A Mountain View couple that sued the city after their young daughter was forced to undergo an invasive sexual assault exam last year has agreed to a $600,000 settlement, according to recent court filings.

Under the agreement, filed with a federal court judge on Feb. 7, the city of Mountain View has agreed to pay the bulk of the costs -- $350,000 -- while Santa Clara County will pay $200,000. A third defendant, private ambulance company American Medical Response (AMR), has also agreed to pay $50,000 for its involvement in the incident.

The civil suit alleges that Mountain View Police Department officers had conducted an "unlawful and unfounded" sexual assault examination on a 5-year-old child in January last year. Three officers came to the family's house on Jan. 28, 2019, and demanded that the girl be examined by a paramedic to see if she had been the victim of sexual abuse.

The child had injured her pubic area three days prior when she fell at a trampoline park, but had since healed, according to the civil complaint. Earlier that day, a staff member at Landels Elementary overheard the girl saying that her vagina had bled or was bleeding, and reported the information to either Child Protective Services (CPS) or law enforcement.

The suit alleges that officers should have recognized the innocuous nature of the injury, but instead they presented the parents with an ultimatum: have a paramedic come to the house to inspect the girl's genitals or drive her to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for a formal examination.

The suit states that the parents -- Danielle and Douglas Lother -- tried multiple times to offer alternatives, including a trip to a physician to verify the injury was not serious and was healing. Danielle Lother also offered to put officers in contact with witnesses who could corroborate the story that the girl injured herself at a trampoline park.

The parents were reportedly forced to hold down their daughter during the exam the girl was kicking and screaming while a female paramedic examined the child. After two minutes, the paramedic concluded there was nothing apparently wrong with the child's genitals.

A few weeks after the incident, the family filed a claim stating that Mountain View officers, the Santa Clara County social worker and the paramedic all acted improperly, turning an innocent injury into a traumatic event. The claim sought $1 million for severe emotional distress, past and future medical treatment and punitive damages.

The family's attorney, Robert Powell, later filed a federal lawsuit in September alleging that the city, the county and AMR had acted together to violate the family's privacy and due process rights as well as Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure. It also alleges the defendant's actions amounted to negligence, battery and false imprisonment.

Since demanding the lump sum settlement of $1 million last year, Powell told the Voice that he left it up to the city, the county and AMR to fight among themselves over who had the most culpability. But he said it was pretty clear from the start that the police department was primarily responsible for the way the incident unfolded.

"No one thought for apparently a moment that, 'Hey, this is wrong. This is way overboard,'" he said.

When asked about the settlement amount, Powell said he believes the family could have been awarded more money if it went to a jury trial, but that his clients did not want to go through the stress of reliving the incident in a prolonged court battle.

"It was really, really causing a lot of emotional turmoil for the family and so we settled it, I think, considerably lower than what might have been awarded by a jury," he said. "There's a value to resolution."

Representatives from Santa Clara County did not immediately respond to requests for comment. City spokeswoman Shonda Ranson said the City Council is scheduled for a closed session discussion of the case on Feb. 25, and could not comment further.

After deductions and fees, roughly $438,000 of the settlement will be awarded to the parents, $80,000 will be given to the girl who underwent the exam and $40,000 will go to her sibling, who was interrogated during the incident. The money awarded to the children will be placed in separate secured accounts. Powell will receive $40,000 of the total settlement, plus $1,415 in counsel costs.

Powell, who has been handling CPS-related cases since the 1990s, said the incidents typically involve a child protective services agency and a law enforcement agency. This case was somewhat of an anomaly in that an ambulance company was involved and shared in the settlement agreement, he said. Despite the sizable cost of the incident, Powell said he isn't optimistic it will change the practices of anyone involved going forward.

"I have been handling these kinds of cases for around 23 years and I am back suing the same counties for the second, third and fourth time. In the case of Los Angeles County, I'm back suing them for the fifth, sixth or seventh time," Powell said. "Case after case after case of alarming stupidity, alarming abuse of power."

Original post:

Mountain View to pay $350K in settlement over forced sexual assault exam of 5-year-old - Mountain View Voice

After a neighbor called 911 and falsely reported that Dwain Barton had killed a cat, a local police officer charged through a screen door into Barton's house without a warrant and injuriously manhandled him while arresting him for animal cruelty, a charge that was eventually dismissed. When Barton sued the officer, Dean Vann, for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, a federal judge concluded that Vann was protected by "qualified immunity," which shields police from liability when their actions do not run afoul of "clearly established" law. Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit overturned that ruling, concluding that Barton should have an opportunity to prove his claims against Vann.

The 6th Circuit's decision shows there are limits to the doctrine of qualified immunity, which too often lets cops off the hook for outrageous conduct. But because the case did not involve a dispute about what counts as a "clearly established" right, the ruling does not go to the heart of the danger posed by that doctrine.

The circumstances that led to Vann's assault on Barton began on a Monday afternoon in November 2014, when his daughter was attacked by a stray cat as she was jumping on a trampoline in the backyard of the family's home in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Barton scared the cat away by firing a BB gun at one of the trampoline's legs. Then he noticed Jill Porter, a neighbor he blamed for attracting feral cats to the block by leaving out food scraps for them, standing in her own backyard three doors down. "Hey, Jill," Barton called out, "the next cat that I see in my yard will be a dead one."

Porter responded by calling police and claiming that Barton had told her, "Your gray cat just peed on my furniture, and he got shot in the head." That report led to a visit about 40 minutes later by Animal Control Officer Adam Manchester, who spoke to Barton through his screen door. While declining to come outside or provide identification, Barton denied shooting any cats and explained what had happened. In his written report, Manchester nevertheless asserted that Barton had "shot [a cat] in the head" with a BB gun, although he also said he had not seen any weapons or injured animals. Manchester radioed the Lincoln Park Police Department, claiming that Barton had "admitted to shooting animals."

Ten minutes later, eight police officers in four patrol cars arrived at Barton's home. According to Barton's complaint, they took "what looked like assault rifles" out of their trunks and "surrounded" the house. Manchester again asked for Barton's identification, which he handed through the door to his mother-in-law, who was on the front porch and passed it along to the cops. Moments later, Vann, who said he was afraid that Barton was "grabbing a gun," tore through the screen door and entered the house, where he saw Barton standing, unarmed, in the kitchen.

Barton's wife testified that Vann "threw [Barton] up against the counter like a linebacker." Barton said Vann "lifted [him] up with his elbows underneath [his] body and [his] arm and literally picked [him] up and slammed [him] up against [the] kitchen cupboards, at which point all of the other officers, like ants, followed in" and "surrounded" him. When Vann told Barton to put his hands behind his back so he could be handcuffed, Barton said he could not do that because of a shoulder injury. According to Barton, Vann then "grabbed both of [his] wrists and took them both behind [his] back," "shoved them both together," and "put the handcuffs on [him] as tight as he possibly could."

At that point, by Barton's account, Vann "shoved" him out the door, down the front steps, and into a patrol car, which took him to the police station, where he was strip-searched and detained for three hours before he was released on bail. Barton testified that Vann's rough handling aggravated his shoulder injury and left him with cuts on his wrists for several days.

Barton sued Vann under 42 USC 1983, which allows people to recover damages when a government official violates their constitutional rights under color of law. Barton argued that Vann illegally entered his home without a warrant, arrested him without probable cause, and used excessive force during the arrest. Vann claimed he was protected by qualified immunity, and U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh III granted his motion for summary judgment.

Steeh concluded that Vann was justified in entering the home based on "exigent circumstances," since "it was reasonable for Officer Vann to believe that Barton was armed, and that he was willing to use his weapon to harm the officers or others." Steeh also concluded that "Officer Vann had probable cause to believe that Barton had violated a local animal cruelty ordinance" and that "Barton fails to create a genuine issue of material fact on his excessive force claim" because he did not present sufficient evidence that Vann injured him during the arrest.

A unanimous 6th Circuit panel of three judges saw things differently. "Based on the facts alleged and the evidence produced, viewed in the light most favorable to Barton, a reasonable juror could find that Vann violated Barton's Fourth Amendment rights to freedom from warrantless entry into his home, use of excessive force, and arrest without probable cause," Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote. "These violations were of clearly established law." The court therefore rejected Vann's claim of qualified immunity.

"Without additional evidence of a threat against the police or bystanders, a report of an armed suspect inside his home does not justify warrantless entry," Gibbons observed. "Here, the only threat Barton made was that 'the next time [he saw] a cat in [his] yard attacking [his] children, it [would] be a dead one.' And when Manchester questioned Barton about the incident, prior to Vann's warantless entry, Barton told Manchester that he had shot at a trampoline pole with a BB gun, not the marauding cat. Vann never heard Barton threaten the officers or any neighbors. Vann never observed Barton with a weapon. Vann never suspected that someone inside the house was in peril. And Vann did not see any evidence of an injured animal."

Regarding the arrest, "a phone call reporting criminal activity, without any corroborating information, does not provide probable cause for an arrest," the 6th Circuit said. "Information from a caller [who] is not an eyewitness to the events lacks indicia of trustworthiness and reliability.Based on the information Vann had at the time, including the exculpatory statement offered by Barton, no reasonable officer would have concluded that there was probable cause for arrest."

As for the claim of excessive force, "Barton has presented sufficient evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Vann's use of force was reasonable," Gibbons wrote. "It would be clear to a reasonable officer that the amount of force used by Vann against Barton was unlawful. First, Barton was being arrested for animal cruelty, not a crime that would justify the amount of force used here. It was contested as to whether Barton shot the cat, and even if he did, whether he would have been justified in doing so given the attack on his daughter. There was no threat to human safety from Barton's actions. Second, Barton did not pose an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others.Third, the facts do not suggest that Barton was resisting arrest or attempting to flee."

After Barton was handcuffed, he claimed, Vann "tossed [him] down" the steps of his front porch toward Manchester. "Vann was on notice that his conduct was a violation of Barton's constitutional right to be free from excessive use of force," Gibbons wrote, "as it was obvious that Vann could not shove a handcuffed detainee off a front porch about three feet off the ground when there was no threat to the safety of the officers or others."

Many qualified immunity decisions involve disputes about whether a right was clearly established. As Fifth Circuit Judge Don Willett has observed, "qualified immunity smacks of unqualified impunity, letting public officials duck consequences for bad behaviorno matter how palpably unreasonableas long as they were thefirst to behave badly." Worse, courts often rule that a right allegedly violated by police was not clearly established without deciding whether their actions were unconstitutional. That approach creates a "Catch-22," Willett said, because "plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent" and "important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered."

In this case, by contrast, the disagreement between Steeh and the 7th Circuit hinged on the proper application of well-established law to the facts of the incident. Even if Vann had not claimed qualified immunity, Steeh might still have held that he was entitled to summary judgment under Rule 56because Barton's allegations were insufficient as a matter of law.

If Barton ultimately persuades a jury that Vann violated his rights (or if the case is settled out of court), Vann almost certainly will not be personally on the hook for any payout. After investigating the practices of 81 law enforcement agencies, UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz found that "police officers are virtually always indemnified" in civil rights cases. During the period she studied, "governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement."

Originally posted here:

6th Circuit: This Man Can Sue the Cop Who Arrested Him for Defending His Daughter Against a Feral Cat - Reason

Journal-Courier staff, dbauer@myjournalcourier.com

When the government tracks the location of a cellphone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phones user, wrote John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, in a 2018 ruling that prevented the government from obtaining location data from cellphone towers without a warrant.

