't illegal, then she is actually doing a just thing to draw attention to an unjust law, or an unjust situation that arises because a law doesn't exist.
She should not be locked up, unless they can immediately identify exactly what crime she committed, and what laws she broke in so committing it.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
"Security through obscurity" is no security at all. The argument that "you never really had privacy" is simply a restatement of the problem. However, the way you state it, it implies that it's a problem, but one that we should all accept as normal and ignore.
I don't think it is fair to compare the exposure of information about the general public to the doings and goings on about public officials in a position of public trust. It has long been the expectation that there should be transparency in the affairs of government officials as a means by which public trust can be maintained. The standard should be different for private individuals which is precisely why we identify people as being either "public" or "private" individuals.
One of the flaws I speak of is that we DO have an expectation of privacy where in reality, that expectation is false as it has been pulled out from under us all. That expectation of privacy is built on our ideals as a society. If we are not in keeping with our ideals, then perhaps that should be corrected.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it OK when its a police officer?
The point is that it's NOT OK (which is what the GP was saying).
The police already have near-ubiquitous tracking of the plebs (license plates, cell phones, 'net access, crime/speed/toll/stoplight cameras, bank statements). All that information is being tracked all the time automatically (it's just a matter of filtering and storage which moore's law will fix)
It's just interesting to see the law enforcement reaction when the tables are turned.
So many of the police-state arguments that the purveyors of the same tactics don't like being at the receiving end of:
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear..."
"You don't have an inherent right to privacy..."
"There's no such thing as privacy in public areas..."
It seems when a private citizen tracks a small group of people it's "stalking", when large groups of government officials track the entire population it's just fine.
Re:Oi... 'free speech, free speech' isn't reality. (Score:5, Insightful)
End up with drug dealers on your street harassing your right to a safe community who will you call?
If you really want the drug dealers off the street, put them in stores.
Harassment is Harassment (Score:4, Insightful)
She posted the location of that officer's home with the full knowledge that it could endanger his life. Also, she "detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; [and] hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them."
She was a stalker, simply put.
Yes, her speech is protected, but when she's actively attempting to endanger the lives of those officers, it crosses the line. And you can't tell me that posting the home address, photo of that home, and personal details of an officer isn't a move that will obviously endanger the policeman's life, and the lives of his family. If this were done to anyone, it would be dangerous.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
They did. They charged her with "identifying a police officer with intent to harass" which is a fancy way of saying "stalking a police officer."
Or are you complaining that stalking a starlet or ex-girlfriend is not -precisely- the same crime as stalking a police officer?
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same in my book. And in this case, stalking an officer can actually hinder investigations and can create dangerous situations for all of those involved.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, actually I'm with the cops on this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
After doing some looking around, it strikes me that the woman is an obsessive stalker with a personal grudge against (and past inter-personal involvement) with a police force.
This doesn't have any of the hallmarks of the typical corrupt police arrest story. It looks rather like a badge groupie generated some kind of love/sex related drama and when things got too hot for the object/s of her passion, found herself on the wrong side of some story. When she started to make noise and become embarrassing, all of her various 'friends' on the force probably rejected her, taking the side of their co-worker because of the strong code of brotherhood among police. So now she's feeling personally jilted, bitter and enraged and is trying to take revenge on an entire police division. It sounds like she is serving a selfish personal agenda rather than striving toward any kind of high-minded socio-political goal.
But that's just my take on the situation. It may be totally unfair, but until I see some information to the contrary, that's the theory I'm going with. When it comes to these things, the tiresome reality in hand is very often the result of predictable sex and self-preservation based emotional responses.
-FL
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone who has a relative working as a state trooper - BULLSHIT. You sign up for the job KNOWING THE RISKS TO YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY. The moment you make an arrest and the media puts your face on TV, you've just made yourself a potential target. Hell the moment you piss off the wrong person you've just made yourself a target, media exposure or not.
Re:She's obviously a stalker (Score:3, Insightful)
True. But that's not why I support what she does.
I support it because we're continuously tracked every day -- you can bet that if the police wants, they'll get a complete record of where you've been, by tracking the usage of your credit card, monthly tube pass, video surveillance and so on.
