Prison Hack Shows Attorney-Client Privilege Violation (theintercept.com) 190
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from The Intercept: An enormous cache of phone records obtained by The Intercept reveals a major breach of security at Securus Technologies, a leading provider of phone services inside the nation's prisons and jails. The materials — leaked via SecureDrop by an anonymous hacker who believes that Securus is violating the constitutional rights of inmates — comprise over 70 million records of phone calls, placed by prisoners to at least 37 states, in addition to links to downloadable recordings of the calls. The calls span a nearly two-and-a-half year period, beginning in December 2011 and ending in the spring of 2014."
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications — calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. The recording of legally protected attorney-client communications — and the storage of those recordings — potentially offends constitutional protections, including the right to effective assistance of counsel and of access to the courts.
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications — calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. The recording of legally protected attorney-client communications — and the storage of those recordings — potentially offends constitutional protections, including the right to effective assistance of counsel and of access to the courts.
In line with current US thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
"Constitutional rights? Bah! Who needs 'em!" seems to be the watchword of the new millenium.
Constitutional rights? (Score:3)
Doublethink (Score:5, Insightful)
And why is it that you yourself, while acting as if you care about constitutional rights, disparage those who support the right to be armed? I don't want a random person deciding which of my rights I should or shouldn't have based on their individual biases. I want them all.
Those who support infringing your right to privacy while supporting the 2nd amendment are making a terrible mistake. But by directing your anger towards them and supporting infringing on the right they hold dear, you are not only making the same mistake, but you are also playing into the hands of those who are perfectly happy taking our rights away a little bit at a time.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that your ACLU card can't live next to an NRA one, or that the EFF membership depends on you having a specific political allowance as opposed to being committed to preserving as many rights as we can.
It's good to have different opinions and a debate... But once you say that you're okay sacrificing one right for the false hope of security, just because you don't care to exercise it, you don't get to argue for preservation of others against a similar promise of safety.
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And why is it that you yourself, while acting as if you care about constitutional rights, disparage those who support the right to be armed?
Perhaps because GP's characterization is somewhat accurate regarding the current state of political discourse. The choice of the term "gun nuts" may be unfortunate, but the truth is that the 2nd Amendment lobby has had better luck than many other Constitutional rights of late.
Those who support infringing your right to privacy while supporting the 2nd amendment are making a terrible mistake. But by directing your anger towards them and supporting infringing on the right they hold dear, you are not only making the same mistake, but you are also playing into the hands of those who are perfectly happy taking our rights away a little bit at a time.
You sound very defensive, reading a lot into a couple words.
Perhaps I missed something, but I didn't see anything in GP's post suggesting that GP wants to infringe on 2nd Amendment rights. Perhaps GP does. But if anything it is mo
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...which is that some people in the U.S. legitimately believe that the 2nd Amendment is archaic and needs to be restricted a bit more... ...and I respect people who think we should make some changes...
The same polls also show that the majority of the US is willing to be under surveillance for a promise of fighting terrorist, pedophiles, etc...
What I do NOT respect are people who think we should just "reinterpret" the plain text to mean something new and different from the original
You mean like the 2nd amendment? You do realize, that the founding fathers would have thought that the "liberal" interpretation of the 2nd amendment to restrict INDIVIDUAL rights, was the definition of the government overstepping its bounds and exactly what they were TRYING to prevent.
If you're willing to lose one right for the promise of safety, you should be will
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:4, Informative)
"Constitutional rights? Bah! Who needs 'em!" seems to be the watchword of the new millenium.
I thought this was illegal at first. But a little research says that this is perfectly legal. If a prisoner wants to have an unrecorded conversation with his/her lawyer they can do that in person.
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-jail-record-telephone-conversation-lawyer.html [nolo.com]
obviously an attorney provided the story (Score:2)
Advocatus Diaboli, indeed.
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The gun nuts get everything they want.
