Judge Won't Lower $5M Bail For Jailed SF IT Admin 429
snydeq writes "San Francisco County Judge Charles Haines has denied Terry Childs' motion to reduce his $5 million bail, alluding to 'public security concerns,' according to Richard Shikman, who is representing Childs in court. The ruling comes in the wake of a recent decision to drop three of the four changes that have been levied against Childs, who has spent the past 14 months in jail. The fourth charge — that Childs violated a California statute regarding illegal denial of service for the San Francisco FiberWAN — has been called into question by those closely monitoring the case. As a point of comparison, the San Francisco Felony Bail Schedule lists a $1 million bail for the most serious crimes, such as sexual assault of a child, aggravated arson, or kidnapping for ransom. Prosecutors have argued that the bail is appropriate because, if released, Childs could cause damage to San Francisco's network."
Re:Judge doesn't quite understand (Score:5, Informative)
There's also a constitutional right protecting us from excessive bail, but it doesn't look like the judge cares about that either, and even if bail was appealed, it would be held up on appeal.
14 Months? (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't this guy have a sixth amendment right to a speedy trial?
Besides (and Google may have led me the wrong CA statute) but it look like the penalty for the remaining charge could be as little as a $5,000 fine. It also seems to have an out:
"Subdivision (c) does not apply to punish any acts which are committed by a person within the scope of his or her lawful employment. For purposes of this section, a person acts within the scope of his or her employment when he or she performs acts which are reasonably necessary to the performance of his or her work assignment."
Re:Witchcraft (Score:5, Informative)
Something is Rotten in the State of SF (Score:3, Informative)
a bit of context on the 5m bail (Score:4, Informative)
The pervert/sickos they just caught in SF had their bail set at $500,000 each
for imprisoning and raping kids for 20 years
10% of what this admins bail is set at
good to see the USA court has its priorities set
raping kids is only 10% of the risk to society than this guy?
Re:Maybe I don't remember Civic's very well.... (Score:4, Informative)
You badly misremember your HS civics, or were badly misinformed in that class, then. Bail has historically been discretionary, and dangerousness has almost always been a consideration. It was briefly, in non-capital federal cases, restricted to a guarantee of appearance under the Bail Reform Act of 1966, but considerations of dangerousness for non-capital defendants were restored in the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970 and, more broadly, in the 1984 revisions to federal bail law.
Re:Only if... (Score:2, Informative)
If you're up-to-date on the case, you should remember he turned off password recovery. The only way to reset the password is erase the configuration (NVRAM) and there are no (known) archived backups. He was the only one with the knowledge to rebuild a config from memory. He did this on purpose to stop people in the field from altering the configuration (passwords, routes, anything)
If someone erased the config on any of my gear, I'd be pissed. And I keep backups.
Re:take that SF (Score:2, Informative)
Bail is not supposed to keep them from doing more harm. Bail is meant to make certain the defendant appears for court. Every person released before trial can commit another crime, but yet they should be released. Why? Because "may commit a crime" isn't reason enough to detain someone.
Re:Disagreement (Score:3, Informative)
It's been a while, so you probably don't remember what led to this situation.
Here's how I remember it: Terry's superiors asked for the passwords. He refused, because in his estimation handing them over would have been a breach of security (which is true - you don't give the PHB root access, because he doesn't need it and will probably abuse it). They fired him, jailed him on some trumped-up charges (as we can infer from 75% of the charges against him being thrown out), and asked again. He refused, but since he was now fired and in jail he offered to hand the passwords over to the mayor of San Fransisco, presumably because this way someone outside of his chain of command would know what was going on.
It wasn't even a matter of losing control over his "creation" - it was all about his PHBs wanting more power than they should have, and him rightfully refusing to give it to them.
Re:No Sympathy for Childs... (Score:3, Informative)
Since when is behaving like a raging asshole a crime?
Office politics can get you fired. They can't get you locked up.