I'd like less of that crap. And what better way to make that point than to make the watched watch the watchers and let them see for themselves what getting tracked feels like.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Insightful)
Most senators and Michael Jackson wouldn't pass the background check to be a cop, anyway.
There are senators who played football in college.
Re:She's obviously a stalker (Score:1, Insightful)
Except.. we are not civil servants. The public has a duty to watch the police. I would argue that while on duty as a police officer you have no reasonable expectation of privacy as you are being paid with MY money. I have a right to know how you are using it. That is the unspoken contract we have with all of our civil servants. The only exceptions to this would be when the secrecy is required to perform whatever job I am paying them for... and they should be taking appropriate measures in counter-intelligence to prevent a blogger from uncovering what they are doing.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:4, Insightful)
"She should be forcibly moved to a high-crime area and forced to fend for herself."
Ah, how ignorant you are of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. You WERE born yesterday, I can tell.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem here is what exactly? That she stalked them? I think it does not matter if they are cops. Stalking people is just not right. In fact, imagine she was a government agent stalking some privacy group. You would have called it an outrage too, but called her bad, not them.
And outing someone who is the inside man on such a drug group actually puts his life in danger. Not cool.
All in all, there is no dichotomy here. Surveillance and stalking both are the same wrong thing. Not the cops, not an agent, and not a private person, should be able to do it, and not be punished. (Ok, I have a different view on punishment and right/wrong, because I think there is no such thing as guilt. It's all causality. And right/wrong is always relative. Which leaves only one acceptable form of punishment: Separating the groups that disagree about this point. Which nowadays means jail, but should also mean separated but just as free communities, like in different countries.)
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:She's obviously a stalker (Score:2, Insightful)
by definition, you cannot stalk PUBLIC OFFICIALS.
their job definition is to BE in the public eye.
there is no protection, legally, to keep cops hidden. they are SUPPOSED to be in plain sight and easily identifiable as officers of the public interest. the only time is when they are undercover; but this isn't the issue, here.
all this is, is a case of the watchers and priviledged class NOT liking a taste of the SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY that we have become.
they don't like it? hell, WE, the citizens, don't like big brother. but they HAVE to put up with this, its their job. they are not the secret police even though they often act that way.
cops can ruin your lives. easily. even if you have not committed a crime. cops NEED to have transparency or we won't trust them (oops, too late for that one, I think).
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
INALB, I looked over her site, she wasn't harrassing the officers through the web pages... I don't know what she did on the phone or in person, as it mentions various contacts she's had trying to find information, etc... But the website it self is not harrassing.
Again, typical INAL tag applies, I wish her luck if she is truly innocent because the police are really going too far here.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh so you're a big fan of slavery then, are ya? As long as they work for you, their lives are yours to do with as you please. If only those damn northern states hadn't messed things up for you ....
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't get it, do you?
Apart from the fact that police officers are public officials, and thus have a lesser expectation of privacy, it is entirely my point that neither side should willy-nilly invade someone's privacy. Yet law enforcement clamours for nothing but far-reaching invasive powers, while not granting the people one iota of transparency. That's rank hypocrisy.
Mart
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
And so do I. Doesn't stop the fascist dickheads to claim the power to track my every move. Don't like it? Stop playing Gestapo on your citizens.
Mart
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:5, Insightful)
While the woman from TFA may not have exclusively done off-duty stalking, how is digging up and posting where an officer lives (complete with pictures and map coordinates) anything more than off-duty stalking of said officer?
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
I've had a word with your boss, and he's very pleased to hear that you feel this way. He's assured me that you will immediately be placed under 24/7 surveillance, with all your private details posted to a blog. After all, your direct supervisor, the CEO of the company, and all of the shareholders all need to monitor your every move in order to make sure you're doing your job. That's a perfectly normal proposition, right?
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Insightful)
I totally agree.
The police are doing a job, which is required by law. The are the investigative and enforcement branch of the legal system.