We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carriers database of physical location information, Roberts wrote in the decision, Carpenter v. United States.

With that judicial intent in mind, it is alarming to read a new report in The Wall Street Journal that found the Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement.

The data used by the government comes not from the phone companies but from a location data company, one of many that are quietly and relentlessly collecting the precise movements of all smartphone-owning Americans through their phone apps.

Many apps weather apps or coupon apps, for instance gather and record location data without users understanding what the code is up to. That data can then be sold to third-party buyers including, apparently, the government.

Since that data is available for sale, it seems the government believes that no court oversight is necessary.

Use of this type of location-tracking data by the government has not been tested in court. And in the private sector, location data and the multibillion-dollar advertising ecosystem that has eagerly embraced it are both opaque and largely unregulated.

The use of location data to aid in deportations also demonstrates how out of date the notion of informed consent has become. When users accept the terms and conditions for various digital products, not only are they uninformed about how their data is gathered, they are also consenting to future uses that they could never predict.

Without oversight, it is inconceivable that tactics turned against unauthorized immigrants wont eventually be turned to the enforcement of other laws. As the world has seen in the streets of Hong Kong, where protesters wear masks to avoid a network of government facial-recognition cameras, once a surveillance technology is widely deployed in a society it is almost impossible to uproot.

The courts are a ponderous and imperfect venue for protecting Fourth Amendment rights in an age of rapid technological advancement. Exhibit A is the notion that the Carpenter ruling applies only to location data captured by cellphone towers and not to location data streamed from smartphone apps, which can produce nearly identical troves of information.

For far, far too long, lawmakers have neglected their critical role in overseeing how these technologies are used. After all, concern about location tracking is bipartisan, as Republican and Democratic lawmakers told Times Opinion last year.

I am deeply concerned by reports that the Trump administration has been secretly collecting cellphone data without warrants to track the location of millions of people across the United States to target individuals for deportation, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who leads the Oversight and Reform Committee, told The Times. Such Orwellian government surveillance threatens the privacy of every American. The federal government should not have the unfettered ability to track us in our homes, at work, at the doctor or at church. The Oversight Committee plans to fully investigate this issue to ensure that Americans privacy is protected.

Surely, Congress has time to hold hearings about a matter of urgent concern to everyone who owns a smartphone or cares about the government using the most invasive corporate surveillance system ever devised against its own people.

New York Times

Read the rest here:

Editorial: Surveillance by government must have oversight - Jacksonville Journal-Courier

Syracuse, NY -- Five years ago, a Syracuse man was nearly killed in a shooting over a dice game inside a Tallman Street residence.

Now, the accused shooters lawyer is seeking to tour the private residence as his client faces a retrial for the April 7, 2015 shooting.

Defense lawyer Stephen Lance Cimino made the argument under the states recent criminal justice law, which allows the defense -- the accused, too, if he or she is free -- an opportunity to tour the crime scene.

But prosecutor Shaun Chase made it clear that his office would challenge the law itself as unconstitutional.

Its a major local test for the states sweeping criminal justice reform, which went into effect Jan. 1, and also included bail reform, the political lightning rod.

Behind-the-scenes, though, rules surrounding the sharing of evidence and access to crime scenes has been perhaps a bigger point of contention.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick has noted a scenario in which a burglary suspect could be allowed back into the targeted residence in preparation for trial. That could include touring childrens bedrooms.

And Monday, Chase argued that the law violated the Fourth Amendment, subjecting the private citizens of the residence to an illegal search and seizure.

But Cimino fired back that forbidding access to the crime scene denied his clients right to due process, found in both the Fifth and 14th Amendments, as well as rights afforded criminal defendants under the Sixth Amendment.

Cimino said the point wasnt to collect evidence -- five years after the fact -- but to have a first-hand understanding of the layout of the house.

Edwards had already been tried and convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of an 83-year-old man. Hed been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. But an appellate court overturned his conviction on procedural grounds.

Edwards has always maintained that he and the victim were struggling over the gun when it went off. An understanding of the crime scene and where everyone was located is crucial to that defense.

The prosecutor said hed file a protest with the Attorney Generals Office. Cimino vowed to file a response.

State Supreme Court Justice Gordon Cuffy delayed any decision over touring the crime scene until that fight played itself out.

Edwards remains jailed as he awaits his new trial. That means that he would not be touring the crime scene personally, even if his lawyer is granted access.

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.

More here:

Shooting suspects lawyer demands tour of private house. Thats legal, but... - syracuse.com

Join the Star City Thinkers discussions.

We the people have rights given by the Constitution and laws of the land. Owners of producing property, including the providers of high tech products, have rights given by the Constitution and laws of the land. BUT now as in the past laws need to be changed and interpretations of the Constitution may need to change OR the Constitution, itself, may need to be changed.

We will complete a short review of Net Neutrality whereas, there is a conflict between the property rights of original providers and those businesses who wish to hitch a ride on the train; as well as, issues of what is best for the consumers. See ProCon.org link below.

We will then look at 4th amendment issues where there is conflict with privacy issues. See Heritage Foundation link below.

KEY REVIEW MATERIAL:

Should Net Neutrality Be Restored? - Top 3 Pros and Cons

https://www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005390

The Fourth Amendment and New Technologies

https://www.heritage.org/report/the-fourth-amendment-and-new-technologies

Go here to see the original:

Property, Privacy and New Technology - Roanoker

Snap is working on two significant tests that could reshape its flagship app in a critical year. Tipsters have provided me with screenshots of two ongoing tests that have rolled out to a small percentage of Snapchats user base. One is a redesign of the app for Android and iOS that provides a new home for the Snap Map and the companys original video programming. The other is a test of breaking news headlines inside the app that injects timely news briefs into Snapchat to complement the existing magazine-style stories on the Discover page.

Lets look at them in turn.

The redesign takes an app that has long been limited to three screens and splits them into five. Snapchat currently opens to the camera, with a space for chats to the left and the Discover page which features a collection of ephemeral stories from friends, creators, third-party publishers, and Snap itself to the right. In the new design, the Snap Map which displays your friends physical locations on an animated map, and was previously accessed by pulling down from the camera screen is now on the left of your chats. Discover has been renamed Community. And Snaps slate of original series, which includes serialized dramas and reality-style programs, can be found to the right of Community in a new tab that has inherited the Discover name.

Perhaps most dramatically for Snap, which once seemed to pride itself in its obscure design choices, Snapchat is getting a navigation bar. Youll be able to see where you are within the app at a glance, and move directly from screen to screen with a single tap instead of swiping. Its both a totally obvious thing to do and, for Snap, a radical departure.

Were exploring ways to streamline navigation across Snapchat, soliciting feedback from our community to inform future versions of our app, a Snap spokeswoman told me. This tests UI offers more space to innovate and increases the opportunity to engage with and discover even more of what Snapchat has to offer.

The test of this new look comes three years after Snaps last redesign, which was widely panned and spurred 2 percent of active users to stop using Snapchat entirely. Snap gradually walked back some of the most hated changes, and that combined with new attention to its long-neglected Android app and marketing itself internationally led the company to have something of a comeback last year. Snapchat has added uses for the past four straight quarters, and is now used by 218 million people a day.

Still, the company is not profitable. And while it remains a hit with high school and college-age users, adults who try the app still complain loudly that they find Snapchat difficult to use. I find these complaints somewhat overstated I think most people avoid learning how to use any technology they dont have to, and that if boomers friends were all using Snapchat they would manage to figure it out within a couple of days. But still, theres no denying that Snapchat has a learning curve higher than, say, Facebook Messenger.

And for everything that did to give Snapchat a sense of cool in its early days, theres a good argument to be made that its more arcane user decisions are holding it back. Id put the location of the Snap Map high on that list its a clever feature that Facebook has found itself totally unable to copy due to privacy concerns, and today its basically invisible inside Snapchat. Giving the map an easy-to-find screen within the app feels like a no-brainer.

Similarly, Snap has invested heavily in premium programming for its Snap Originals. (Although not quite as heavily as, say, Quibi.) Currently, what Snap calls Shows are displayed in a row next to other publisher content on the Discover page, where they are easily ignored. Giving them a place of prominence within the app feels like a similarly obvious step.

Still, Snap learned its lesson from the great redesign debacle of 2017, which it rolled out globally with very little testing. Today Snap, like every other social company, is taking a deliberate approach to major changes. I suspect this one will be popular and ultimately implemented, though. Where the bad redesign scrambled a bunch of popular elements and moved them into unfamiliar places, the five-screen design feels additive to the experience. You navigate the app less, and use it more. Thats a win for the company.

The second test, while less dramatic, is more relevant to our everyday interests here at The Interface. There are two basic ways to put news on your social platform. The first is to let everyone fight it out in a feed, and do some light curating around the big moments. Think the Twitter timeline plus Moments, or Facebooks News Feed plus a news tab. The upside to this approach is that you make room for lots of voices, including some who have been historically marginalized. The downside is that lots of voices have historically been marginalized for a reason theyre overtly racist, for example, or they tell you that drinking bleach will cure your cancer.

The second approach, and the one favored by Snap, has been to allow only whitelisted publishers onto the platform. In theory, this should elevate high-quality and mainstream news publishers while limiting the amount of misinformation on the platform. It hasnt always been perfect Snapchats Discover page has long been criticized for clickbait and sexually provocative stories but the company has seen far fewer scandals around hosting dangerous and extremist content than its peers.

The news briefs I saw featured timely headlines from publishers include NowThis, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Called Happening Now, the section curates top headlines about developments in the United States and the world. Each one-sentence headline can be tapped to bring up a full screen news brief containing a photo and a short article. (The one I saw, about the New Hampshire primary, was about 75 words.)

Snap confirmed the test.

We are in the very early stages of exploring how to evolve news offerings on Snapchat, the company said. We are working with a handful of partners and testing with a small percentage of Snapchatters in the U.S. We dont have additional details to share at this time.

A collection of news briefs may look like a small thing, and perhaps it is. But surfacing high-quality mainstream news outlets like the Post and the Journal to a young audience strikes me as a good thing, particularly in an election year.

Snap emphasized to me that both of these tests are in their early stages and might change substantially before they are released to a global audience, if they are released globally at all. But it seems clear to me that at least in the case of the redesign, larger forces will continue pulling them toward the more accessible version of the app I saw in screenshots.

Having a reputation for being inaccessible benefited Snapchat until it didnt. As the app grows up, its working to become a more welcoming place. Which means being a little bit more like everyone else.

Correction, 10:11 p.m.: This article originally said Snapchat is used by 218 million people a month. It is actually used by 218 million people a day.

In Tuesdays edition we referred to Maui in Moana as a god. A sharp-eyed reader pointed out that Maui is, in fact, a demi-god. The Interface regrets the error.

Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.

Trending up: Twitter partnered with the US Census Bureau to launch a new tool aimed at combating misinformation about the Census. When someone searches for certain keywords associated with the Census, a prompt will direct them to an official government website.

Trending up: Instagram rolled out an update to combat misinformation about the coronavirus. Now, when users click on the #coronavirus hashtag, theyll see a notice encouraging them to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for credible information.

Trending down: Coronavirus rumors are still going viral on YouTube despite the companys efforts to stop them from spreading. The video platform is doing better than many other social networking sites, but misinformation abounds.

