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Privacy Crime Government United States

When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws 78

Posted by timothy from the muck-rocks! dept.
v3rgEz writes What should take precedence: State public records laws, or contractual agreements between local police, the FBI, and the privately owned Harris Corporation? That's the question being played out across the country, as agencies are strongly divided on releasing much information, if any, on how they're using Stingray technology to collect and monitor phone metadata without judicial oversight.
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When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws More

When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws

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  • The Constitution is Clear - Tenth Amendment (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @10:03PM (#49092503)
    "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

    • Re:The Constitution is Clear - Tenth Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)

      by currently_awake ( 1248758 ) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @10:14PM (#49092559)
      Illegal terms in a contract are null and void. Any contract requiring illegal activity is not a legal (enforceable) contract. It's sad that police are not experts on the law, it's worse that we have no way to force them to follow/obey the law.

    • Just a piece of paper. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They don't want us to be able to keep anything at all secret. And they want to keep all their stuff secret. These incentives are natural enough, since knowledge is power.

      Appeals to fairness or reason will have no impact whatsoever. Actual political force is the only way to make them do what they should.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      How quaint. The Feds haven't taken the Constitution seriously for generations.

      • How quaint. The Feds haven't taken the Constitution seriously for generations.

        Maybe it's time for a "Digital Second Amendment".

        Whatever technological means the government may use to monitor/surveil/track/datamine individuals without a warrant may also be used to monitor/surveill/track/datamine those in government both while on and off the government clock by otherwise law-abiding people.

        Strat

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Alternate idea: an amendment that makes it a felony for government officials/reps/etc. to violate or aid/abet the violation of the constitutional rights of one or more people.

          Maybe also a second one that gives everyone legal standing when mass rights violations occur, rather than requiring someone to jump through all the hoops to prove they were personally affected (e.g., from secret mass surveillance) like we have now.

          • Alternate idea: an amendment that makes it a felony for government officials/reps/etc. to violate or aid/abet the violation of the constitutional rights of one or more people.

            Warrantless mass surveillance already violates the 4th Amendment and multiple laws.

            What effect will another law have when the existing laws are ignored? Existing laws against these ongoing abuses have already, and continue to be, flaunted by those in government.

            The digital Panopticon, if it is going to exist, needs to be universal in that citizens may not be denied the right and ability to use it to keep tabs on those in government.

            Strat

    • Oh constitution bla bla bla! The only question is what are you going to vote for, business as usual, or something more accommodating to good living and respect for all.

    • Re:The Constitution is Clear - Tenth Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)

      by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Friday February 20, 2015 @01:42AM (#49093025)

      I recommend that you clarify your comment or else someone might mistake you for believing that the States are sovereign rather than the people.

      Unlike the First Amendment, the Fourth through Sixth Amendments do not specifically constrain the federal government therefore they protect the people against the States as well. In addition, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically constrains the states.

    • Stop throwing the constitution in their face, it's just a piece of paper.

  • Silly rabbit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @10:14PM (#49092565) Homepage Journal

    Laws are for the little people.

  • No prosecutor is going to rock the boat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @11:08PM (#49092693)
    This is real life - not Law & Order. The prosecutor can do little if he alienates the police and feds. To that end his ambition will ALWAYS trump the law or his oath.

    • Re:No prosecutor is going to rock the boat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday February 19, 2015 @11:25PM (#49092737)

      To that end his ambition will ALWAYS trump the law or his oath.

      That is what the voters want. They will vote for the guy endorsed by the police over someone who was merely ethical. If you want things to change, look for who the police endorse, and then vote for the other guy. Convince others to do the same. The police should not be allowed to choose their political masters.

  • Normal (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I work at a government agency and this is standard procedure for any request that potentially might embarrass the agency, or even be difficult to turn up. If you ignore a request somebody has to have the resources to sue you in order to force you to produce the requested documents, and even then there's no real penalty. Why not ignore by default?

  • Slashdot Is Fox News for Lefties But Worse (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 20, 2015 @02:05AM (#49093063)

    The linked to article, written by the organization that's trying to get the records, is more fair than the Slashdot summary. If you read the actual article, you'll see that it's not a case of policy "ignoring public records laws". In a lot of the cases, the states are claiming that Stingray documents fall under the exceptions IN THE PUBLIC RECORDS LAWS. That's not "ignoring the law." If the requesting party appeals, they still have to convince a judge that that's the correct interpretation of the law. In the states where the documents don't potentially fall under such an exception, they still have a *contract* with the federal government that requires them to allow the federal government to exhaust their own legal options before releasing the data. The Contract Clause "No state shall .... pass any ... Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts" combined with the Supremacy Clause (which basically says that the constitution and federal laws made in accordance with it are the law of the land, "anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.") give the federal government a very good chance of preventing disclosure by taking the case to a federal court. The rule of law doesn't mean that the government doesn't have any powers or that all legal disputes are settled the way YOU want them to. Everything about this situation is a perfect example of the rule of law working exactly as it should. There's a disagreement, conflicting contracts and laws, and legal ambiguity, so the parties will have to GO TO COURT to sort it all out.

  • In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ad454 ( 325846 ) on Friday February 20, 2015 @03:27AM (#49093189) Journal

    police support the creation and advancement of police states. Also in other news, water is wet.

    Nothing to see here folks.

    The issue is not with the police, which more often than not support doing away with any pesky human rights and oversight which make it "harder" for them to do their jobs, but with the cowardly sheeple who empower them by happily give up their freedom every time some they hear someone say boo.

    Yes terrorism is horrible, but lots of other risks in life are much more deadly, including gun culture, obesity and processed foods industry, poverty, insufficient vaccination and medical treatment, etc. And yet very little is done to address these other issues since steeples don't consider them as scary.

    Strange that we were able to defeat the Nazi horrors without having to resort to creating our own police states, in which every citizen is monitored and they activity permanently archived.

  • Precedence? Unnecessary. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You can easily heed both the manufacturer's conditions as well as the Constitution by not switching the damn illegal device on ever. It is not designed for lawful use, it is not suitable for lawful use, so if you have been as stupid to buy it, it stays off.

    And the manufacturer can't complain. And neither can the citizens. The accountants might be annoyed at wasted money, but it turns out that most of these things are bought with money that is not accounted for, like money stolen via "civil forfeiture".

  • THIS IS GREAT (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The police do not have to obey the law. The president does not have to obey the law. I do not have to obey the law either. Up Up with anarchy.

    The citizens of the United States face many enemies who wish to do them irreparable harm. Most of them are in congress, the white house, the court system, and on the television.

  • It seems to me that getting and releasing this data requires a hack of the Harris Corporation.

    And that it would do a whole lot more social good than the "high school quarterback rapist of the week" that tends to be their high profile targets. While those scumbags are good targets, and certainly deserve to be brought to justice when there is some sort of cover-up or injustice involved, in the end ... they are small potatoes, local targets whose impact is extermely limited in scope.

    The Harris Corporati

  • I mean, it's not absurd to raise it, but it's pretty absurd that's it's considered in any way debatable. I mean, if it was a question between the law, and a contract I made with an arbitrary third party which allowed me to kill people with impunity, which has more legal power? The law, of course. By the nature of contract law, you cannot make something which is otherwise illegal legal, just because you have a contract which allows you to do it.

    In the same way, the government spying on people in unconstituti

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