I have been known to dig up personal information on people using publicly available information. When I do it, it's usually either to find someone (say, a family member or friend) that has been out of contact for a while. Many times, when I dig for information, it's requested by the person who I'm digging the information up on, because they're curious to what I can find. It's usually a friend, so I already have a good basis to start with. That doesn't get published, and that's a long stretch from digging for information on an entire group of individuals, and then potentially putting them in harms way.
Someone else used the example of abortion clinic doctors, and it's terrible result.
She wasn't just doing a bit of research. She was stalking. I think it's sad that stalking laws needed to be created, but it's good that they are on the books now.
If someone made a profile on me, my movements, and other assorted data. Say even a small segment of the population wanted to cause me harm (which I don't believe there is), then it could be hazardous to me and my health.
In her case, what if I happened to be friends with one of the officers, and had been spotted going in and out of the police station, which put me on her list? I could be a target for some twisted revenge situation, simply for being in the wrong places at the right times. When I was in high school, I had a friend who worked in local law enforcement in a minor capacity. I did show up at the police station occasionally. That could have potentially put me on her list as an undercover officer, and my family and myself could be at risk of retaliation by any segment of the population who may have a grudge against law enforcement.
Reading the article, it says that she was charged with only a single charge of harassment. They were being nice. They didn't throw the book at her. I'm sure she could have been hit with a whole stack of charges. That was just a friendly warning, "Stop it.", which I'm sure was not the first warning she got. Hopefully she'll oblige, and start behaving like a normal person again.
And people wonder why I use an alias exclusively on the Internet. :) Because there are enough nutjobs out there, that when they begin searching for information on me they'll find a little truth and a lot of disinformation, intentionally put out there. Law enforcement (local through federal) have enough information to find me at any time, so it's not that I'm running from them. I'm just avoiding the nutjobs with a blog. :)
I will admit, there are some less than friendly people working in law enforcement. There are some amazingly great people working there too. I once lived next door to an officer like that. If she had made friends, rather than enemies, with those officers, she would have likely been way more comfortable with her life.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, it can just as easily expose corruption and blatant abuses of power, as has been demonstrated over and over again in the past.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:4, Insightful)
She was tracking police officers while they were on duty. These things should be a matter of public record. It's just that a private citizen is also gathering the data and disseminating it, without a police officer being able to sanitize the information or wait on a FOIA request for two weeks.
The activities of a uniformed police officer are not that sensitive. If they were, the officer would not be uniformed. Well, there are potential nefarious uses for realtime police tracking, but twelve hours after the fact, it's hard to use the information.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't work for us, they work for the city that employed them. We may pay their salaries through taxes but we have absolutely no control over them, we cannot direct their investigations, we cannot dictate their patrol routs, we do not approve or disprove their hiring, raises, performance reviews, benefits package, vacations time or anything of the sort. Their work does have the public interest in mind but that doesn't mean they work for us. You certainly wouldn't think walmart employees work for you just because your puchases pay a portion of their salaries would you.
The city doesn't even work for you. They work for the city. The only control you have is your vote on a few elected officials who you hope will have your interest in mind when making decisions. However, there is nothing forcing them to hold your interest or even protect them.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've Been Following This (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:5, Insightful)
Off duty police officers also retain protections against their own violations of law and lawsuits to which an ordinary citizen doesn't.
If the playing field was level, I would understand but they are not the same. And yes, if an off duty fireman runs into a building that's on fire to save someone just like anyone else can do, they still retain their protections against lawsuits and personal liability and so on which ordinary people do not have. Well, at least in states without a "Good Samaritan" law.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
The police, as public servants
That's all you need to say. They work for us. Period.
No it isn't. "They work for us" is never an excuse to jeopardize the safety of anybody.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
"Security through obscurity" is no security at all.
Nice aphorism. Pity its such nonsense - especially when used in a context other than cryptography (where it almost makes sense).
"Security through obscurity" may be weak security, but it has an effect. If you leave my front door key hidden behind a loose brick, then its more secure than leaving it under a flower pot, which is in turn more secure than leaving it in plain view. Neither is a particularly good idea, but if you must leave a key for some reason then the more obscure the better.