Utterly false but in any case...
Maybe there's something to be learned from a group of people who have combated an endless assault on their rights for decades and are still fairly free? Naw, forget that. I'll just mock them for actually caring enough to preserve their freedom.
Keep goosestepping there, fruviad. It suits you well.
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Yep, if events in academia is any guide, the First Amendment [dailycaller.com] rights — including the reporters' right to observe and record [nytimes.com] the newsworthy events — is done for.
False. Although the Bill of Rights clearly calls weapon-possession a right, it is treated as a mere privilege even in the most Liberal locales: you must have a government's permission to keep and bear. And even
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unless they're gun rights, of course.
Don't be so quick to drink the partisan Koolaid; rest assured that the 2nd Amendment is on the fascist chopping block as well (but not until T.P.T.B. can get all the mileage they can out of it, using it as a wedge issue...).
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
I like all of the Constitution as literally written. That means the Bill of Rights as well including the 1st and 4th amendment and even the 2nd which the liberals despise. The liberals fail to realize that when they attack the parts of the Constitution they don't like such as the 2nd amendment they damage the defense of all of it. As one of those gun nuts I think we should all realize that this is what tolerance is all about. So what if I think gay marriage is a joke? I tolerate it because I want the protections of the Constitution as well. We need to stand together on all of our rights.
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If you spend some time talking to actual liberals instead of believing what you hear on Fox News, you'll find that many of them care very much about the 2nd amendment. They just interpret it "as literally written," including the part about well-regulated militias. They are, in fact, very much in favor of well regulated militias (or as we call them today, "police forces").
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And that's another thing. This Fox news bullshit. Every single time a libby hears something he disagrees with he trots out that lame ass "quit listening to those lies on Fox News!" I do watch Fox news....and CNN and the BBC and Al Jazeera as well. I'm not debating "well regulated militias" as opposed to "the right of the people" with you because I know it's pointless. The 2nd amendment, according to the liberals the only one of 10 amendments designed to limit the power of government that actually limit
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Law enforcement at best is a select militia distinct from the people. The 2nd amendment recognizes a right of the people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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You can have an opinion, just don't expect anyone to listen to it.
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Quick, somebody shoot the messenger! Focus on the leaker and make sure he goes to prison himself! He must have broken some law if the public was apprised of wrongdoing.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the way I see it, if there is such a broad danger that a crime won't be a crime if there are enough criminals to support removing it from law, then perhaps it shouldn't be a crime.
Or putting it another way, if criminals can form enough of a voting bloc to where they make for a significant impact on politics, then perhaps we have made crimes of too many behaviors.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Got a citation for the claim that felons voting to legalize their crimes was a problem in the past?
Because the way I see it, if there is such a broad danger that a crime won't be a crime if there are enough criminals to support removing it from law, then perhaps it shouldn't be a crime.
Or putting it another way, if criminals can form enough of a voting bloc to where they make for a significant impact on politics, then perhaps we have made crimes of too many behaviors.
You are missing the point of the law. The whole purpose of the law is to ensure that everyone is guilty of something.
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You are missing the point of the law. The whole purpose of the law is to ensure that everyone is guilty of something.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” Ayn Rand
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No, if we're all guilty then we could be locked away in some prison somewhere, but for the benevolent lenience of our watchers. So long as you don't piss them off. That's the point.
If the law worked the way you suggest (everybody who commits a crime is automatically caught and impartially sentenced according to the law), things would be
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I'm also very curious if there's a citation for that claim. It would be very interesting, if true. What crime would it be? Owing money is the only one I can think of that would be so significant. Or, in some places, maybe piracy?
But I don't think it is. My understanding is that felon disenfranchisement in the USA was always, from the very beginning, aimed at preventing black people from voting.