Mike Bloomberg has outspent Trump on Facebook ads since joining the presidential race. Over the past two weeks, the former mayor of New York has spent an average of $1 million a day on Facebook ads. Heres David Ingram at NBC:

On a single day, Jan. 30, Bloomberg bought $1.7 million worth of Facebook ads, signaling just how much hes willing to put his personal wealth behind his long shot bid.

His campaign budget is virtually limitless, so he has the luxury of being able to engage on all of the campaign battlefronts, said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic political consultant in Miami who is not working for a presidential candidate this year.

Bloomberg, with an estimated net worth of around $61 billion, said after the muddled results from the Iowa caucuses that he would ramp up his budget for ads and staff. Hes focused on the dozen-plus states that will cast votes on Super Tuesday, March 3, which is reflected in his Facebook spending.

The UK government is planning to give platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook a mandate to protect their UK users from illegal content related to child exploitation and terrorism, as well as harmful content more generally. The regulations will apply to any websites that allow user-generated content. What will this mean in practice? Seems like it could be big. (Jon Porter / The Verge)

Facebook suspended a network of accounts used by Russian military intelligence to plant misinformation online. The network targeted Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe. (Jack Stubbs / Reuters)

Facebook also suspended two more networks of accounts that were each engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a government. The first operation originated in Iran and focused mainly on a US audience. The second originated in Myanmar and Vietnam and targeted audiences in Myanmar. (Facebook)

Facebook has been trying to ban gun sales on the platform for four years. But gun sellers are finding workarounds, gaming the Marketplace by using coded language. (Matt Drange / Protocol)

Facebook delayed the rollout of its dating feature in Europe after the Irish Data Protection Commission raised issues with the features compliance with European Union data protection rules. The feature was supposed to debut before Valentines Day. (Sad trombone.) (Parmy Olson / The Wall Street Journal)

A man experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles is suing the city over a Facebook page used by police. The lawsuit asserts that Facebook groups where residents were complaining about homeless encampments led to the man being harassed by police. (Emily Alpert Reyes / Los Angeles Times)

The Department of Homeland Security is buying up cell phone location data for immigration and border enforcement purposes. While this seems like it could infringe on peoples Fourth Amendment rights, its unclear whether using location data to target people constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure. (Gilad Edelman / Wired)

WeChat users in the US and Canada are having their messages about the coronavirus blocked to prevent contacts in China from seeing them. Its yet another example of China trying to censor unflattering information, even on international soil. (David Gilbert / Vice)

Essential Products, a consumer electronics start-up founded by the former Google executive Andy Rubin, is shutting down. The company was dogged by news about Rubins departure from Google, which involved a $90 million exit package and credible sexual misconduct allegations from an employee. (Rubin denied the allegations.) Daisuke Wakabayashi and Erin Griffith at The New York Times have the story:

In 2018, Essential received buyout interest from larger companies like Amazon, Walmart and several telecom carriers, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Walmart and Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Any potential buyout would have valued the company below its $1 billion valuation, the person said.

But interest evaporated, in part because of the risk associated with Mr. Rubins workplace scandals. In 2017, The Information, a technology news site, reported that he had departed Google after an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, prompting him to take a leave of absence from Essential to deal with personal matters.

Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, criticized Facebook and Google onstage at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas. They provide free services then make you pay for their service in loss of privacy and loss of freedom, he said.

Carlos Maza, a journalist who calls YouTube deeply unethical and reckless, left Vox to work full-time as a YouTube creator. The move shocked fans whod come to know Maza as a critic of the video-sharing platform, after it failed to stop a right-wing pile-on against him last year. Fun little profile. (Kevin Roose / The New York Times)

YouTube is testing out a new clap feature to let fans donate to creators. The emphasis on donations suggests YouTube is closely watching whats working for creators on Twitch. Look what happens when platforms have something meaningful to compete against! (Julia Alexander / The Verge)

WhatsApp hit two billion users, up from 1.5 billion two years ago. The Facebook-owned messaging app is now the most popular chat platform. Seems like it will be a strong and growing business when the FTC forces Facebook to spin it into a separate company! (Manish Singh / TechCrunch)

In the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg kept his plans for world domination in handwritten journals. He destroyed them. But a few revealing pages survived in this excerpt from a new book that I just got my hands on yesterday. (Steven Levy / Wired)

Reuters launched a new business unit to fact check misinformation on Facebook. The team will review videos and photos as well as news headlines and other content in English and Spanish submitted by Facebook or flagged by the wider Reuters editorial team. (Josh Constine / TechCrunch)

Digital blackface the appropriation of words, dances, GIFs, and memes originating within communities of color has found its way to TikTok. Questionable hashtags like #Ghetto, #InTheGhetto, and#NWordPass have taken off, as have challenges like #CripWalk. We should be talking a lot more about digital blackface, which you see everywhere once you start looking for it. (Tatiana Walk-Morris / OneZero)

Gossip influencers are creating an entire economy around chronicling the lives and romantic adventures of social media stars. In the process, theyre blurring the line between reporting and influencing. Were here for it! (Rebecca Jennings / Vox)

Tech billionaires give away billions but its just a small fraction of their staggering wealth. When you look at how much theyre giving away verses how much is in their bank accounts, the situation appears less admirable. (Theodore Schleifer / Recode)

This is what happens when you finally talk to the person youve been swiping left on, on Tinder (and why they keep showing up). Kaitlyn Tiffany has an absolutely perfect piece in The Atlantic on a phenomenon familiar to any longtime Tinder user (ahem): the person who keeps swiping right on you and showing up in your feed no matter how many times you say no to them:

I had heard from women on Twitter, and from one of my offline friends, that Alex was rude in their DMs after they matched on Tinder. When I asked him about this, he said, Im very narcissistic. I own that.

Hammerli works in digital marketing, though he would not say with what company. He uses Tinder exclusively for casual sex, a fact that he volunteered, along with an explanation of his views on long-term relationships: Idiotic in a culture where we move on from shit so easily and upgrade iPhones every year. When I asked whether hes ever been in love, he responded: lmao no. Monogamy, he said, is a fly-over state thing.

Happy Valentines Day.

Send us tips, comments, questions, and additional Snapchat tests: casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.

Originally posted here:

Snapchat is testing a big new redesign - The Verge

Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington States 7th Congressional District listens at a press conference. (Elaine Thompson / AP Photo)

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This past fall, Amazon challenged the proudly progressive character of my home city, Seattle, pouring $1.5 million into its City Council elections.Ad Policy

In doing so, Amazon placed not just a thumb but also a fistful of cash on the scales of our democracy. Thanks to immediate organizing on the ground and the speaking out of elected officials, the cynical and last-minute corporate spending on elections backfired: Nearly all of the Amazon-backed candidates lost their races.

However, on this 10th anniversary of the US Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that catalyzed our current era of super PACs and corporate power, the clear danger posed by money in politics is real. Citizens United vastly expanded the rights of corporate entities and the super-wealthy to spend or invest their money to influence political elections and deepened the corrupting electoral influence of big money.

In the 10 years since Citizens United, weve seen newly created super PACs and dark money political nonprofits spend staggering sums, taking in unlimited donations without having to disclose them. While they cannot coordinate their spending with specific candidate campaigns, they can spend on political attack ads and other forms of political influence. From 2010 to 2018, super PACs spent roughly $2.9 billion on federal elections while dark-money spending rose from $129 million in the period from 2000 to 2008 to $964 million from 2010 to 2018.

It is important to note that Citizens United was not the first time political money in elections has been equated with free speech and corporations have been equated with people with constitutionally protected rights. The claim that corporate entities are legal persons with constitutional rights has been around for over a century.

Political money as free speech originated in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, while corporate political free speech rights began with the 1978 First National Bank v. Bellotti ruling.

But corporate constitutional rights extend beyond First Amendment free speech rights. Corporate constitutional rights began in the 1880s when Supreme Court Justices hijacked the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendmentintended to guarantee equal protections for black Americansclaiming the rights of people also applied to corporate entities. Courts also interpreted sections of the original Constitution to protect corporate rights over those of people and communities, even though corporate entities are not mentioned anywhere in our Constitution.Current Issue

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The collective consequences of this have been devastating.

The corporate First Amendment right not to speak means that consumers may end up knowing less about whats in the food they eat. The corporate First Amendment religious right granted in the 2014 Hobby Lobby decision gives a for-profit corporation the right to deny reproductive health care coverage based on religious belief.

The corporate Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights prevents warrantless inspections of many businesses to ensure safe working and environmental protections.

The corporate Fifth Amendment takings rights defines certain corporate regulations that protect private land as a taking, with the corporation being justly compensated for lost current and/or future profits.

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Therefore, any full remedy to the questions of money into elections must address not only the immediate effects of Citizens United but also the entirety of corporate constitutional rights.

That is why in 2019, I introduced House Resolution 48, the We the People Amendment calling for ending all corporate constitutional rightsas well as political money as free speech.

The flood of money into elections following Citizens United and other court decisions has eroded public trust in our elected leaders to seriously address issues like health care, climate change, wealth inequality, guns, and infrastructure. Only by ending all of these corporate constitutional rights and the corrupting influence of political money as free speech can we have a government that represents all of us rather than only the interests of the super-wealthy.

The We the People Amendment (HJR 48), co-sponsored by 67 of my House colleagues, enjoys widespread support with the American public. The national group Move to Amend has been educating and organizing citizens across the country, building an authentic, grassroots movement seeking a systemic solution to address the harms of Citizens United.

The American people urgently want us to return our government back to the people instead of the highest bidders. Its up to all of us to make that happen.

Go here to read the rest:

Time to Reverse 'Citizens United' and Corporate Constitutional Rights - The Nation

from the Officer-Cure-of-Millhaven dept

Cops kill dogs. And they do it at a rate even the Justice Department is concerned about it. This comes from pro-cop site PoliceOne, so if there's any bias in this article, it's for cops rather than timcushinghatescops.com.

No one keeps records on how many privately owned dogs are shot and killed each year by American law enforcement officers so there are no hard figures. But a perusal of the Web and social media will tell you it's a lot.

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says it's an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an "epidemic" and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

If that estimate is even close to accurate, that's nearly 10,000 dogs killed by cops per year. While it's true a number of these dogs may be strays, there's no ignoring the fact that dogs make cops act like bunnies with handguns whenever they're anywhere nearby. If a dog acts like a dog around a cop (i.e., barking at someone it doesn't recognize, etc.), it has a good chance of ending up dead.

Six of eleven circuits have declared the unjustified killing of a family dog is a violation of Fourth Amendment rights. People are protected against "unreasonable seizures" of their property, and the ultimate "seizing" is the summary execution of pets they own.

But courts are inconsistent in the application of this principle, so cops continue to kill dogs at an alarming rate and are only stripped of their qualified immunity at an equally alarmingly low rate. In one case, a cop kept his immunity despite missing the non-threatening dog he was trying to kill and wounding a nearby child instead. In other cases, cops have killed dogs while entering houses without a warrant, raiding a house over an unpaid gas bill, and while responding to a burglar alarm accidentally tripped by a family member entering the house.

Here's a little bit of good news -- both for dogs and the Fourth Amendment -- from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. (h/t Gabriel Malor)

A cop who killed a non-threatening dog has had his immunity stripped and will have to face a lawsuit over his unjustified actions. Here are the events that led up to the pet's killing, as recounted by the court [PDF].