Now, what if some joker posts on a popular internet site "Mr X leaves his key behind a loose brick by the front door of 29 West Wallaby Street. He leaves for work at 8am and doesn't come back until 6pm. There's a new looking satellite dish, so he might have a decent TV, and I saw him going into a posh jewelers the other week so I think he's loaded"? Now, Mr X was running a risk, since anybody could have found that out if they were determined, but bundling it up in a red ribbon and making it public hugely increases his exposure.
Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from responsibility.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:2, Insightful)
We are not their employer. Stop with that nonsense. They are employees of the city, state, or government and in some cases private companies contracted by those. You have no responsibilities over them as an employer would have, they have no responsibilities to you either. Their responsibilities are to the entity that employs them (*city) and the laws.
Yes, they do tax you, they do take this tax money to pay for the police equipment, salaries, buildings and so on. That doesn't make you their employer.
Now, we so have a right to monitor them because it is monitoring where public monies are being spent and a direct action of government. In my city, there is a law that says the law enforcement and public employees have to live within their own jurisdiction. So knowing where a cop lives might be of a public interest. All that makes it a matter of public interest and should make it news worthy to a degree well above tabloid journalism and their tracking of hollywood stars and such. While I wouldn't want someone doing that to me, I wouldn't want someone locked up for doing it if I have a public job either.
BTW, public servant is not someone who serves the public. It's a distinction between the private and public sectors of jobs that are often duplicated because of government service. A public servant is nothing more then a person working in the public service which has no default obligation to the people.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:3, Insightful)
This is pretty much settled law. She published public information. So what?
That it was about a public official makes her actions more reasonable, not less. She didn't incite anyone to go kill the guy.
Compare that to, say, people publishing abortion doctors' info on "wanted dead or alive" type sites, and it seems reasonably clear she is covered by the 1st amendment.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
There never will be a "good" one, because rational people in full possession of their faculties will know the cops will get them for doing so regardless of the law.
Miranda was a scumbag, but the Miranda warning is still a good thing.
Re:I've Been Following This (Score:3, Insightful)
She's not acting in the manner of a journalist, by which I mean that there is no goal to her coverage, no public interest being served, no story being pieced together. She's simply taking private information about private individuals who happen to work for the local government (albeit in a very private capacity) and making it public.
First, I don't think you're in any position to judge whether or not she's acting in the capacity of journalist or if the free speech she is exercising is worthwhile. The whole point of free speech is that no one gets to judge what is and is not worthwhile. The only criteria is if the speech is infringing upon someone else's human rights as protected under the law. Second, isn't all the information she gathered public information. She just followed people around in public and gathered together public records that a lot of people don't know are public.
The question here is simply, I think, whether stalking laws are meant to cover people who are public employees. If a racist who advocates violent rebellion against black Americans starts following the a black secretary who works in the county office building, documenting her every move publicly, can the police intervene?
That partly depends upon if said stalker is judged by the courts to constitute a threat against the secretary. For example, if the stalker was a quadriplegic being driven around by a taxi driver there is no demonstrable threat in just following them. But there's a lot of ambiguity here. We still don't know if she was arrested for stalking or for posting information on a blog. Those are very different things. When an investigative news agency follows around the local sheriff and reports that he spends all day at home playing video games instead of working, under the same laws can they be arrested for "stalking" him? This is important because the law must treat this woman and the reporter the same way. As public figures with unusual authority, police should have less protection against this sort of intrusion, rather than more. But then, equating a secretary at a courthouse and police officer in this instance is slightly disingenuous as they have different levels of authority and pose different levels of risk to the people from abuse of that authority. Further your selection of a position of secretary and pronouns indicating it is a woman while the stalker is a man seems like something of an emotional, fear based appeal.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
They made choices on their own to do the work they do. No one forced them, no one lied to them, no one held a gun to their heads. They are not special in any way above and beyond the normal citizen. They need no special treatment that oridinary citizens require.