And I completely agree about your analysis of the situation. The way I see it, there are three possible scenarios,
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone should have the right to vote, and individual pockets of abhorrent behavior are exceedingly unlikely to override a fairly reasonable silent majority. Besides, if a local pocket of abhorrent behavior does manage to make law or repeal law to enable conditions that shouldn't be tolerated, a state or federal law could just as easily cover the jurisdiction if needed, and the concept of nullification was destroyed by the civil war.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Felony disenfranchisement originated long before blacks people were issues in the US or lands that became the US. It (Atimia) originally started in Ancient Greece around 1100 bc and was known as civil death. It was a part of Rome and Most of Europe by around the end of the medieval era.
In the US, Kentucky was the first state to have it in their state constitution in 1792. It barred anyone from voting or holding office if they had been convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
In 1793, Vermont's constitution gave the state supreme court the ability to disenfranchise those guilty of bribery, corruption, or other crimes.
In all, before the civil war in 1861, 21 of the 34 different states (Oregon Minnesota Maryland California Wisconsin New York Iowa Texas Louisiana New Jersey Rhode Island Florida Tennessee Delaware Virginia Missouri Alabama Connecticut Mississippi Indiana Ohio) had disenfranchisement built into their state constitution for stuff other than being black before blacks were generally allowed to vote at all. And we all know that Blacks didn't get a universal right to vote until 1870 with the passage/ratification of the 15th amendment.
In 1882, the US congress even passed a law disenfranchising polygamists from voting and holding political office. After that, some of the disenfranchisement laws were abused to deny blacks the vote which prompted provisions in the civil rights acts as well as the voting rights act in the 1960s.
But felon disenfranchisement in the USA was not brought about to prevent black people from voting. It is a relic from Ancient Greece and Rome brought into the US by British rule over the colonies and maintained throughout out history for various reasons not related to black people.
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In modern days, I personally believe many white collar crimes should be considered felonies for disenfranchisement since the type of people we need to worry about the most these days seem to have gone up the food chain.
As far as citation, Supreme cour
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Lynching niggers was a rather popular concept in some locales — a town, or even an entire State could've voted to decriminalize such a thing. Tax-evasion would be a more modern concern...
The way I see it, is that universal franchise itself is a mistake — it just as much of an extreme to allow everyone to vote, as the other extreme of m
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This just in: Some people will vote for their own self-interests.
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Not all interests are equal. In particular, Paul's interest in Peter's money should not be allowed to gain government's backing. It is bad enough, when heart-bleeding others try to compel Peter to provide for Paul — to allow Paul himself to add his own vote to the scales is an outrage.
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But let's add in "No taxation without representation" so those who may not vote pay no taxes (including property and sales). Surely there's enough history behind that to justify it in U.S. law. Further, they may not be counted for the purpose of allocating representation.
Or, to be completely fair since we claim to support democracy, if you can't vote, the law doesn't apply to you.
TL;DR: No. That's a terrible idea. People have the right to advocate for the form of society they want to live in.
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That principle is not absolute. For example, even legal immigrants — such as H1B or Green Card holders — can not vote, yet are expected to pay all sorts of taxes.
So, without any changes to rules of franchise, you are going to officially allow the disenfranchised
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H1-Bs and green card holders are still guests, not Citizens. Residents of D.C. do deserve to vote and it's well past time to fix that.
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And yet, by your own logic, simply because they can not vote, they don't have to pay taxes nor obey other laws.
On this new topic you raised:
No, they don't "deserve" to vote in the slightest — their physical proximity to the seat of government already gives them undue advantage over the political process.
Look at what happens every once in a while in countries, where cap
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Yeah, the people living in the D.C. ghettos have heaps of clout.
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Well, most of those folks would be disenfranchised by the other part of my proposal: receiving public assistance in excess of $10 within three months before the poll.
That said, I'm glad, you have no other objections.
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Actually, I do. I picked one of your links (Mexico) at random and found that it really didn't support or even address your assertions.