On September 24, 2017, [Officer Michael] Roane drove to Rays property to assist with an arrest warrant that was being served on Ray for domestic abuse. When Roane arrived on Rays property, four other officers were already present and parked in the driveway. Rays doga 150-pound German Shepard named Jaxwas secured by a zip-lead attached to two trees that allowed the animal limited movement within a play area of the yard. Rather than park in the driveway like the other officers, Roane parked his truck within the dogs play area...

Reading this complaint in the light most favorable to common sense, Officer Roane placed himself in danger and then tried to use his self-inflicted peril to justify shooting the family's dog. Pretty tough to do when you're surrounded by actually "reasonable" officers.

prompting the other officers on scene to shout and gesture toward Roane, indicating that he should [w]ait and [l]et [Ray] get her dog.

Roane did not do this. He did not wait. He did not allow anyone to secure the dog. Instead, he "exited his vehicle and started walking towards the house."

Things then happened that anyone -- including Officer Roane -- would have expected to happen. Roane advanced towards the house. The dog advanced to the end of its zip line. The dog was forced to de-escalate because it had run out of line and was being called back by its owner. Officer Roane had no such restraints and was unwilling to listen to the other officers' attempt to rein him in. But it does appear from the allegations made in the lawsuit Roane knew he was not in danger.

As Roane emerged from his vehicle, Jax began barking at and approaching Roane. Roane responded by backing away from the dog and drawing his firearm, while Ray ran to the zip-lead and began shouting Jaxs name. In a short moment, Jax reached the end of the zip-lead and could not get any closer to Roane. Roane observed that the dog could not reach him, and further observed that Ray was now holding onto Jaxs fully-extended lead and continuing to call Jaxs name. Roane therefore stopped backing up.

Roane's decision to end his retreat signalled he knew he was able to avoid any contact with the dog whose area he had entered and proceeded into over the protests of other law enforcement officers. That should have been the end of it.

Instead, this was the end of it.

Roane took a step forward, positioning himself over Jax, and fired his weapon into the dogs head. The dog died from the wound.

Instead of being stripped of his "Human Race Participation Card," Officer Roane will only be stripped of his immunity for his apparent cold-blooded killing of an animal he recognized posed no threat to him as long as he remained outside of the zip-line's reach.

Unimaginably, the lower court said this was all fine and reasonable.

On September 20, 2018, the district court dismissed Rays federal claim for unlawful seizure of Jax and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining two state-law claims. In so doing, the district court concluded Roanes actions had been reasonable under the totality of the circumstances and he would be entitled to qualified immunity.

Oh absolutely not, says the Fourth Circuit. Taking the allegations in favor of the complainant, there's plenty that's not settled here and it's certainly fucking not settled when it comes to Roane's actions once he moved out of harm's way. Stepping back in to kill a dog that could not reach him isn't reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

Officer Roane tried the old QI trick: state that no precedent exactly on point exists. In other words, no other cop killed a 150-lb German Shepard named "Jax" in this backyard, in this jurisdiction, at this time of day, etc. QI has become "Steamed Hams" and every apparently unjustified rights violation can't be a cop's fault because the rapidly-evolving situation is the Aurora Borealis localized entirely in this part of the country at this time of year etc.

The court declines to swing at this bad pitch. QI isn't just about point-by-point precedent. It's also about the reasonableness of the officer's actions. And it doesn't see anything reasonable about Officer Roane's decision to shoot a leashed dog in the head after ensuring he could safely do so.

Viewing all facts in the complaint and inferences arising therefrom in Rays favor, it is clear that Roane shot Jax at a time when he could not have held a reasonable belief that the dog posed a threat to himself or others. Accepting these facts, we hold that a reasonable police officer would have understood that killing Jax under such circumstances would constitute an unreasonable seizure of Rays property under the Fourth Amendment.

Roane's wish to have his novel dog-killing recognized as novel by the Appeals Court fails. "Reasonable" still means "reasonable," even if this officer found a new way to kill someone's pet:

Viewing all facts in the complaint and inferences arising therefrom in Rays favor, it is clear that Roane shot Jax at a time when he could not have held a reasonable belief that the dog posed a threat to himself or others. Accepting these facts, we hold that a reasonable police officer would have understood that killing Jax under such circumstances would constitute an unreasonable seizure of Rays property under the Fourth Amendment.

The court says that even if the cop found a cool new way to kill dogs, it's not going to hand out immunity without a fuller examination of the facts.

We acknowledge that there is no directly on-point, binding authority in this circuit that establishes the principle we adopt today. Booker, 855 F.3d at 543. Until now, we have never had the occasion to hold that it is unreasonable for a police officer to shoot a privately owned animal when it does not pose an immediate threat to the officer or others.

Gun down a defenseless dog and, well, have fun defending yourself in court, "on-point" precedent notwithstanding.

In Altman, we held that privately owned dogs are protected under the Fourth Amendment, and further established that the reasonableness of the seizure of a dog depends on whether the governmental interest in safety outweighs the private interest in a particular case. 330 F.3d at 20305. Based on these broader principles alone, it would have been manifestly apparent to a reasonable officer in Roanes position that shooting a privately owned dog, in the absence of any safety rationale at all, is unreasonable.

No immunity for Officer Roane. The case goes back to the trial court that failed so badly the first time around. If an officer can avoid interacting with a dog they perceive as threatening and still accomplish their objectives (i.e., arrest a suspect), then they should do so. Anything else is objectively (and subjectively) unreasonable. Roane placed himself in harm's way, ignored other officers' advice to not place himself in the dogs' play area, and killed a dog only after it had reached the end of its lead and no longer posed a threat to him. Fuck this guy. He deserves whatever the plaintiff can extract from him.

Filed Under: dog, police, qualified immunity

See original here:

Court To Cop: We Don't Need On-Point Precedent To Deny You Immunity For Killing A Dog That Couldn't Hurt You - Techdirt

In the United Kingdom, there is an eye in the sky surveilling people on the streetand soon it may know their names. Human rights organizations such as Big Brother Watch and Liberty, as well as British parliamentarians, are challenging what appears to be a silent rollout of facial surveillance across the United Kingdom. For Americans concerned about a developing Big Brother at home, recent judicial and regulatory developments on facial recognition technology in the U.K. may provide a glimpse into a potential future.

As the U.S. government and the U.S. public consider the potential future use and regulation of facial surveillance, the debate in the U.K. can help to inform the U.S. discussion, particularly in terms of how law enforcement may use, and can abuse, the technology. It can also offer a window into the types of legal arguments (albeit in the British context) that might be used to challenge police usage and preview potential models for the regulation of facial surveillance.

State-operated surveillance is hardly a novel phenomenon in the U.K. The first closed-circuit TV (CCTV) system in the United Kingdom was set up in 1953 in London, for the Queens coronation. By the 1960s, permanent CCTV began to cover certain London streets. Since then, the reach of CCTV surveillance has expanded in sporadic bursts, with many cameras installed in response to the 1990s IRA attacks and then again after 9/11 and the London Underground bombing. Now, there are more than 6 million CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom, more per citizen than in any country except China.

The British government argues that CCTV serves four purposes: the detection of crime and emergency incidents, the recording of events for investigations and evidence, direct surveillance of suspects, and the deterrence of crime. However, critics argue there is little evidence to support the proposition that its use has reduced levels of crime. An internal report by Londons Metropolitan Police noted that only one camera out of every 1,000 had been involved in solving a crime.

While CCTV has traditionally consisted of fixed-point, video-recording capabilities, in recent years, new technologies have greatly expanded the capabilities of surveillance. Automatic license plate readers, police body cameras and drone surveillance have created a more flexible, mobile and intelligent surveillance apparatus in the U.K.

In recent years, however, facial surveillance, or automated facial recognition (AFR), has emerged as one of the most desired surveillance tools for law enforcement. Facial recognition offers a solution to problems that have plagued police use of CCTV. In the past, successful use of CCTV had been limited because the police did not have the systems or staff to review and utilize footage. With facial recognition technology, algorithms can automatically identify and notify police of certain individuals in footage. Police could use this capability to aid traditional policing, like identifying an individual before or after an arrest or tracking the historical location of a criminal suspect. But police can also use facial recognition for more novel surveillance tactics, like real-time observation of suspects.

Facial recognition technology has been used by police in the U.K. since 1998, but its effectiveness in controlled environments has increased significantly in the past few years thanks to the significant increase in the availability of labeled facial images from social media and a new generation of computers with increased processing power. That improved recognition ability has led the Metropolitan Police and the South Wales Police to run several tests of real-time use of facial recognition within CCTV, or AFR.

Yet, in practice, facial recognition is a deeply flawed tool for policing. Despite the apparent accuracy of facial recognition in a laboratory setting, police tests in the U.K. appear to indicate that, in a live setting, the technology is anything but accurate. In 2018 and 2019, the civil liberties organization Big Brother Watch submitted a series of freedom of information requests to both the Metropolitan Police and the South Wales Police. By Big Brother Watchs analysis, the Metropolitan Police use of AFR has a false-positive rate of 98 percent. Out of the 104 times the police system matched a person to an image of a wanted criminal, 102 of the matches identified the wrong person. Only two people were identified correctly: One of the two had been erroneously placed on the wanted criminal list, and the other was on a mental-health-related watchlist.

The information provided by the South Wales Police painted a similarly stark picture of the inaccuracies of police use of facial recognition. The South Wales Police system had a false-positive rate of 91 percent. The system made 2,451 incorrect identifications and only 234 correct ones out of the 2,685 times the system matched a face to a name on the watchlist. On the basis of those false positives, South Wales Police staged interventions for 31 innocent citizens, in which they stopped individuals and asked them to provide proof of their identity.

An independent study undertaken by the University of Essex, commissioned by the Metropolitan Police, paints a slightly rosier picture, if only barely. By the reports accounting of the Metropolitan Polices tests, the system made 42 matches. Across all tests, the facial recognition matches were verifiably correct only eight times, representing 19 percent of all matches. Despite this low accuracy, and the groundless police stops it triggers, the Metropolitan Police characterized these tests as legal and successful in finding wanted offenders and said that they would continue to implement trials. Due to a lack of data on how frequently the Metropolitan Police currently undertake police stops without reasonable suspicion, it is difficult to identify whether AFR increases the rate of suspicionless stops by police. Activists are concerned that, when AFR is fully operationalized, such high rates of false positives will prompt police to undertake more stops and searches of citizens without any reasonable suspicion.

Activists also worry that facial surveillance could become an instrument of police abuse. In East London, the Metropolitan Police tested facial surveillance on citizens in a public square by attaching facial recognition-enabled cameras to an unmarked van on the street. Citizens largely passed by the cameras without remark, either not noticing or not caring. One man, however, after seeing Big Brother Watch placards about the covert test, pulled the opening of his sweater over his mouth. As he passed by the cameras, his face partially obscured, officers detained him and began to question him about why he was covering his face. Ultimately, he was releasedbut not before police photographed his face and fined him $115 for disorderly conduct.

These failures in real-time and investigatory surveillance are all the more concerning due to the lack of clarity regarding which authorities are responsible for oversight. There is no legislation in the U.K. specifically authorizing or regulating the use of AFR. Instead, the regulation of facial recognition relies on a collection of bureaucratic entities tasked with monitoring different aspects of the state surveillance apparatus.