The DA's Gonna Regret This... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Only if... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No confidence (Score:5, Informative)
There were no "actual owners" for Childs to divulge the passwords to! In fact, Childs was both fired and arrested because he insisted on following the documented password policy even though unqualified-but-politically-powerful assholes demanded that he break it. Agreeing to give the passwords to the mayor, a compromise he made while already in jail, was actually the only thing he did wrong (because, according to the policy, the mayor wasn't entitled to be given the passwords either)!
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Which requires them to know what all of the equipment is, and potentially all of the software installed in all of it. Information for which Childs was supposed to be the source.
I'm not saying that the $5 million bail is right, but it's not at all inconceivable that Childs could cause damage to that network if he chose to do so.
Childs should not be the "source" of knowledge on their equipment. Their internal inventory and documentation policies are the source for that information. Childs designed and maintained the network, he did document it, even going so far as to Copyright the network design. Childs even followed policy when he refused to disclose his password to members of the San Francisco Police Department, representatives from HR, and an unknown group of people on the phone.
San Francisco government policy, from http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf [sfgov.org]
"Password Policy"
As such, all County employees (including contractors, vendors, and temporary staff with access to County systems) are responsible for taking the appropriate steps, as outlined below, to select and secure their passwords.
All system-level passwords (e.g., root, enable, NT admin, application administration accounts, etc.) must be changed on at least a monthly basis"
"Do not share County passwords with anyone, including administrative assistants or secretaries.
All passwords are to be treated as sensitive, confidential County information.
Here is a list of things to avoid
-Telling your boss your password.
-Talking about a password in front of others.
-Telling your co-workers your password while on vacation."
This is a corrupt government using its influence over the DA and judicial appointees to persecute Mr. Childs. After this last charge is throw out, Mr. Childs will undoubtedly counter-sue in a different jurisdiction to stay clear of the corruption in the SF government.
Re:take that SF (Score:1, Informative)
Just because he works in IT doesn't mean he was well paid, and it certainly doesn't mean he was rich. It's not like the guy was a Google co-founder or something, he was a civil servant for a medium sized city. I doubt he made more than $80k a year (not as much as it sounds in San Francisco).
$149,269 in 2007 according to public documents.
source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/14/BAOS11P1M5.DTL [sfgate.com]
Re:Yes. (Score:1, Informative)
Really, from how this case has been covered, sounds like the average adult could bring the entire network down by yelling really loudly into an electrical socket.
Re:Disagreement (Score:5, Informative)
San Francisco official password policy
"Password Policy"
As such, all County employees (including contractors, vendors, and temporary staff with access to County systems) are responsible for taking the appropriate steps, as outlined below, to select and secure their passwords.
All system-level passwords (e.g., root, enable, NT admin, application administration accounts, etc.) must be changed on at least a monthly basis"
"Do not share County passwords with anyone, including administrative assistants or secretaries.
All passwords are to be treated as sensitive, confidential County information.
Here is a list of things to avoid
-Telling your boss your password.
-Talking about a password in front of others.
-Telling your co-workers your passwordwhile on vacation."
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf [sfgov.org]
Re:too easy (Score:5, Informative)
immunity for officials != immunity for the city.
You're probably right that the DA can't be sued personally (that's a symptom of the general failure in the US to understand that government != state), but that doesn't mean that the department can't be sued, or that the department can't take action against the individuals responsible for exposing it to liability.
Re:too easy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Disagreement (Score:3, Informative)
Did you miss the bit where he refused to divulge passwords to a group of unknown people? Or just this bit from the policy:
A password, generic, unspecified. Not his password, a password. That doesn't mean "the password to reset the score in Solitaire, but everything else is alright".
Re:Excessive Bail == pressure for plea (Score:3, Informative)
The real culprit here is lazyiness/"efficiency" (cashless corruption) -- many police jump at anything to "solve the crime", and DAs are lazy about reviewing their cases. Mostly because they can get away with it. When they can't, smart DAs avoid escalation and cut their losses early. This dude has not, so risks going down bigtime. Unfortunately only max disbarment, not prison.
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