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Everyone receives $10 worth of public assistance every day (including yourself, through the many programs which pay for things you use and take advantage of to improve your life), just not directly into their bank accounts. By your twisted "logic" no one can vote, ever. That's the problem when you try to make easy-sounding rules to take away people's vote - you end up screwing yourself over, as your simplistic view is not based on reality, but your perverted impression of it. You are a horrible person.
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The alternative to losing their right to vote is to be imprisoned for life. Felony convictions are supposed to be for heinous crimes. The problem now is how many relatively minor or victimless crimes are labeled a felony. I don't want a guy who rapes women to ever vote again but a guy who merely sold a few joints to a neighbor gets wiped with that same brush. The war on drugs has far too much collateral damage.
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How do you think this will work for local elections in prison towns?
Do you think the new Sheriff of Douglas Arizona and all local JOPs will be voted in by a landslide by the prisoners there? Should the local governance of Winslow Arizona be domainted by the will of the prisoners held way out in Navajo county?
Like a lot of states, the prisons in Arizona are in remote mining towns with small local populations, of which prisoners make up a large percentage.
By a quick count, at least 20% of the population of t
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>Some might have their voting rights revoked for felonies (to stop them from supporting the legalization of their crime, which was a serious problem in the distant past)
You mean like how large corporations lobby (ans outright bribe) politicians to do the same. They have a cute word for it - they call it "deregulation"; maybe that's where those darn (imaginary) enfranchised criminals were going wrong - not enough euphemism!
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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But they — convicted felons — obviously do lose the freedom of movement and the pursuit of happiness. For a judge-specified period of time.
The right to privacy is gone for them too. Except for the attorney-client communications — that ought to remain sacred, and that's what TFA is about.
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Being imprisoned means you have no right to privacy. The exception is the right to counsel and privileged communication with same. I believe that all of those people who's conversation with attorneys were recorded will eventually be victorious in court once this all comes out fully. It was a foolish thing for the prison to do.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Informative)
If they're calling their attorney...Yes.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
The calls are prefaced by "This call may be monitored unless it is to an Attorney or an Elected Official , we should be able to take them at their word. In the post 9-11 world, the Law Enforcement and Intelligence communities have been granted unprecedented latitude to protect us from terrorism and we have depended on the good character of honourable men to prevent abuse, they are proving to be not of good character nor honourable.
I suspect the Courts are not going to be amused, when every Jail-house Lawyer is filing appeals for a can of bugler [wikipedia.org] and clogging up their dockets for years and their are probably a lot of dirt-bag Attorneys on the outside crapping their pants too.
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It's a security concern for the institution itself. A prisoner using information from the outside to dig up dirt on others who are also incarcerated, planning smuggling operations, directing criminal enterprises on the outside, directing reprisals against the people who got them locked up in the first place... all these are legitimate things to monitor.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt that many of them bother. Voting is for plebes, the real ballots have dead presidents on them and you don't have to wait until Election Day to cast them.
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Voting is for plebes, the real ballots have dead presidents on them and you don't have to wait until Election Day to cast them.
Obviously you aren't part of the most elite club for political influence. If you were, your standard ballots would have a dead Postmaster General [wikipedia.org] on them [wikipedia.org]. It's only the plebs who can't "afford the postage" (as the patricians might joke about it, if they were into making bad puns) that have to resort to the less worthy "dead presidents."
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True. And the history books got his title wrong. Mr. Franklin was America's first Pimpmaster General. He even showed the French how it was done.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
So, being incarcerated is proof you are a criminal, therefore you don't need rights or due process?
Perfect, just lock everyone up without a warrant. Then use the fact they were locked up as proof they are criminals.
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I read recently that the conviction rate in Russia nowadays is something over 97%. No - I don't remember the url because the only lesson I drew from that was never to go there.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Informative)
At the same time, about 4-5% of police have committed crimes.