The regulation of surveillance camera systems is controlled largely by the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) of 2012, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) of 2000 and the Data Protection Act (DPA) of 2018. The surveillance camera commissioner, an independent official appointed by the secretary of state, counsels the secretary and other relevant authorities on proper compliance with the surveillance camera provisions of the POFA. The biometrics commissioner, another independent official appointed by the secretary of state, regulates the use and retention of biometric data by the government, including approving police applications to retain certain biometric data. Meanwhile, the RIPA is administered by the investigatory powers commissioner, an independent appointee of the secretary of state; and the DPA is administered by the information commissioner, an independent official appointed by and reporting directly to Parliament.

Not unsurprisingly, in 2016, the surveillance camera commissioner expressed confusion about which commissioner was responsible for oversight of AFR. Most recently, this ambiguity has led to a confrontation between the surveillance camera commissioner and the information commissioner over whether AFRrequires the government to issue a new code of conduct to police, to regulate how they deploy the technology.

Since Lawfares last coverage of AFR in the U.K., British civil liberties organizations have launched multiple campaigns to resist the police use of AFR and to press for sufficient assurances of legal and ethical protections of civil liberties.

An important recent High Court case largely ended favorably for the police. With the help of the human rights organization Liberty, Ed Bridgesa former Cardiff city councillor concerned about a facial recognition camera that surveilled him while he shopped for his lunchtime sandwich and attended a peaceful protestlevied a suit challenging the legality of police surveillance. Bridges brought his suit against the South Wales Police, the home secretary, the information commissioner and the surveillance commissioner.

Bridges brought three claims against the parties. First, he alleged that the use of AFR interfered with his privacy rights under European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Articles 8(1) and Article 8(2) (these ECHR rights are codified in British law by the U.K. Human Rights Act of 1998), which provide a

right to respect for private and family life, home, and correspondence [without] interference by a public authority except such as is in accordance with law and is necessary ... in the interest of national security, public safety, or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights or freedoms of others.

Second, Bridges alleged that the use of AFR did not comply with the 1998 Data Protection Act, which requires personal data be processed lawfully and fairly, and with the first data protection principle of the 2018 Data Protection Act, which requires law enforcement to acquire consent or determine that the collection of sensitive data is strictly necessary to effect a law enforcement task. The suit alleged that uses of AFR did not comply with requirements under the 2018 act to assess the potential impact on personal data when a type of processing is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Third, Bridgess suit alleged that the use of AFR would be likely to disproportionately misidentify, and as a result discriminate against, women and minority individuals. Bridges pointed to studies in the United States that demonstrated that facial recognition algorithms have high error rates for identification of women and ethnic minorities because of a lack of diversity in training data. Bridges argued that facial recognition algorithms in the U.K. are likely similarly biased and would likewise disproportionately misidentify women and ethnic minorities, in violation of the Public sector equality duty (149) of the Equality Act of 2010.

In its September 2019 judgment, however, the High Court did not find any such privacy violation. First, the court recognized that facial surveillance was not a superficial search and thus engaged with Article 8(1) privacy rights, but found that AFR was sufficiently authorized and regulated by police internal policies and existing common law legislation (including the 2018 DPA and the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice, issued pursuant to POFA Section 33). The court also held that AFRs interference in citizens privacy rights was sufficiently justified by the objective of identifying people of interest to the South Wales Police, its use was rationally connected to the objective, a less intrusive measure could not be substituted, and its use fairly balanced the rights of the individual and the interests of the community. Second, after analyzing the interaction of AFR with Article 8 rights, the court found that the use of AFR was being processed lawfully and fairly under the 1998 DPA. The court also held that the use of AFR was strictly necessary for identifying individuals on a watchlist and necessary for the common law duty of preventing and detecting crime. The court held that there was not sufficient evidence to suggest that the AFR tool demonstrated any discrimination or bias and that the South Wales Police had sufficiently complied with its Equality Act requirements. While the court suggested that internal policy guidelines for using AFR were likely not sufficient to ensure sensitive data processing compliant with the 2018 DPA, it did not hold that the guidelines failed to meet the compliance document requirements in Section 42(2) of the 2018 DPA. Instead, it recommended that the South Wales Police reconsider their guidelines with the direction from the information commissioner. On the basis of these analyses, Bridgess challenge was dismissed on all grounds.

On the surface, the court appeared to address many of the legal grounds for challenging facial surveillance, suggesting that U.K. police can begin to adopt facial surveillance without fear of legal reproach. However, the courts opinion is concerned primarily with the specific kind and use of AFR that Bridges challenged. The court specified that the surveillance against Bridges was minimally intrusive because it was used for only a limited time, covered a limited space, and was engaged for targeted identification. While the case could provide a valuable precedent for police departments that plan to use AFR in a similar way, the decision does not appear to authorize the form of dragnet surveillance that critics fear pervasive AFR can provide, as the court only held that the described minimally intrusive usage of AFR to date has complied with the Human Rights Act and data protection requirements. Bridges has been granted leave to appeal the judgment.

Shortly after the courts ruling, the information commissioner declared her disagreement with the High Courts decision and struck out a harsh stance against unchecked use of AFR. In May 2018, her office opened an investigation into the use of AFR by the Metropolitan Police and the South Wales Police. Her office concluded that the government should introduce a binding statutory code of practice to guide when and how AFR will be deployed. Subsequent to the Bridges decision, the information commissioner also issued a nonbinding advisory opinion on AFR that clearly disagrees with the High Court judgment and aims to mitigate its impact, specifically stating to police departments that the High Court judgement should not be seen as a blanket authorization for police forces to use [AFR] systems in all circumstances. When [AFR] is used, my opinion should be followed. At present, the Office of the Information Commissioner has stated that it is coordinating with the Home Office, the investigatory powers commissioner, the biometrics commissioner, the surveillance camera commissioner, and the police on developing an AFR code of conduct.

Against this contentious debate within government, Big Brother Watch has forged ahead with its resistance campaign. On June 13, 2018, Big Brother Watch and Baroness Jenny Jones sent pre-action letters to the Metropolitan Police and the home secretary. In the letters, Jones expressed her concerns that the police use of AFR could identify and thus interfere with confidential meetings with whistleblowers and campaigners with whom she meets regularly as part of her Parliamentary duties and that she would need to modify her conduct to avoid meeting certain individuals in an area where AFR would or might be used. She also expressed concern about the sources of images used to construct AFR watchlists, including whether images are sourced from police protest surveillance, the internet or social media.

Big Brother Watch and Jones argue that the use of AFR violates Articles 8, 10 and 11 of the ECHR. Article 8, as mentioned earlier, enumerates certain privacy rights. Articles 10 and 11 declare the individual rights to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly and association, which mirror the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The letters allege that use of AFR interferes with these rights by retaining sensitive biometric data and location information for an indeterminate period of time (police reports have varied on that subject).

In July 2019, the Metropolitan Police announced that it had completed its trials of AFR and was considering potential implementation. Big Brother Watch chose to stay its challenge, to see if the Metropolitan Police would voluntarily end or restrict its usage. The Metropolitan Police has now chosen to begin operational usage of AFR, targeted at serious crime like serious violence, gun and knife crime, [and] child sexual exploitation. In response, Big Brother Watch declared that it will continue its legal challenge. It is also likely to continue its work with Lord Clement-Jones, chair of the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee, to propose a bill that would place a moratorium on the use of AFR in public places and require the secretary of state to undertake a review of the use of AFR in public places.

The state of facial surveillance in the United Kingdom can give Americans a glimpse of how AFR might be implemented and used in the United States. The adjudication of the Big Brother Watch challenge, much like the Bridges decision, might provide some new perspective on what kinds of uses of AFR do or dont match up to legal standards for privacy (albeit European ones). At this time, despite the U.S. Supreme Courts comments in Jones and Carpenter that individuals hold some privacy interest in the sum of their movements in public, the Fourth Amendment does not appear to regulate the use of AFR. If U.S. courts refrain from extending Fourth Amendment protections to particular uses of AFR, the regulatory regime that emerges in the United Kingdom could provide helpful inspiration for regulating the use of AFR in the United States.

See the original post:

Facial Recognition Has Its Eye on the U.K. - Lawfare

A hot potato: Clearview AI has found itself in a sticky legal situation by allowing law enforcement access to a facial recognition database full of images it has scraped from the internet. Tech companies are distancing themselves from the service by demanding the company stop collecting data from their websites.

Facebook has become the latest company to "demand" that Clearview AI stop scraping its platforms for its facial recognition database. The social media giant has sent the company several letters asking it to stop using user data from Facebook and Instagram but has not yet issued a formal cease and desist letter.

"Scraping people's information violates our policies," a spokesperson for Facebook told CBSNews on Thursday. "Which is why we've demanded that Clearview stop accessing or using information from Facebook or Instagram."

Facebook has not decided whether to take its demand to the next level yet, but other companies already have. Twitter sent Clearview a C&D letter in January. YouTube and Google have also issued legal warnings to the startup earlier this week.

Clearview's database contains more than three billion images obtained from the internet. Its intended purpose is to aid law enforcement in identifying suspects in crimes or other "persons of interest."

The company maintains that it is above-board on the data that it collects. Clearview AI CEO Hoan Tan-That said in an interview, "If it's public, you know, and it's out there, it could be inside Google search engine, it can be inside ours as well."

As Google pointed out, there is a big difference between indexing websites, which it does with the website owner's permission, and scraping images and information on private individuals without their consent.

"Comparisons to Google Search are inaccurate. Most websites want to be included in Google Search, and we give webmasters control over what information from their site is included in our search results, including the option to opt-out entirely. Clearview secretly collected image data of individuals without their consent and in violation of rules explicitly forbidding them from doing so."

Tan-That also claims his company's practices are protected by the First Amendment, a claim that he will likely have to prove in court if the situation escalates.

It is easy to forget that the Bill of Rights is a set of restrictions placed on the government to protect the people. The First Amendment restricts the government from enacting laws or taking action that infringes on the individual's freedom of speech. It does not mention any other types of impediments, such as a company adding restrictions to the language used on its premises or platform.

In this case, Clearview collects data without the individual's knowledge or permission, and it ultimately ends up in the hands of the government (law enforcement). One could easily argue the company's data collection is a violation of a person's Fourth Amendment right to privacy and protection from illegal search and seizure.

If Clearview AI persists, it will very likely end up in court with a very shaky Constitutional defense. ZDNet notes, the startup is already facing a class-action lawsuit in Illinois for violating the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act. We'll have to wait and see just how many legal challenges the company is willing or able to withstand.

Editorial credit: Frederic Legrand - COMEO via Shutterstock

Here is the original post:

Facebook adds itself to the list of companies demanding Clearview cease scraping its websites - TechSpot

This is an opinion column.

Christopher Shane McKinney may not have known exactly what he wanted when he went to the Etowah County Sheriffs office in Gadsden on January 24, 2018. I need some help, he told officers, according to a lawsuit filed against the Sheriffs department last December in Northern District Court. I just need some help.

He believed people were trying to hurt him, the suit says. Maybe even kill him.

He certainly did not come to the sheriffs office to die.

Yet he did--after a physical encounter in which he was tased, handcuffed and wrestled to the ground by Etowah County Sheriff deputies and officers, hitting his head on the ground at least once, the lawsuit contends.

