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Mich. State Campus Cops Seize HDs With Riot Photos

Posted by timothy on from the after-all-why-not dept.

Spintronic writes "This is old news here but others might be interested. There was a small riot here a few weeks ago due to the early exit of a certain basketball team. Because of riots years ago of a much larger magnitude and the black eye this is giving the university, the cops (local and campus I believe) are out looking to make examples. In their zeal they tried to get all the unaired footage and photos from the local media, who refused to comply. Not to let it go, they went on to seize hard drives from students who took digital photos that night. Here's info from the student nespaper, and here's an editorial."

5 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Illegal Search and Seizure by Hungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IANAL BIWWT (but I work with them)
    Sounds like a violation of the students rights by a long shot. While I am not a big fan of them, this is a good reason the aclu exists. NOw if they had a court order for seizure of evidence that would be legitimate ... unless the students who took the pictures were shown rioting also then it would be illegal under self incrimination.

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  2. Re:Actual Owners of the Images by Hungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry but you would be incorrect in your ideas. So long as the photos were taken in a public place and not in a concealed fashion you do not have to have the permision of those photographed.

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  3. Misleading... by smoondog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Once again it looks like the /. is misleading:

    Last week, police obtained a warrant to confiscate a computer from an on-campus student. But the warrant wasn't necessary because the student handed over the computer without resistance.

    Warrant: Yes. Seized: No. I read the article and it sounded like police stormed some guys house to hide evidence, implying that the evidence was some form of coverup. Jeez, they are looking for the identities of law breakers, and they had a warrant AND the person gave it to them freely.

    There is nothing wrong with the police collecting evidence showing a crime, if they know that evidence exists and the crime occured, IMO. What is the problem?

    If you had the gun that shot someone, they are allowed to get a warrant to collect that for fingerprinting. How is a video different than a fingerprint. It's still evidence.

    -Sean

    1. Re:Misleading... by PD · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I owned the pictures in question, and the warrant demanded that I turn over my entire hard drive, I'd see them in court.

      They can get a warrant for the specific photo evidence that they are looking for, and bring a blank CD for me to burn the photos on. They can't have a blank warrant to seize anything at all that exists on the computer.

      --
      If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
  4. Here's what disturbed me... by UberGeeb · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... about the article.
    Silverman said warrants must clearly define what police are looking for, otherwise searching through the other information could be invasion of privacy.

    "Computers are very personal things," food industry management junior Russell Enfield said. "There's a lot of information on there."

    But Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said if police find any other evidence of crimes on the computer hard drive, they can be held against that person.

    "It's the same thing as being pulled over for speeding and finding a gun on the front seat," Dunnings said.

    So, I freely give them the pictures I took. While they are rummaging around they find my records for the side business I'm running, and my income tax records for the year. They realize I didn't claim the income from my side business on my income tax, and I get a nice visit from J. Random Suit from the IRS. All because I was helpful and complied with a request from the police department.

    Huh. And they wonder why no one trusts public authority figures any more.

    It's not "the same thing as being pulled over for speeding and finding a gun on the front seat", it's the same thing as being pulled over and having the police officer search your car. Something equivalent to the "gun in the front seat" analogy would be if the cops showed up, you let them in and handed them the hard drive, and in the process they saw the dead body of the mailman you murdered lying on the living room floor.

    In this student's situation, my answer would have been "No, you can't have the hard drive. But if you want to come back in a couple hours, I'll have copies of those photos burned to a CD and you can have that." Multiple copies, even, if they want them. Heck, if they've got a place they want me to drop those CDs off at rather than coming by again, I'll do it. I'm perfecly willing to provide help with an investigation if I can; I'm just not willing to potentially lose an 80G hard drive or potentially incriminate myself in the process.