We are not saying that no convicts are criminals, we are saying that merely being convicted does NOT make you a criminal. And we despise the blind, obedient, slavish mentality that you are using to accept whatever mistakes our legal system has committed without comment, argument, or even discussion.
We are citizens, not slaves, and demand our legal rights to question the courts, laws, cops, lawsuits, crimes, jails and probation.
It doesn't make us feel good, but it sure makes us feel superior to a slavish dunce (word used correctly - look up the origin) who thinks the judges, lawyers and police are perfect and never make a mistake
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No, not really.
The problem is that sometimes the cops get the wrong guy (person). Where this becomes a big issue is when they run their mouths to the press and taint almost everyone who would be serving on a jury. The wrong person is often presented with some deal where they get a fraction of jail time or lose the death penalty portion of punishment if they plead out to save the court time. People look and realize that their paycheck to paycheck existence already is disrupted because being locked up for a w
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What of the people who are later exonerated? Perhaps after talking with their lawyer while wrongly imprisoned.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
locked up
therefore
don't... deserve
This is the shit kind of logic that messes up our society. There is no room in there to think that _maybe_ someone is locked up incorrectly. You are guilty because you are locked up, you are locked up because you are guilty. The logic assumes so much about the perfection of our justice system is or the powers that can control our lives. With that as a starting point, what margin is there to question the leaders, or the laws, or to give second chances.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but that kind of logic also leads to prisoners becoming repeat offenders even if they try to go straight. A prisoner can get released after serving his time only to find out:
1) He has no money to afford rent, food, clothing, etc.
2) He can't live with relatives because of laws forbidding certain residents from allowing felons to live in their apartments.
3) Jobs pass him up immediately (not even giving him an interview) once he checks "Have you ever been convicted of a felony" on the application form.
4) Parole officers set odd times for him to check in - requiring him to choose between skipping out on a job he was lucky enough to get or skipping his parole hearing.
5) Even having a parole officer is an expense that he has to pay for.
All of this conspires to make it hard for someone released from prison (again, after having served their time) to live their life without committing more crimes. However, any attempt to make it easier for ex-convicts to live honest lives is painted as being soft on crime because "obviously" once-a-criminal-always-a-criminal.
(John Oliver recently had a great segment on this subject. It's on YouTube, but unfortunately I don't have the link here.)
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
The thinking that does is because there is a system with flaws, that occasionally leads to incorrect outcomes despite the best efforts of everyone involved, that you then refuse to accept that most of the time the system works. Because it does. And no matter how often people tell you they're innocent. Or were wrongfully convicted, they weren't.
I get the impression that either you are a prosecutor or don't have much experience with the legal system in the United States. The vast majority of people who are charged with a crime plead out, either because they can't afford a decent lawyer or are threatened with all manner of charges by the prosecutor and don't want to take the chance. Even innocent people do this because the deck is overwhelmingly stacked against them. And the prosecutors don't care of they are innocent or not, just about their conviction rate. That is not a picture of a system that is working.
People think Law and Order is a reasonable representation of our legal system. It is not. People's "best efforts" are often not put towards actual justice but towards locking up whomever was arrested.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
they are inmates so considering that being locked up has already been deemed acceptable based on what they've done, don't be thinking they deserve the same rights as an inmate as you and i do on the outside
Important distinction to keep in mind here: "Securus Technologies" provides phone service/wiretapping to both jails and prisons. People in prison have been convicted of something. You can(and people frequently do), end up in jail if you cannot afford to post bail, or if the court refuses to allow release on bail, pending your trial.
Aside from more general concerns, that is perhaps the most worrisome population: can't make bail, or don't have the option, so they are presumably mostly poor and/or suspected of something gruesome; and are stuck in jail so have few options for coordinating their upcoming trial with their lawyers aside from using the phone or hoping that their(probably less than stellar and somewhat overworked) legal representation can squeeze all the necessary prep into the jail's visiting hours and policies.