Sheriffs department employees illegally detained him, rifled his pockets, attempted to handcuff him, subdued him by force, and ultimately killed him by deploying tasers into sensitive areas of his upper body, according to the lawsuit, filed in December.

McKinney, who is African American, died on the concrete outside Etowah County Sheriffs Department as its employee laughed and complained about having to use unwarranted force upon a person who had committed no crime, had no weapon, the suit says. (According to reports, McKinney was taken to a Gadsden hospital, where he was declared dead.)

McKinney was 39 and a father of three, according to his obituary.

In January, the Etowah sheriffs department filed a motion to dismiss a portion, but not all of the complaint, which was filed by James McKinney, Christophers brother, on behalf of the estate. The motion, in part, states the sheriffs department is not a legal entity subject to suit."

Christopher McKinney possessed a mental illness that affected one or more major life activities, including, but not limited to, thinking, working and communicating with others, the suit alleges.

On that fateful day, Jamie Capes, an Etowah County Sheriffs employee, allegedly noticed McKinney pacing the parking lot as she walked to her car. She then saw him walk up and down the entrance stairs, the lawsuit states.

She returned inside and told Deputy Anthony Davis and Sgt. William Langdale what she saw, and both went outside to investigate, the complaint says.

Davis and Langdale asked McKinney to come inside the office, which he did, then asked his name.

I just need some help, McKinney declared. People have been hurting me.

McKinney declined to give his name and said, Thats OK, according to the complaint.

Then McKinney attempted to leave the Sheriffs Office, sliding his body out of the door as Langdale was blocking the entryway, according to the complaint. (The defendants, in a January filing, deny this.)

Langdale asked McKinney if he had identification. When McKinney said he did, Langdale grabbed McKinneys arm in one hand and grabbed McKinneys wallet out of his back pocket, then twisted McKinneys arm in an attempt to handcuff him, the lawsuit says. (Defendants deny these descriptions of the encounter.)

I didnt do anything, McKinney said. Please help me.

What happened in the next few moments was chaoticand deadly.

Langsdale pulled away and tased McKinney, who, according to the suit, attempted to pull the Taser leads out of his [upper torso].

Langsdale and Davis both converged on McKinney trying to wrestle him to the ground, the suit says.

Davis deployed his Taser at close rage into McKinneys torso and again directly into McKinneys abdomen, according to the suit. (Defendants admit a Taser was used on McKinney.)

Other officers are alleged to have joined the melee, including Corrections Officers Brandon Hare and Logan Page, says the suit. Deputies called out on the radio for additional help.

Hare allegedly tased McKinney, who falls face down on the ground, after which Page tased McKinney again. Davis then double handcuffed the now prone and inert McKinney and left [him] face down on the concrete while a crowd of Sheriffs Department employees gathered. (Defendants admit two pair (sic) of handcuffs were linked together to handcuff McKinney.)

One officer is alleged to have declared he had wasted $100.00 worth of [Taser] cartridges on [McKinney]. Another claimed his sunglasses were broken in the scuffle. (Defendants admit both things occurred.)

After a long delay, the Sheriffs deputies decided to roll the now silent McKinney onto his back, allowing his head to hit the concrete with an audible thud, the complaint reads.

Officers discussed the incident, accused McKinney of being high on drugs, according to the suit.

For the first several minutes, no Sheriffs Department employee rendered any aid, other than to walk near McKinneys body and declare that he was still breathing.

Until he died. On the concrete. With no outstanding arrest warrants, no weapon, and no, it was later discerned, according to the complaint, illegal drugs in his system.

Christopher Shane McKinney almost certainly did not come to the Etowah County Sheriffs office that day to die face down on the concrete.

James McKinney alleges Langdale, Davis, Hare and Page subjected [Christopher] McKinney to physical abuse and did so without a warrant, violating McKinneys Fourth Amendment right to be free from arrest without probable cause and/or to be free from unreasonable seizure.

McKinney, the suit says was harmless, that he had a mental illness

[Officers] knew or should have known that McKinney is a person with a disability because it was obvious and they were alerted to that fact by their co-worker, the suit says. [And] failed to reasonably accommodate that disability

McKinney died at the hands of these officers as a result of their failure to reasonably accommodate his disability.

The suit also alleges the department has not implemented any relevant policies or trained its employees on the application of the [Americans with] Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act to the interactions with citizens who seek help ...

The estate, according to the suit, requests unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, plus reasonable attorneys fees, injunctive relief and such other relief as this Court deems just and proper.

The defendants denied 25 of the allegations outlined in the complaint, including that officers left McKinney face down on the concrete while a crowd of Sheriffs Department employees gathered.

On Friday afternoon, February 7, the case is set for a telephone conference before Judge Corey L. Maze.

In his obituary, it says McKinney graduated from Gadsden High School, worked for UPS for 15 years and was a member of Mount Calvary Baptist Church.

Among the items to be considered during the 2020 state legislative session, which began Tuesday, is providing the states too-long-neglected Department of Mental Health with $18 million to build three crisis centers.

A center that could have perhaps provided Christopher McKinney with a place to gosomeplace where he might have been able to get the help he asked for.

Someplace where he may not have been tased, wrestled to the floor, double handcuffed, and died.

A voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham, Alabama (and beyond), Roys column appears in The Birmingham News and AL.com, as well as in the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register. Reach him at rjohnson@al.com and follow him at twitter.com/roysj

Originally posted here:

Mans death after encounter with Etowah Sheriffs Department is call to action on mental health - AL.com

A lawsuit stemming from the highly publicized expulsion of a Kansas City library patron from a public event nearly four years ago has drawn to an end after the judge ruled in favor of the lone remaining defendant.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips found for an off-duty police detective who arrested Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, a documentary filmmaker from Lawrence who sued the detective and 13 other defendants over the incident, which drew national headlines.

Rothe-Kushel claimed his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated after he was physically restrained on May 9, 2016, following a lecture at the librarys Plaza branch by American diplomat and former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.

The lecture, about President Harry Truman's recognition of the state of Israel, was organized by the Jewish Community Foundation and the Truman Library Institute. Following the April 2014 shootings that left three people dead at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom in Overland Park, there was heightened security at the event.

During a planned question-and-answer session after the lecture, Rothe-Kushel stepped up to the microphone and asked Ross a long, rambling question alluding to what he said was a history of state-sponsored terrorism by Israel and the United States.

Ross responded and Rothe-Kushel began arguing with him. At that point, the man in charge of security for the event, Blair Hawkins, began to physically remove Rothe-Kushel from the microphone. Hawkins was director of security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City, which had hired him following the 2014 shootings.

Video of the incident shows Hawkins grabbing Rothe-Kushels arm, telling him Youre done and attempting to remove him from the mic. Rothe-Kushel is seen yelling even as a second person approaches the mic to ask a question.

Rothe-Kushel was later arrested in the lobby after an off-duty officer hired for the event asked for his identification and he refused to give it. The librarys director of programming and marketing, Steven Woolfolk, was also arrested after he sought to intervene and prevent Rothe-Kushels removal.

Woolfolk was later charged with obstruction, interfering with an arrest and assaulting a police officer. After a day-long trial in September 2017, a Kansas City Municipal Court judge acquitted him of all three charges.

The actions taken by the officers sparked outrage among civil libertarians and were condemned by the librarys then-executive director, R. Crosby Kemper III, who said the officers had overreacted.

Rothe-Kushels lawsuit named 14 defendants, including officials of the Jewish Community Foundation and the Truman Library Institute; the off-duty policemen involved in the incident; Kansas City Chief of Police Rick Smith; and members of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, including then-Kansas City Mayor Sly James.

Rothe-Kushel later voluntarily dismissed his claims against the members of the police board and the off-duty officers, except for the detective who arrested him, Brent Parsons.

The claims against officials of the Jewish Community Foundation and Truman Library Institute had been dismissed earlier in the case although its not clear if they were dismissed because the organizations reached settlements with Rothe-Kushel or because of the merits of their legal defenses.

I can say that matters as to other defendants were concluded, said Arthur Benson, one of Rothe-Kushels attorneys. Thats all I can say.

Officials of the Jewish Community Foundation and Truman Library declined to comment or could not be reached for comment.

In her 12-page ruling Thursday in favor of Parsons, Judge Phillips found that Parsons had probable cause to arrest Rothe-Kushel for trespassing and for refusing to provide his identification.

She also found that while Rothe-Kushel had a First Amendment right to ask Ross questions, that right was not limitless: (H)e could not ask so many questions that other audience members were deprived of the opportunity, and he had no right to argue with Ambassador Ross (and no right to expect Ambassador Ross to engage in such an argument).

Finally, Phillips found against Rothe-Kushel on his claims of conspiracy to violate his civil rights, false arrest and conspiracy under state law.

Rothe-Kushel, reached by email, declined to say whether he had reached settlements with any of the defendants.

Fred Slough, another attorney representing Rothe-Kushel, said it was a serious wrong for Rothe-Kushel to have been removed and arrested. He said Rothe-Kushel would have complied with a request to leave the library.

Instead he was grabbed and manhandled in the middle of an exchange with the Ambassador that was not a disturbance, except in the sense that some in the audience audibly disagreed with its content, Slough said via email. The law does not allow such a heckler's veto of free speech.

Editor's note: This story was updated with Rothe-Kushel's comment.

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor at KCUR. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.

Continue reading here:

Free-Speech Case Over Patron's Arrest At The Kansas City Public Library Finally Comes To An End - KCUR

Law enforcement officials in the U.S. and U.K. have negotiated a deal that sells out the privacy rights of the public in both nations. For Americans, it will effectively abrogate Fourth Amendment protections, and subject their data to search and seizure by foreign police.

This is all going to start happening in a few monthsunless Congress does something to stop it now. Thats why were launching an action today, asking you to reach out to your members of Congress and tell them to introduce a joint resolution that could put a halt to the deal. If it isnt stopped, the worst parts of this deal will likely come standard on future agreements, and Americans will be subject to more and more searches by foreign police.

TAKE ACTION

Tell Congress to Stop the U.S.-U.K. Cloud Act Deal

The full text of the U.S.-U.K. Cloud Act Agreement was unveiled in November, and its just as bad as we thought it would be. We joined with 19 other privacy, civil liberties, and human rights organizations, and sent a letter to Congress going through the long list of problems with the first Cloud Act deal.

Some of the key problems with the U.S.-U.K. Agreement include:

In colonial times, the British military used general warrants to search through houses and seize property. This practice was part of what fueled the American Revolution, and formed the basis for the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Congress shouldnt let an executive agreement, negotiated behind closed doors, give away rights that have been enshrined in U.S. law for nearly 250 years.

TAKE ACTION

TELL CONGRESS TO STOP THE U.S.-U.K. CLOUD ACT DEAL

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U.K. Police Will Soon be able to Search Through U.S. Data Without Asking a Judge - EFF

Police in Maine will have to follow new rules when investigating fatal crashes, after a long-standing statute allowing law enforcement to obtain blood samples from drivers was ruled unconstitutional by the Maine Supreme Court on Tuesday."This is a major change in Maine law that's been around for a long, long time," said prominent Maine defense attorney Walt McKee.The statue was challenged by the defense team for Randall Weddle, a Tennessee truck driver convicted of manslaughter for a fatal 2016 crash. Weddle claimed the mandatory blood alcohol test violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution barring unlawful search and seizures. While justices agreed, they upheld his conviction, citing unique circumstances of the case and saying investigators were acting in good faith when they administered the test. The ruling means law enforcement will either need to get consent, get a warrant, or prove probable cause before drawing blood. "Now, when people are involved in accidents that are fatal, might be, or probably going to be fatal-- that they're no longer going to be required to submit to an alcohol test," said McKee.Assistant Attorney General Don Macomber said police departments have been informed of the change in process. "The difference now is that they're also going to have to divert their attention from immediate life-saving activities to also try to develop probable cause of impairment before they can draw the blood," said Macomber. McKee said it makes sense there should be a process for drawing blood. "I think it's an important decision because what it tells us is that our individual rights and our individual liberties are still very much alive, that a search warrant is necessary for law enforcement to in essence force blood to be removed for your system," he said.