I too am around guns and bullets every day. My life is pretty dangerous at times. The only protection I get is the laws that might be violated and my ability to defend myself. Cops deserve no more protections then ordinary people, they are not royalty even though they act like it. As long as they retain their status and ability to do more then regular people when no on duty, they are effectivly on duty as far as I'm concerned.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice aphorism. Pity its such nonsense
Indeed. People that through that aphorism around tend to forget that the security mechanisms we commonly use are actually security through obscurity. I use a key to unlock my front door. There is nothing special about that piece of metal. Any hardware store can reproduce it for a couple of bucks. You just need to know the height of the ridges. By keeping that information obscure, I gain some security (though not very much). Passwords are security through obscurity. Encryption is security through obscurity because you keep the key secret. Anything that depends on a secret depends on obscurity.
For most common cases, this works very well in practice. Most people don't have their houses broken into or cars stolen. Most house burglaries occur with unlocked doors in outdoor sheds and garages (where high dollar tools and golf clubs are kept).
For high value targets (bank vaults, museums, military installations, etc), obscurity is not enough and you need surveillance and guys with guns. But those are relatively rare while there are many more times where we just need to raise the security bar enough to make it not worth someone's time to bother.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't arrest her when she followed the cops around on the job. They arrested her when she started posting address and pictures of an officer's home and family.
I think the most telling thing in this case is that she hasn't posted the $750 bail bond to get out of jail. That means that either she wants to stay in jail or everybody she knows hates her so much that no one will help her scrape together a measly $750.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:2, Insightful)
That's exactly right. The jack-boot thugs, which is what these folks are, need to be arrested for harrassing a woman excersizing First Amendment rights.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Bullshit, it can just as easily expose corruption and blatant abuses of power, as has been demonstrated over and over again in the past.
This is not insightful.
Please explain exactly how having a police officer's home address with geo-coordinates and pictures will "expose corruption and blatant abuses of power".
Exactly what abuses and corruption has she exposed?
Thanks.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you draw no distinction between an officer suspected of taking bribes, and thus being stalked in an official sort of way, and a woman who's clearly a slightly-off groupie-type with an obsession stalking them for her own personal reasons? How do we know that you aren't involved in bribing officials? I think that someone should be assigned to putting your picture, home address, and general ramblings about you and your daily activities up on a blog, with headlines like, "Possibly Involved In Bribery?" I mean, as long as we're not drawing any lines.
Re:publicly available, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people work at the minimum wage or effectively less than that--think wait staff at restaurants. $750 may be "measly" to you, but to somebody who just barely makes rent and food on a low income, it's an amount of money they may never have had all at once.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL, but I thought stalking was grounds for issuing a restraining order--not arrest until some other law was broken.
More to the point--as public employees, granted power and trust, their particular duties justify a lesser degree of privacy than is common in other professions. If they want to make posting public information "illegal"--I'm actually fine with that--as long as they make ...making it public at the origin illegal to. Take back all those tax/drivers/property/court records, and make sure they're only accessible with a warrant. No more electronic searches.
As it is, this lady just compiled public information as defined by long held court precedent. As far as I can tell, the department ought to have a few charges for unlawful arrest coming--but nobody will touch it when a ten foot poll unless there's public outcry first. Even then--how much do you want to be whoever orders it never gets worse than a disciplinary leave of one week without pay.
Re:Um, actually I'm with the cops on this one. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, she seems pretty nuts. She's a white supremacist who wants everybody non-white kicked out of the country, or at least the state so the state can secede and form a proper White Nation. Reading earlier posts, it seems to me that her rage stems from the fact that JADE has been increasingly focused on taking down the "mid to upper drug dealers," she regularly flips out at this wording, saying "who decides what's an upper and what's a lower drug dealer? You? Is there a rule? Cite it for me!!!!" and such (paraphrase, not a quote to a specific time). It seems to me she's upset that the upper tier drug dealers are rich white guys, and that JADE is focusing on taking them down, not the small fry downtown drug dealers. She's upset that they're focusing more on cocaine and less on crack and weed, and on taking down ringleaders instead of small scale dealers, and taking down users for possession. She frequently posts their reports, calling them liars, saying that just showing how much cocaine they seized, and that its decreasing, doesn't show they're doing a good job, it shows they're less and less effective. "Where's the numbers on how much is left in the city?" etc. So my interpretation is not that she's a vindictive ex-lover, but that she's a racist, and mad that they seem to be leaving the "black" dealers alone now, and going after the white guys instead!