If they are laboring under all those advantages and prosecutors get to listen to their calls to their attorney, apparently without bothering to disclose this fact, it's hard to even pretend that something remotely close to justice is being done.
There are some legitimate purposes for keeping an eye on prison phone calls(coordinating witness tampering, relaying instructions to confederates who remain outside, organizing smuggling operations into the prison, etc. are hardly unknown uses of the phone); but do not forget that the incarcerated population includes pre-trial detainees, who have not been found guilty of anything in a court of law yet; and the call metadata and recordings(which apparently have no particular retention limit) are not restricted to use in combating illegal conduct, prison contraband, witness intimidation, etc; but for any purposes that people with access to them see fit. Perhaps most...delightful...is Securus' own "Threads [securustechnologies.com]" technology: an intelligence product specifically designed to use call data to associate inmates with the non-incarcerated, so that police can more effectively focus on them. If the poor bastards in jail pre-trial aren't enough, the "More than 600,000 people with billing name and address (not incarcerated)" might object to the fact that they are part of Securus' product.
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"If they are laboring under all those advantages and prosecutors get to listen to their calls to their attorney, apparently without bothering to disclose this fact, it's hard to even pretend that something remotely close to justice is being done."
I posted this earlier:
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Often times, even after conviction and you end up in prison, you have reasons to contact your attorney. Perhaps you are working on an appeal, the period of time between conviction and the sentencing, etc. These are all still privileged communications.
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The level of surveillance-for-surveillance's sake on display here is pretty egregious even for people actually convicted of crimes(and, even if you don't care about them; consider them a likely beta test for wider implementations); but the degree to which it targets non-convicts and not even incarcerated people
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Their rights should be restricted in some ways. Obviously they should not be allowed to keep and bear arms (Second Amendment) while in prison for reasons of security. But to me, saying that they should lose their Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel doesn't make sense.
Re:In line with current US thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
Attorney-client privilege is tied very strongly to both the fifth and sixth amendments. Those are the same rights that prevent forced self-incrimination and execution of a person without due process, and closely tied to the eighth amendment which prohibits torture.
So the comment you're replying to is not an exaggeration. It carries a different emotional impact, but from a legal standpoint, it's the same.
Those rights can't be taken away from anyone, US citizen or not, on US soil. It has been very well established in the courts, and it is not a right that prisoners lose. That's why we have all those people in Guantanamo Bay.
Cases have been lost and presumably guilty people set free because attorney-client privilege has been broken. It is in no one's best interest (except possibly guilty people who would be set free) to break it.
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If you can;'t ask for it, you can;'t be sure you will get it.
If you can't resist, it can be taken from you.
If you are forced to admit the government into your home, you will not be able to speak freely nor defend yourself,even in your own home.
If you can be searched without reason, and your property confiscated without cause, you will not be free to read what you want nor defend yourself.
The First and Second Amendments were not just idle concepts, even back then.
Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever been to an airport? (Score:3)
Poppycock.
Posting a large sign indicating that your constitutional rights are no longer valid is a perfectly valid way to violate them.
Just consider the TSA. They post a large sign indicating that your 4th Amendment rights are no longer valid beyond a certain point before boarding the plane. And apparently; the entire fucking country just accepts that.
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A prisoner who starts ranting about what he did to whom and how bloody it was on those phones against the lawyer's advice, they deserve what they get.
That's easy to say, but the result is people being misrepresented by the things they said in confidence. There is a reason you have a right to silence, and a reason you have a right to confidence.
and the prisoner should be allowed new hearings of whatever kinds that lawyer was involved in with a more competent lawyer at the original lawyer's expense.
Ha, ha... That's funny (in a sad way), the US barely provides poor people with lawyers in the first place:
http://www.nlada.org/Defender/... [nlada.org]
(at 150+ cases a year it is effectively the same as not having a lawyer at all)
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There is usually a large sign near the phones in prisons and jails that says something like this, "Phone Use Is Recorded".