Police in Maine will have to follow new rules when investigating fatal crashes, after a long-standing statute allowing law enforcement to obtain blood samples from drivers was ruled unconstitutional by the Maine Supreme Court on Tuesday.

"This is a major change in Maine law that's been around for a long, long time," said prominent Maine defense attorney Walt McKee.

The statue was challenged by the defense team for Randall Weddle, a Tennessee truck driver convicted of manslaughter for a fatal 2016 crash. Weddle claimed the mandatory blood alcohol test violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution barring unlawful search and seizures. While justices agreed, they upheld his conviction, citing unique circumstances of the case and saying investigators were acting in good faith when they administered the test.

The ruling means law enforcement will either need to get consent, get a warrant, or prove probable cause before drawing blood.

"Now, when people are involved in accidents that are fatal, might be, or probably going to be fatal-- that they're no longer going to be required to submit to an alcohol test," said McKee.

Assistant Attorney General Don Macomber said police departments have been informed of the change in process.

"The difference now is that they're also going to have to divert their attention from immediate life-saving activities to also try to develop probable cause of impairment before they can draw the blood," said Macomber.

McKee said it makes sense there should be a process for drawing blood.

"I think it's an important decision because what it tells us is that our individual rights and our individual liberties are still very much alive, that a search warrant is necessary for law enforcement to in essence force blood to be removed for your system," he said.

Original post:

Blood draws and fatal crashes: What the new ruling means - WMTW Portland

PEORIA (WEEK) --The town of Normal and several Normal Police Department officers, including its chief, are being sued in relation to an officer being accused of stealing $12,000 when responding to a residence for a drug overdose.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. Central District court in Peoria by the attorneys representing Lindsey Holzhauer, alleging officer Brian Williams did not have a valid search warrant or consent to search the residence, and "violated her Fourth Amendment right... to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures."

The lawsuit stems from the November 25 incident, when Williams was tasked with checking the well-being of a person who had potentially overdosed. The victim died, but a relative later reported to the NPD that $12,000 was missing from the residence.

Williams allegedly called Holzhauer anonymously to tell her to stop contacting police after learning she had contacted the NPD to report the missing $12,000.

The lawsuit also states NPD officers "conspired and acted together to cover up their misconduct."

The lawsuit alleges a detective with the NPD contacted Holzhauer and told her "it would be in her best interest to keep the complaint within the Normal Police Department and to not involve the ISP."

The case was turned over to the Illinois State Police, which conducted the sting, resulting in Williams arrest.

Chief Rick Bleichner, Tim Edmiaston and Jim Ferguson of the NPD are listed as defendants in the lawsuit.

Holzhauer is also suing for emotional distress in the incident.

She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Williams pleaded not guilty to all the charges in December.

He is currently on administrative leave and facing charges of official misconduct and theft over $10,000 in McLean County Court after he was arrested in an Illinois State Police sting operation. His bond was set at $30,000 but a judge released Williams on personal recognizance.

A call to the Normal Police Department was not immediately returned Monday morning.

The rest is here:

Town of Normal, police officers being sued in connection to officer allegedly stealing $12K - WEEK - week.com

from the domicile-made-furtive-movements dept

Five years ago, an Idaho police department destroyed a woman's house to end a standoff with her dog. The Caldwell PD -- after having been given permission (along with a house key) to enter the home to see if a suspect was in the home -- decided this meant the Shaniz West had given them permission to fire grenade after tear gas grenade into the house before sending in the SWAT team to confront the family dog.

Exhibit A:

Shaniz West sued, stating that this 10-hour "standoff" that rendered her house uninhabitable for three months was a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights. The district court agreed, finding the officers being sued could be held accountable for destroying her home, rather than just using the house key she had given them.

Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and granted the officers qualified immunity. According to the Appeals Court [PDF], this was an appropriate use of police force, given the circumstances. Mainly it was that the circumstances were unique enough, the court could find no way to say this was unreasonable. Without controlling precedent, the officers were allowed to escape the consequences of their ridiculous, house-destroying actions.

Here's the Court's summary, which sounds like it was written by a cop PR shop.

The panel held that assuming the consent was voluntary and defendants exceeded the scope of the consent by shooting tear gas into the house, they were still entitled to qualified immunity. The panel held that given that defendants thought they had permission to enter plaintiffs house to apprehend a dangerous, potentially armed, and suicidal felon barricaded inside, it was not obvious, in the absence of a controlling precedent, that defendants exceeded the scope of plaintiffs consent by causing the tear gas canisters to enter the house in an attempt to flush the suspect out into the open. Officers Seevers and Winefield were therefore entitled to qualified immunity on this claim.

"Causing tear gas canisters to enter the house." It's like the canisters were just hanging around outside and the SWAT team's reasonable appearance on the lawn gave the canisters permission to hurtle themselves through the nearest windows and doors.

There was no suspect to flush out. The person they were seeking had vacated the residence before officers stopped Shaniz West and threatened her with arrest if she didn't "consent" to a search of her house. What West actually consented to was far different than what the officers ended up doing, as the dissent pointed out.

The majority adopts an entirely implausible contrary reading of Wests consent, one a typical reasonable person [would not] have understood by the exchange between the officer and the suspect. Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 251. Because West never expressed a limitation as to time, place within the house, or manner of entry, the majority concludes that her consent that officers could get inside permitted a violent initial attack on her house with toxic objects. Maj. Op. at 13. In so concluding, the majority supposes that someone who permits law enforcement officers to get inside [her] house while handing over a key consents to the officers not entering the house but instead lobbing dangerous objects, such as tear gas canistersor stones or bombs, for other examplesinto the house from the outside. It further presupposes that, in providing consent to entry, a resident must preemptively forbid actions no one would guess are contemplated by the commonsense understanding of the articulated consent. That is not the law.

What this court finds reasonable for officers (destroying a house) does not align with what any "reasonable" non-cop would willingly permit when consenting to a search of their residence.

In concluding that the officers performed a search consistent with Wests consent, the majority does what no court has beforeit holds that a typical reasonable person consenting to an entry to look for a suspect could be understood by a competent police officer as consenting to damage to his or her home so extreme that renders it uninhabitable for months.

There is still no finding that destroying a house while performing a consensual search is a violation of rights. The Ninth punted on drawing the line following this case, leaving officers free to "cause canisters to enter" houses in the future when performing searches for suspects.

The Institute for Justice wants some precedent set. It's asking the Supreme Court to rule on this issue. The petition [PDF] seeks a ruling that would prevent officers from dodging lawsuits from citizens rendered homeless by consensual searches.

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether an officer who has consent to get inside a house but instead destroys it from the outside is entitled to qualified immunity in the absence of precisely factually on-point caselaw.

It's a valid question. It's far more valid than the Ninth's conclusion: that consent to search is consent to destruction. Even given the circumstances of this case -- a potentially armed felon who was supposedly suicidal -- the officers had options they normally didn't have during warrant service: specifically, permission to enter the home and a key that unlocked the front and back doors.

Instead of using the key to enter the house (or at least attempt to -- the front door also had a chain securing it, but it's not like a bunch of tear gas grenades were going to dislodge the chain), the cops decided to call in the SWAT team. They left the premises, met with the SWAT team, came up with a plan and did a couple of dry runs and three hours later, decided to start the "search."

It wasn't until 4.5 hours later the key was even tried. It unlocked the back door, but redundantly because the glass had already been shattered by tear gas canisters, allowing officers to reach inside and unlock the door.

As the petition points out, there's no reason to find precedent that directly aligns with law enforcement's actions here. It should have been plainly apparent to the officers that their actions were unreasonable.

The dissent did not purport to find a closely similar case[ ] to guide the clearly established law inquiry[.] App. 27. Instead, it found no such case was necessary because any competent officer would have understood he could not lawfully destroy a house simply because he had consent to enter it.

This should be obvious. If it were a car being searched, a person's consent to a search would not justify officers towing the vehicle to place away from the public and detonating it just because of the slim possibility something inside it might pose a threat to officers.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will take a look at this case, rather than decide it's up to the lower court to set a bunch of conflicting precedent -- or far more likely, continue kicking the QI can down the road. Giving officers permission to search your house should never mean giving them permission to leave you with no place to live.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, consent, destruction, idaho, search, shaniz west, supreme court, swat, swat teams

See the article here:

Supreme Court Asked To Tell Cops That Consenting To A Search Is Not Consenting To Having Your Home Destroyed - Techdirt

Police departments in Maine are already adapting to a ruling issued Tuesday by the states highest court that will require officers to obtain consent or a warrant before drawing the blood of a driver involved in a fatal crash.

But the ruling is not likely to substantially impede police investigations of fatal crashes, some officials have said. Police can make sworn statements which are a required part of applying for a warrant via an email affidavit from their police cruisers, and prosecutors and investigators are likely to generate blank template warrant applications to help officers complete the required paperwork quickly.

The concern historically has been that the longer period of time between the time of the crash and the time the blood was drawn is problematic in reflecting the blood alcohol level at the time of the crash, Portland Police Chief Frank Clark said. I think whats going to be the case is well have some templates available.

Clark already has disseminated a memo to all personnel describing the new standards, and said he expects little disruption in the flow of fatal crash investigations, which in Portland are handled by a special unit. He also suggested that police will continue to use a reliable tactic of applying for a search warrant targeting a hospital that may have tested an injured drivers blood after a crash, an unchallenged practice not contemplated by this weeks court decision.

This is certainly something thats going to make us stop and look at our policies and practices, but I dont think its something that will ultimately impede our ability to prosecute people who are driving impaired, Clark said.

And police officers still have the breath test at their disposal.

By law, Maine motorists are expected to submit to a breath test when police request one. Refusing the breath test results in an automatic license suspension and can result in an elevated OUI charge which carries longer potential jail time, higher fines and longer license suspensions.

The decision Tuesday by Maines Supreme Judicial Court overturned a 2003 state statute that required police to take a warrantless blood sample of all people involved in a fatal or suspected fatal crash and test it for the presence of drugs and alcohol. But the states highest court ruled that the law violated the U.S. Constitutions Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, ending a long-held practice that was an assumed part of how police investigated fatalities on the road.

The law also permitted the blood tests to be admitted as evidence in court, even when the blood was drawn before police established probable cause to charge the driver with a crime, such as operating under the influence, aggravated OUI or manslaughter.

The appellant in the case, Randall J. Weddle, was convicted of manslaughter in a 2016 crash on Route 17 in Washington, Maine, after the tractor-trailer he was driving crossed the center line and crashed, sending his load of lumber flying. Two people died and others were injured, including Weddle, who was pinned inside the cab of his truck for an hour before rescue workers freed him. Before Weddle was flown by helicopter to a hospital, a police officer on the scene ordered an EMT to draw a sample of Weddles blood. After the blood draw, police then found evidence in Weddles truck a partially full bottle of Crown Royal and a shot glass.