The whole "lover" and "relationship" business she has going on appears to be because, they eventually contacted her and asked her to stop following them around when they go on raids. She flipped at that, because the letter they sent here was signed with the department name, not by a specific officer. This offended her sensibilities, because it gave her nobody to stalk and harass. She eventually found out who was in charge of the investigation into her blog, and decided that pretending to be an obsessed lover would not only make him uncomfortable, but also (she hoped) make it a conflict of interest, forcing him off the case, so she could repeat it on the new guy until they give up. She explicitly states this as her goal. She would phone his cell, his office, his pager, talk to him as much as she could, that way they have "a relationship" according to a definition from a dictionary, and since you can't investigate somebody you're "in a relationship with", off the case! She fumed about how this didn't work, how the cops don't follow their own laws! When he finally did get put on something more important, she mused at her relief that she didn't have to pretend to be obsessed with him anymore.
In summary, she's nuts. Monitoring the arrests that police are making is a good thing, it keeps them honest. And they didn't arrest her for that. Stalking cops and posting where they go to the gym doesn't keep them honest. All it does is put them in danger. Sure, an angry drug dealer could have done the same thing, if he wanted. And they didn't even arrest her for that, though they yelled at her. And it certainly doesn't keep them honest to stalk them to picnics, and to force events, and inter-force competitions, and talk to their daughters. And then post snarky shit about their daughters, who said "That man is my daddy" "Oh yeah sweetheart, the musclebound big brother thug?" But then for one officer, she posted his name, address, photograph, and a photograph of his home. When she did that, they told her to pull them down, and cited the criminal code she's now been charged with. She said her intent isn't to harass, but to profess her love of the police force, on duty and off! They apparently did not buy it, and when she didn't back down, followed through on their promise to arrest her for the law she clearly violated. I mean really, she calls it "I hearte jade" but only colors in the "HATE" in "hearte", and then says "No it's a fan page, I love the cops, I don't hate them and want them gone, honestly!!!! I LUV U GUYS SO HARD!" Her intent is clear.
Many posters have said your intent doesn't matter, that free speech is immutable.
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:5, Insightful)
You're defining "secure" as if it is an all-or-nothing term, but to my mind security is all about probabilities: if I use this weak password instead of this strong one, what is the probability my account will be hacked in the next year? As a bicyclist, I think about this all the time when I lock up my bike: it's certainly possible for someone to cut through my bike lock and steal my bike, but the odds of a thief coming along with the appropriate equipment are much smaller than the odds of a thief coming along who can pick an unlocked bike off the rack. Thus my lock improves my bicycle's security.
Nothing is completely secure-- even strong passwords might be defeated through sheer luck or coercion-- so it's always about playing the odds; hiding the key behind the loose brick does reduce the odds of a break-in, and therefore does increase security.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure a police car parked in the driveway isn't obvious either.
Re:Sorry, lady. Incitement to violence is a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Because COPS ARE PUBLIC FUCKING SERVANTS. Therefore, ANYTHING THEY DO IS OF INTEREST TO THE PUBLIC.
That isn't even close to a logical argument. Public oversight of what an official body is doing on behalf of the people it represents is one thing. Individual details about every individual action of every individual agent working in any capacity within any official body is... well, another thing.
I don't think you'd like the world if everyone who worked for the government was required to live their entire lives completely open to public scrutiny. For one thing, the government would rapidly collapse because hardly anyone would tolerate those conditions. Then again, somehow I get the feeling you'd consider the government collapsing to be a good thing, because they're all evil and out to get us. Am I right?
Re:Expose a problem and go to jail (Score:3, Insightful)
Trying to map the "Security through obscurity..." truism to this context ignores the original meaning, and gets silly pretty quickly.
Real-life security is simply the probability of not being the victim of a successful attack.
In cryptography, the "Security through obscurity is no security" applies to the specific case of making the security system *opaque* - hiding design and implementation of the lock has limited benefits against a determined attacker, shrinking rapidly to zero as more information and computation capacity is available. It assumes security is a binary concept instead of a probabilistic one because *in this specific context* it's a good approximation.