In person conversations between client and lawyer are not supposed to be recored though.
I have to agree with this. Just thinking about it from a technical perspective making a system so that just the attorney client communications aren't recorded is a tough problem.
Set aside the fact that you need someone with the right authority flicking a switch labelled record/don't record for a specific phone when an attorney call is going through. You also have the task of authenticating that the call is actually to the attorney and not a gang leader's lieutenant who can spoof caller ID.
To the extent ther
I don't think it works that way... (Score:3)
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. "
My family was involved with a fairly complex trial recently (hah -- 'recently' took over 2.5 years from start to finish).
What I recall was that ALL calls were recorded and then screened (I honestly don't recall how) and the defense was notified of each recording between client and 'accused'. The post-screened calls were then filtered (removing privileged calls) to the police. All recordings (including privileged calls which were separate and sealed) were submitted to the defense as part of discovery.
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between client and 'accused'.
A little confusing; the client is usually the accused, unless this were some kind of civil case, the rules for those are different from criminal trials. Anyway, A conversation between a defence lawyer and his client are definitely protected and covered constitutionally under client-attorney privilege, this has been the law in the land since the founding. That jurisdictions break it doesn't make it legal.
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Yeah... I meant "attorney" -- not "client". I originally had "client" and "attorney" but decided to change it to "attorney" and "accused" but didn't change ALL of it.
And the act of recording it doesn't defacto make it "illegal". Both parties know it's being recorded. They also know it will not and cannot be used. If it is the trial is effectively over and the accused walks. Not to mention police can loose their jobs and prosecutors can be disbarred. Have you SEEN the chain of custody of those recordi
here's a little guide (Score:3)
Given how much we pay to incarcerate these people and given that they would be receiving lots of government handouts outside prison, I think the obvious solution is to give them a limited number of free domestic phone minutes per week.
Handing a phone monopoly to a private company is cronyism and government corruption.
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government corruption
The government is corrupt?? Oh, go on...
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!? The federal Constitution limits the federal gov (Score:2)
Violates their Constitutional rights? The federal Constitution specifies and limits what the federal government can do. Did the federal government get copies of the conversations, of the recordd from this private company? If not, one can argue a -privacy- issue, but not a -Constitutional- issue.
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Constitutional rights don't end because the government had a 3rd party do the illegal stuff. In this case the 3rd party company is acting as an agent of the government.
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Violates their Constitutional rights? The federal Constitution specifies and limits what the federal government can do. Did the federal government get copies of the conversations, of the recordd from this private company? If not, one can argue a -privacy- issue, but not a -Constitutional- issue.
Incorporation [wikipedia.org] TL;DR: Prior to 1925 the Bill of Rights was held to apply only to the Federal government, but a series of US Supreme Court decisions have held that most amendments do in fact apply to the states as well.
Securus is the 51st state? (Score:2)
Is Securus a state government now?
Again, if the -government- is listening to attorney-client conversations, there's a Constitutional issue. If some other random person is doing so, it might be illegal, but it's not unconstitutional.
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If you interfere with the right to counsel you are violating constitutional rights. Attorney-client privilege isn't a constitutionally enumerated right, but it is a legally defined privilege.
The threat to civil rights is that these companies who provide services to the prison system have an inherent bias to the prison system and law enforcement -- that's who their customer base is.
The idea that these companies can be entrusted to maintain the confidentiality of recorded attorney-client conversations is ext
Parallel Construction (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why parallel construction was invented. So you can perform all kinds of illegal NSA-style surveillance to get "evidence", then have someone else construct a case around it while not knowing about the surveillance.
Convenient.
"Strong indication" (Score:2)
Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications
"Strong indication... likely..."
So, are they priveleged or not? What if the system actually worked perfectly, and no priveleged conversations were recorded? What is about the number "14,000" that gives rise to the suspicion that some of them were priveleged?
