Woman With Police-Monitoring Blog Arrested

Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"

Comments

Expose a problem and go to jail

[erroneus]

We have seen this many times in the past, and no doubt we will see it into the future.

The system is flawed, but the flaw is supposed to be secret because it is readily used by law enforcement and the like to violate the privacy of individuals. If it were public knowledge that we could access public records for such things, the laws might need to be changed and inadvertently protect the people from abuse by government and we just can't have that.

Re:Expose a problem and go to jail

[peragrin]

Yes and NO. The flaw isn't a flaw, it is just ignored. You never really had privacy in the regards that they are talking about. However Since the information hasn't been obvious then people didn't notice it.

This woman took public information gathered it together. However because took public information and posted in a public place, about public officials, who are supposed to do work in discretion, she put their lives, and the their family lives in jeopardy. I can make a threatening statement to you over the internet and you won't care. However if I use your ID, to track you down using google, google maps, and started posting pictures of your home, your wife and kids, on my blog and then threatened you would you believe me then?

There is a lot of general knowledge public information out there about nearly everyone. This isn't a flaw, it is our society. In general it is a good thing. However what can be used for good can also be used for bad. Such information is why we know things like a governor selling positions. or cheating on his wife. Or getting a BJ in the Oval Office.

The "Flaw" as you put it is the original wikileaks. It is gossip, and general knowledge shared by many. it is what put societal pressure on people to do the right thing. However it doesn't always work.

Re:Expose a problem and go to jail

[erroneus]

"Security through obscurity" is no security at all. The argument that "you never really had privacy" is simply a restatement of the problem. However, the way you state it, it implies that it's a problem, but one that we should all accept as normal and ignore.

I don't think it is fair to compare the exposure of information about the general public to the doings and goings on about public officials in a position of public trust. It has long been the expectation that there should be transparency in the affairs of government officials as a means by which public trust can be maintained. The standard should be different for private individuals which is precisely why we identify people as being either "public" or "private" individuals.

One of the flaws I speak of is that we DO have an expectation of privacy where in reality, that expectation is false as it has been pulled out from under us all. That expectation of privacy is built on our ideals as a society. If we are not in keeping with our ideals, then perhaps that should be corrected.

Re:Expose a problem and go to jail

[itsdapead]

"Security through obscurity" is no security at all.

Nice aphorism. Pity its such nonsense - especially when used in a context other than cryptography (where it almost makes sense).

"Security through obscurity" may be weak security, but it has an effect. If you leave my front door key hidden behind a loose brick, then its more secure than leaving it under a flower pot, which is in turn more secure than leaving it in plain view. Neither is a particularly good idea, but if you must leave a key for some reason then the more obscure the better.

Now, what if some joker posts on a popular internet site "Mr X leaves his key behind a loose brick by the front door of 29 West Wallaby Street. He leaves for work at 8am and doesn't come back until 6pm. There's a new looking satellite dish, so he might have a decent TV, and I saw him going into a posh jewelers the other week so I think he's loaded"? Now, Mr X was running a risk, since anybody could have found that out if they were determined, but bundling it up in a red ribbon and making it public hugely increases his exposure.

Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom from responsibility.

Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot?

[mvdwege]

I'd say: "If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear".

Funny how law enforcement always trots out that line, but goes ballistic when the people apply it to them instead.

Mart

Age old debate

[squoozer]

This just another case of rights vs responsibilites. I don't think she has done anything wrong per se but she has acted in an irresponsible manner. These police officers deal, on a day to day basis, with people that range from mostly harmless to exceedingly dangerous. Posting their movements, home addresses and other information all on one place, I would argue, diminishes their safety. The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it. I would imagine a large number of the people these police officers interact with couldn't be bothered to put in that effort themselves but if it's as easy as just going to a blog maybe they would do something.

In an ideal world the police would have been allowed to just go round to her and ask her to act more responsibly. Let her have her blog just make the infromation a little less specific and perhaps throw in some dummy data for good measure.

Re:Age old debate

[garcia]

The information might have been publicly available but there was a certain amount of affort required to collect it.

I'm sorry, did you misunderstand what publicly available information means? You talk as if you're one of the people I deal with daily in local government. I am probably considered one of those "one-percenters", people who are doing their due diligence to request the information of government that is to be posted for the public to see but the government elects to make extremely difficult to retrieve. I spend hours every week trying to retrieve the information which local governments are hiding from public view (I don't bother with pictures of police officers because, well, that's not my thing) but constantly run into roadblocks because, while this information should just be posted for the public to read, city staff and councilmembers really don't want you to know what they're doing w/your money.

So for you, as a member of the general public, to say that it's completely ok to put up these roadblocks to protect the safety of officers, is exactly the reason that they use for everything else. This is something which you should be championing against and certainly not supporting. City governments need to realize that information must be free (god, where have we heard that before?) and they should preempt the public by posting it on their own sites instead of allowing third-parties become the central location for documents and information they really don't want disseminated.

Intelligence Gathering

[AB3A]

One of the peculiar things about gathering intelligence on someone or a group is that most of the information you need is not secret. It's right there out in the open.

This is a classic example of what happens when someone gathers public data and then uses it. The Police are upset because they didn't take precautions and they never thought anyone would be so obsessive about their identities and behaviors. This is exactly the same reason that so many police are scared of trunk-tracking scanners. They would like to think their communications amongst their group is private.

If the police are truly interested in maintaining a deep cover, they should do it with full legal backing and not make any half assed efforts, hoping that nobody will bother to track them down.

My guess is that this woman will beat the charge and teach cops across the nation an important lesson: The public is watching.

Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot

[Mr. Slippery]

Using your logic, it should be OK for any ordinary citizen to be stalked in a similar manner both while on the job and off.

Nope.

Police are the government. They retain their arrest powers even when off duty -- in truth, they are never off the job.

We have the absolute right to monitor and comment on how the government does its job. If such scrutiny makes it harder for the government to do some things, maybe that's because those are things it shouldn't be doing.

Re:Not so happy when the shoe is on the other foot

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it OK when its a police officer?

The point is that it's NOT OK (which is what the GP was saying).

The police already have near-ubiquitous tracking of the plebs (license plates, cell phones, 'net access, crime/speed/toll/stoplight cameras, bank statements). All that information is being tracked all the time automatically (it's just a matter of filtering and storage which moore's law will fix)
It's just interesting to see the law enforcement reaction when the tables are turned.

So many of the police-state arguments that the purveyors of the same tactics don't like being at the receiving end of:
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear..."
"You don't have an inherent right to privacy..."
"There's no such thing as privacy in public areas..."

It seems when a private citizen tracks a small group of people it's "stalking", when large groups of government officials track the entire population it's just fine.

Re:They wouldn't have arrested her

[DurendalMac]

Except that she did. If she had done this to anyone else, you can bet your ass she'd be busted for stalking. Why is it any different when she has an unhealthy obsession with following cops around?

Re:They wouldn't have arrested her

[Golddess]

I'm not saying the woman was _only_ doing off-duty stalking, but how is posting their home address, along with pictures and map coordinates, anything less than off-duty stalking.

Re:They wouldn't have arrested her

[willoughby]

Would I be comfortable with it? No. Would I prefer it never happen? Yes. Do I believe it should be illegal? No.

I have quite a list of things I don't like or wouldn't want to see happen, but I don't want to see any of them made illegal.

In fact I see quite a few groups across the USA trying to outlaw some activity or other that they don't like. I disagree with those folks because I don't think that something should be illegal just because I don't like it.