The blood tests showed Weddle had a blood-alcohol content of 0.09, slightly higher than the legal limit of 0.08, and more than double the 0.04 limit for commercial truck drivers. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Although the law permitting the blood draw from Weddle has been declared unconstitutional, Weddles conviction stands because the justices determined the police officer who ordered the blood draw did so with the good-faith belief that he was following the law at the time.

In Windham, Chief Kevin Schofield said he is still working through the implications and making plans to update his officers. But he said updating officers on changes to the law is a mandatory part of police work, and has been for decades.

I have some friends of mine who were officers before Miranda was law, Schofield said, referring to the landmark 1966 Supreme Court case that established a suspects right against self-incrimination. Caselaw changes. Interpretation of law changes.

Clark said annual police continuing-education training occurs annually through the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, which disseminates information about statutes passed by the Legislature in the previous session and addresses changes in case law, such as the decision this week.

More of that work will continue in Windham in the coming weeks, Schofield said.

Well be reaching out and working a little more closely with our DAs office to get a better understanding of this, Schofield said.Our goal is to make sure that our people are up to date on the law, because in this area, we do unfortunately deal with some serious crashes.

Last year, the state laboratory that performs blood tests examined 589 blood samples. All but 14 cases were tests looking for alcohol, but the lab does not keep track of how many samples came from fatal or near-fatal crashes and how many cases involved an approved warrant.

This weeks ruling means police must make more careful observations and document their findings to support a probable cause determination that a crime occurred, without the benefit of blood test results that would positively show alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash after the fact. In cases where a driver may be incapacitated by injury or refuses to consent to the blood draw, police must obtain a warrant.

I dont think its much of a surprise to those of us who handle these cases, defense attorney Sarah Churchill said. I dont think this will represent a huge sea change. I think in some cases its the law in Maine catching up with the Supreme Court of the United States.

But obtaining a warrant in the middle of the night or on weekends requires extra legwork by detectives, who must submit a sworn statement to a judge stating their probable cause to believe a crime occurred before they may execute a search.

In the Portland area, that process is not particularly difficult, Clark said.

From the time youre starting a warrant to the time youre sitting in a judges living room could be within an hour, he said.

But in rural parts of the state, the process can take longer, the Office of the Attorney General said, and more work will likely be needed before the process is seamless statewide.

From what our office has been informed, it takes longer to get a warrant in rural parts of state, wrote Marc Malon, a spokesman for the Attorney Generals Office. Rules were changed several years ago to allow for obtaining warrant via email or telephone, but that is still work in progress with the courts.

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Court ruling on required blood tests unlikely to affect investigations of fatal crashes, police say - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

Newark Advocate Published 12:35 p.m. ET Jan. 25, 2020

A government agency can use eminent domain to take private property for a valid public cause while compensating the property owner. A government agency can through its actions devalue a piece of property by restricting access to or the use of that property.

This is called legallytaking land. This can happenwhen a road is changed or widened. When Thornwood Crossing east of Granville was built, access to Cherry Valley Road from Route 16 was cut off. This restricted access to businesses along Cherry Valley Road.

The Ohio Supreme Court recently decided, by a 4 to 3 vote, that Wendys was entitled to compensation by ODOT for the business loss. The court stated that losing access constituted taking.Wendys lawyer stated that his client had a constitutional right to theaccess point of Cherry Valley at Route 16, and ODOT closed that access point.

So is a business entitled to be compensated for the loss of profit under the legal taking clause, paid for by a public entity using public money? Should businesses then not pay for profit for access to a publicly-funded road? No business is going to locate in an inaccessible area. That mean it is fully aware of thepotential profit by having access provided by the public. In order to get compensated for the loss of profit, a business should pay into a fund for profiting by getting access paid for by thepublic. The public should not pay for building a road and then again for private business losses. It should be either both or neither.

Jurgen Pape

Granville

During the Novembervoting day Zone 2 & 4 voted at the American Legion Lodge on 6th Street.There were numerous times that you had to look for a place to park.Come March it will be the same and November has the potential of severe over crowding, making many voters not voting or illegally parking.The election boardneeds to take a serious look at separating these twozones to there own area immediately.I see everywhere on social media of bad blood between Democrats and Republicans and I see a problem especially in November.I would hope everyone would act like adults and vote with heart.Thank you for listening there is a problem that needs fixed NOW!

Mike Miner

Newark

On Monday we witnessed a gathering of Virginia citizens protesting gun confiscation by their "Democratic" government. All the proposed laws are unconstitutional because they are an infringement on their constitutional rights. Not just the Second Amendment, but also the Fourth Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment. All of these government officials have taken the oath of office swearing to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. By voting to steal lawfully owned firearms they've violated their oath of office. By sending officers out to steal lawfully owned firearms they are committing the act of treason and forcing the officers also to commit an act of treason.

No one who has ever taken an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution can support any law that violates that oath. If you have ever taken such an oath, you are bound to not support an unconstitutional law. Thank God that most of the sheriff's in Virginia understand that and are standing up in support of the Constitution.

It's understandable the fear that an unarmed citizen has for their safety and the safety of their family. Progressives have used anti-concealed carry stickers to keep law-abiding citizens from bearing arms in posted buildings. These are the buildings madmen come to murder innocent people, because they know they're safe. If you want to keep the people safe, take down the stickers and train all that wish to carry when and how to shoot in defense of their lives and others.

John Bell

Newark

Read or Share this story: https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/2020/01/25/letters-newark-readers-speak-out-subsidies-guns-and-polling-places/4555955002/

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Letters: Newark Advocate readers speak out on subsidies, guns and polling places - The Newark Advocate

Sen. Steve Daines

U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) on Jan. 23 said he plans to introduce bipartisan legislation to help protect the privacy of his home-state constituents and all Americans.

Montanans want their privacy protected, Sen. Daines said. Thats why Im fighting to protect our civil liberties and stop the federal government from interfering in our lives.

Sen. Daines intends to introduce the Safeguarding Americans Private Records Act of 2020 with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). In the U.S. House, U.S. Reps. Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced legislation, H.R. 5675, on Jan. 24 to reform Section 215 of the sweeping anti-terrorism law, the USA PATRIOT Act, officially the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, which was signed into law in 2001.

According to Sen. Daines office, the National Security Agency has used the law to create a secret mass surveillance program that also has swept up millions of Americans phone calls.

If enacted, the bipartisan, bicameral measure would permanently end the phone surveillance program by closing loopholes and prohibiting secret interpretation of the law, according to a bill summary provided by Sen. Daines office.

The bill also would prohibit the collection of geolocation information by intelligence agencies.

This is one of the most American pieces of legislation that the Senate could deliver. First off, it is an important bipartisan solution that proves our legislators can put the United States first. Second, it provides sunshine and clarifies our nations domestic surveillance programs. Third, it ensures Americans fourth amendment rights are clearly protected. And last, it updates and clarifies extremely outdated technology laws, said Daniel Zolnikov, a Republican member of the Montana Legislature and chairman of the Montana House Energy, Technology and Federal Relations Committee. I applaud both Senator Daines and Senator Wyden for taking their job and their oath to the constitution serious.

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Daines intends to introduce bill to reform PATRIOT Act - Ripon Advance

Whatever happened to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution you know, the one prohibiting infliction of cruel and unusual punishment on prisoners?

Rep. Adam Schiff has already put 16 hours in on his opening arguments in the Senate, with a little help here and there from Rep. Jerry the Penguin Nadler and assorted other Democrat lunatics.

And the 100 members of the Senate also known as the prisoners have to put in another eight hours in stir today listening to Shifty Schiffs same old you-know-what.

If 24 hours of Adam Schiffs bug-eyed rants dont represent cruel and unusual punishment, then what does?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein fled Wednesday night, not even trying to cover her tracks, saying Goodnight to two reporters as she took it on the lam. Granted, shes 85 years old, but it has to be excruciating even if youre not knock-knock-knocking on heavens door.

Sen. Rand Paul was seen surreptitiously doing a crossword puzzle. Sen. Bernie Sanders, almost as ancient as Feinstein, dozed at his desk.

Of course the Democrats with press passes were swooning over Schiffs BS, claiming to be fascinated, enthralled, riveted breathless, as if they were reviewing opening night of a hit Broadway musical. Sen. Chuck Schumer went so far as to say that Schiff was delivering his remarks succinctly.

Succinctly! I was a young man when Adam Schiff began speaking and he hasnt stopped yakking yet.

As a reporter, Ive always enjoyed covering trials. Its all right there in front of you, on the public record. When either side introduces a photo or document into evidence, you can put it into the paper. You can bring cameras into state courtrooms. At the Moakley Federal Courthouse, you can tweet.

But the fact is, even the best trials have shall we say dry spells. When technical testimony is being put into evidence, or the lawyers are arguing among themselves with the judge at interminable sidebar conferences.

Still, a spectator always know that eventually, the action in the courtroom is going to resume. Take opening arguments I dont think Ive ever heard one go on longer than a couple of hours. A judge wouldnt permit it. Beyond that, any lawyer that long-winded would lose the jury, before he even called his first witness.

But these Democrats just keep droning on and on and on.

And there seem to be no rules. First of all, the president is not charged with committing bribery, treason, or any other high crimes or misdemeanors. In a real trial, that would be enough for the defense counsel to immediately move for a directed verdict of acquittal. How can you convict somebody of nothing?

Another thing: Schiff has mentioned Russia, I believe, more than 40 times. Again, in a real courtroom, the defense lawyer would be on his feet, objecting. These same clowns tried to frame Trump on the Russian collusion hoax, and he was, in effect, acquitted.

So theres another amendment to the Bill of the Rights that the Democrats are trashing: the Fifth.

No person shall be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb.

Unless, of course, your name is Donald Trump.

One by one, the Democrats are trashing the entire Bill of Rights. In 2016, Hillary Clinton openly ran on a platform of overturning Citizens United (the First Amendment) and D.C. v. Heller (the Second).

Then theres the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting illegal search and seizure. Ask Carter Page how that works out for you in the Democrats secret corrupt FISA courts with their secret Democrat police known as the FBI falsifying evidence against you.

Making up evidence under oath the Democrats dont care much about the 10 Commandments either, apparently. Remember Number 8 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Unless he works for Donald Trump and went to the U.S. Naval Academy. Then its okay, right Democrats?

How about the Sixth Amendment you know, the one that lets the accused confront his accuser. That ones out the window now too, at least for POTUS. The whistleblower must be protected at all costs, especially since he has no direct evidence, only hearsay, which used to be inadmissible in a court. But thats just the old Constitution, and,the Democrats go by the living Constitution, which means, they make it up as they go along, to frame anyone they disagree with, which is anybody who they disparage as a Deplorable.

Its bad for everybody, but especially Rand Paul. First a Bernie bro tried to shoot him at a baseball practice. Then his moonbat neighbor in Kentucky (originally from New Bedford) almost killed him in an unprovoked assault.

And now Paul has to listen to Adam Schiff for 24 hours, with only a crossword puzzle for comfort.

Are the nominations for the 2020 Profiles in Courage Award closed? Id like to make a motion for Rand Paul .

Excerpt from:

Howie Carr: Weve all had just about enough of this Schiff - Boston Herald