There are a lot of people in US prisons, you know, and if there is such a thing as an unpriveleged inmate/attorney conversation (I have no idea how it works), then there are probably a lot of those going on. What if they call the attorney's office and th
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"Strong indication... likely..."
So, are they priveleged or not?
They are.
There are a lot of people in US prisons, you know, and if there is such a thing as an unpriveleged inmate/attorney conversation (I have no idea how it works), then there are probably a lot of those going on.
There isn't.
What if they call the attorney's office and they're not there? Is that priveleged?
Yes.
All communications between an attorney and client are privileged, with a tiny set of exceptions which are, in general, not applicable here. Calls to an attorney's office are privileged even if the attorney never got on the phone. Communication with the support staff can be just as damaging as communications with the attorney if revealed to the other side. The mere fact of an attorney's consultation or representation is confidential. Much of the time, the fact of representatio
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The 14,000 were from prisons to lawyers' offices. That's where the suspicion they may have been privileged comes from. And it's only suspected, because it's a lot quicker to check numbers automatically, than to listen to many hours of recordings. That's going to happen later.
Money talks (Score:2)
Nice. It looks like some inmates will get more than 20 bucks when they get out if they sue their asses off those guys.
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The attorney calls a dispatcher first that turns the system off before connecting to the inmate. They built a system that records 70+ million calls ... they can't build a feature to exclude authorized calls?
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If you had taken the time to actually read tfa, that point was answered. Scroll back to the bottom of the article - Securus' reply - and you will read how they try and exclude such calls. You will also read their claim that this was not a hack, it was a leak (paraphrasing).
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It's cute that they *try* to obey the constitution.
The NSA also tries when it's convenient to them.
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Right, so if I setup Private NSA Inc, take a couple of major loans from the US government, use that to buy up all the NSA sites, and then provide my "services" to the NSA. Its all good because the government isn't doing it. I get a cherry on top by giving myself a huge bonus, going bankrupt, selling my assets for cheap to Private NSA Two Inc, and reneg on the loans.
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Strictly speaking, most of that is legal. What isn't legal is the part where the US government uses your services for anything.
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I don't give a Couric about THEIR rights.
BAD attitude to have. People sitting in jail aren't necessarily convicted yet. Add to that the number of convicted people sitting in prisons because of rogue prosecutors; ie; wrongly convicted, which DNA testing has shown a number of. If we had your attitude we'd continue (not that we've stopped, but we've seen a growing number of these) we'd be the most murderous (from executions) and punitive nation on earth. And I have a hard time with that, given we're a "civilized" society and all. I'd like to hear you
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The Chain-gang hasn't gone away, well the chains part has, but we have jail prisoners doing lots of thing around here. Prisoners pretty much run the day to day operation of our county's animal control, cut grass and clear snow for parks and recreation and forestry; it's all voluntary and quite popular with the inmates. Even during WW II German POWs worked in the communities, often leaving and returning to camp without supervision. It's all a matter of risk assessment.
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Legally, the prosecutor can NOT act on any information they have obtained illegally, unless they can demonstrate those actions would have been done anyway.
That is, before the video tape from the store owner can be entered into evidence, the lawyers must convince a judge that they would have asked for it even if they did not know about your confession.
If you can convince a judge that they would not have done that, that tape becomes "fruit o
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It is SUPPOSED to only be used when you have legal evidence obtained that you wish to keep secret to protect undercover cops. Legally it should not be used to cover up the use of poison fruit.
As I stated in my first post, THERE ARE PROSECUTORS that break the law, and this is one technique they may use to do that.
But just because a prosecutor did somet
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Is Slashdot really so US-centric now so it needs no mention?
No, it's always been so US-centric that if a country is not specified, but a story is about a specific nation, you should assume that it is about the USA.
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So you don't tell the judge where you actually got it. Welcome to "parallel construction".