That's completely besides the point here, as in many real-life situations - this is not about the lock design, or the key, or leaving the door unlocked in the first place. It's not about whether the house is "Secure" by some academic definition against an hypothetical Oscar or Mallory determined to attack Mr.X's security. Here there's only Mr.X and the other millions of people with access to the Inter-webs who didn't know he existed in the first place.
The problem is about how Mr.X *becomes a target* in the first place - whether he's a cop or a typical private citizen. Compiling freely available information does more than caching computation - it *singles-out* Mr.X and makes him a visible target, indexed by search-able criteria, more easily accessible to people who wouldn't have bothered to look for Mr.X before.
That may not change the total security profile of the raw data - but it absolutely makes Mr.X *specifically* more exposed. Being a top-10 Google result for "cop off-duty personal address" is simply *not* the same thing as having your info available in principle, across several databases, as an extra record among thousands or millions of entries.
You can't just yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater to make an argument about fire safety codes, and then claim no responsibility because you didn't make the building, and 'someone else could do the same anyway'.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the police are public servants. While at work or doing work-related things they're public employees and their actions are not guaranteed the same privacy a "normal" citizen is.
Watching his house is a bit iffy, but if the picture and information were publicly available then publishing that information shout not have any penalty. Note - they didn't arrest her for stalking.
It's amazing how the police fight to their dying breath to hide what they do on a regular basis. Not only undercover, but try following a cop car or beat cop around with a camcorder. I bet it doesn't take more than a few minutes before you're questioned and told to stop...and when you don't listen I'd give about even odds you're arrested, detained, or have some other right violated.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoah, Whoah, WHoah, Slow down a little bit here.
This has nothing to do with 1st Amendment rights or equal opportunity for surveillance. I would be the first person to support that position. This is an instance in which I agree with the cops.
US Citizens don't have the right to go on military bases, and top secret facilities and publish pictures and information about what they see and the personnel. There is an agreement, or general consensus, that it is in our best interests for our government to operate with some privacy at times.
Should CNN be right on the spot with our special forces giving away their position to the enemy? I don't think so, and that's a reasonable position to take. I did not support the war in Iraq, but that does not mean I would want to put our soldiers at risk either.
She was not just writing a blog about police activities. She was putting DEA agents at risk by disclosing their operations and locations. That went too far. Put together a citizen's advisory board, whatever. I support some oversight. Not letting every criminal know exactly where the DEA agents live.
Is there some inequity in citizens protecting private information of DEA agents? Oh yeah, plenty. Government does not seem to be much interested in protecting our information and privacy. However, tin foil hattery aside, are most us really at risk of a bunch of men with assault weapons coming to kill us because we interfered with their business models? No. DEA agents are really at risk and ostensibly we should protect them, as it is in the best interests of society. Please note, I am absolutely against the War on Drugs, so I would want to protect undercover cops, not drug enforcement specifically.
I know you want to protect us against overzealous government, I do too. However, this is one of those rare, rare, instances in which the police really do have a point here.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument is that if you are in a public space, you have no right to privacy. Either this is true or false. Of course, I would prefer it to be false. If it is true, it is just as true for the FBI, DEA, or the local police as it is for me. There is nothing illegal about gathering public information and publishing it, and there should not be. Unless the woman was actually making threats towards the police or encouraging others to break the law, the cops owe her an apology at *least*.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:4, Insightful)
US Citizens don't have the right to go on military bases, and top secret facilities and publish pictures and information about what they see and the personnel.
That I agree with, but, the blogger wasn't going onto secret military facilities or compromising classified information. She was following public officials around as they executed their duties. As the article notes, she was not charged with obstruction of justice or interference with an officer of the law. This implies that the police department did not have enough evidence to charge her under those laws. The fact that they had to rely on such a broadly worded statute to make their case highlights the weakness of their position.
She was not just writing a blog about police activities. She was putting DEA agents at risk by disclosing their operations and locations.
Again, if there was any evidence of that, the police department would have charged with obstruction of justice, not "identifying a police officer with intent to harass".
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:2, Insightful)
Listening to some police departments and their cities, police are never off duty. They can carry guns in places the average citizen cannot, all while in plain clothes and not being paid.
Cops have gotten second jobs as security guards and are still treated like cops when they make arrests, are assaulted, etc.
The whole off-duty/on-duty distinction seems to exist only when it benefits the police.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Insightful)
US Citizens don't have the right to go on military bases, and top secret facilities
She didn't do any of these. Records she got were publicly available and she took photos in public.
I would want to protect undercover cops
If she could expose undercover cops then their covers were bad. That's their fault not hers. Oh, I get it, she has a spy pointing out to her the undercover cops. Arrest the spy then.
Falcon
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the information, including the picture she posted, was public record. It is perfectly legal to follow anybody you want around anywhere you want, so long as it is in public. Ever heard of the Paparrazi? Celebs can't even get restraining orders to stick on those people, why the hell should Police be able to restrict a reporter?
While I would certainly call it a dirtback move, it's definitely not illegal.
Stalking is also not illegal, though you do have the right to request a restraining order on a stalker under certain circumstances. I.e. you can show they intend you physical harm, or are tresspassing on your property, etc. Otherwise the judge generally tells you to stuff it, since they aren't breaking any laws you have no right to impose your will upon them.
Same thing here, even if there WERE a restraining order against her, I doubt anything she was doing would have violated it. She was following them around and researching public records. That is 100% legal. She should not have been arrested unless she was threatening them, or they have reason to believe she was doing this on behalf of someone who intended them physical harm.
Look at what they charged her with, it's pretty frickin flimsy.
This is probably going to backfire on the PD if they push it too far, as it looks very much like harassment and restriction of the journalist's freedom of the press and freedom of speech rights.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:5, Insightful)
I have quite a list of things I don't like or wouldn't want to see happen, but I don't want to see any of them made illegal.
In fact I see quite a few groups across the USA trying to outlaw some activity or other that they don't like. I disagree with those folks because I don't think that something should be illegal just because I don't like it.
Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:irony (Score:3, Insightful)
On the contrary. I think government should be entirely open to public scrutiny, with few very exceptions (and with independent oversight even then).
However, I distinguish between government as a collective entity and the individual people who work for the government. The former is a huge, impersonal system that wields power over its citizens because of the vast resources at its disposal. The latter are, in most cases, just doing a job as they would for any other employer, they have little individual power or discretion to apply those vast resources, and I don't see why they should be any less entitled to legal protection of their rights (including privacy) than anyone else.
The problems usually arise when the system as a whole lack effective checks and balances, either by automating something without taking all relevant factors into account, or by giving an individual or small group disproportionate ability to use the resources of government such that they really are in a position to trouble an individual citizen without justification.
If a police officer walking the beat, who doesn't like you because you're black, can arbitrarily detain you without reasonable cause, then that is disproportionate. If some trumped up council worker can order covert surveillance to find out whether you put your bin out ten minutes early, that is disproportionate. If a senior police officer can order the mass detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters, then that is disproportionate. If a senior government minister or head of state wields dictatorial powers, then of course that is disproportionate. So the principle of requiring checks and balances applies at all levels.
But as far as I can see, in the case in question, the police officers affected had done nothing to harm this woman. There hadn't been any terrible abuse of individual authority, or any unjustifiable intrusion into her life. So why should those officers be subject to an obviously dangerous invasion of their and potentially their families' privacy just because this woman doesn't like the police? If they had staked out her house, and put up advertising all over the Internet inviting violent criminals to break in and shoot her and anyone else with her, people would be up in arms!
I'm not advocating hiding government. I'm just applying the same standards to individual government employees that I would apply to any other citizen.
Re:They wouldn't have arrested her (Score:4, Insightful)
Would I be comfortable with it? No. Would I prefer it never happen? Yes. Do I believe it should be illegal? No.
I have quite a list of things I don't like or wouldn't want to see happen, but I don't want to see any of them made illegal.
In fact I see quite a few groups across the USA trying to outlaw some activity or other that they don't like. I disagree with those folks because I don't think that something should be illegal just because I don't like it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you an example of what it means to be 'an American'. 'Land of the free,' has been desirable since our inception.
In short: This. Very this.