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Seattle Hacker Catches Cops Who Hid Arrest Tapes
An anonymous reader writes "In 2008, the Seattle Police illegally arrested security consultant Eric Rachner for refusing to show ID. After Rachner filed a formal complaint, he was prosecuted for obstructing, and the police claimed that videos of the arrest were unavailable — until Rachner's research uncovered proof that the police had the videos all along." It's an interesting story of how he figured out how the system in use by Seattle police automatically tracks deletion, copying, or other uses of the recorded stream.
"Conspiracy to deprive a person of their civil rights under color of authority". That's good for a ten-year stretch in fort leavenworth, if you can get a federal prosecutor to pursue it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
According to Wikipedia, Washington does not have a "stop and identify" statute. So, unless there's other relevant legislation, no. You don't.
First of all, that doesn't matter. Even if he was in fact engaged in criminal activity, that doesn't nullify his civil rights. You can argue about how exactly violation of civil rights shuld be treated. You can argue about how exactly a liar covering for someone who violates civil rights should be treated. There is no validity to arguing about the behavior of the person whose rights were violated, however. If he was doing something criminal, then that makes police interferance with his rights even worse - because that would mean he'd likely have been able to walk away from criminal charges.
Second, your portrayal of his behavior does not match the facts presented. They were not "drunkenly smacking people in the face with foam golf balls". They were drunkenly playing with foam golf balls, and a person (which is different from "people") was accidentally hit (by someone who was not amongh those arrested).
Moreover, your claim that they hecked the "people" they hit requires proof. The police report said they were heckling the person that was hit, but it does not clarify what this means. The person who was hit with the ball was "only mad at the one guy" who hit the ball, which doesn't seem like it would be the case if any mass heckling of the sort you're portraying were going on. In fact, the person hit by the ball, based on his quotes, appears to agree that the police response wasn't justified.
Did you miss the part where the guy in the article spent half a year fighting the charges before the prosecutor simply dropped them?
There was a lot of dishonesty going on, more than "oh you can't see the evidence".
Not most states, only 24 have stop & identify statutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes#States_with_.E2.80.9Cstop_and_identify.E2.80.9D_statutes
Not sovereign, but qualified immunity. They can and do lose that protection when they violate clearly established conduct:
http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q063.htm
The defense of qualified immunity protects "government officials . . . from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). The rule of qualified immunity " `provides ample support to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.' " Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478, 494-95 (1991) (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986)). "Therefore, regardless of whether the constitutional violation occurred, the officer should prevail if the right asserted by the plaintiff was not `clearly established' or the officer could have reasonably believed that his particular conduct was lawful." Romero v. Kitsap County, 931 F.2d 624, 627 (9th Cir. 1991) (emphasis added). Furthermore, "[t]he entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; .. . it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial." Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985).
With the disclaimer that it's been a few years since I took torts and Con law (so take this with a grain of salt), sovereign immunity doesn't protect state actors from violations of civil rights. In fact, 42 USC 1983 specifically creates a federal cause of action for violation of federal constitutional and statutory rights. And it's not limited to just federal actors. It's "any person" who "under color of [authority]" deprives a person of their federal civil rights. If I remember correctly, the theory behind this statute is that the federal government can waive the states' sovereign immunity under the auspices of the 14th Amendment, since it came after the 11th Amendment, which solidified the states' sovereign immunity. So assuming everything is as it's stated in the summary, Rachner would have a federal cause of action against the police department.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
You are factually incorrect. You are not required to produce any form of ID on demand in the United States
You are also factually incorrect. "Stop and Identify" laws vary by state.
Near the end, you can hear him carefully questioning the officer to make sure that he was in fact being arrested only for the refusal to show ID:
Rachner: "If I were to pull out my ID right now, would you let me go with no further questions?"
Cop: "I would have, but you're already under arrest."
Rachner was clearly making sure it was on the record that he was being arrested for refusal to show ID, and for no other reason, so they wouldn't able to go back and say "oh but we were arresting him for something else too, so it wasn't an illegal arrest". That supports what you inferred: he was making a conscious choice to let them arrest him so he could fight it later in court.
Okay, here are some contries where they don't give a shit about your passport (from personal experience):
- Poland
- Czech republic
- Norway
- Australia
- New Zealand
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
I'll say it very slowly.
It
does
not
matter
if
the
accused
is
a
good
or
bad
guy.
It
is
completely
irrelevant.
Got it? You're attacking someone who was wrongfully arrested and then prevented from seeing exculpatory evidence. The story is that he happened to have the smarts to discover and request the log file associated with that evidence. The story is that the police department lied about the continued existence of the video and audio recordings.
Please actually take the time to read the statutes. The parent stated "in most states you can be required to state your name."
Note that that is far from true, generally a crime is required. The standard is very similar to Terry v. Ohio:
Alabama - A sheriff or other officer acting as sheriff, his deputy or any constable, acting within their respective counties, any marshal, deputy marshal or policeman of any incorporated city or town within the limits of the county or any highway patrolman or state trooper may stop any person abroad in a public place whom he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or other public offense and may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his actions.
Arizona - A. It is unlawful for a person, after being advised that the person's refusal to answer is unlawful, to fail or refuse to state the person's true full name on request of a peace officer who has lawfully detained the person based on reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime. A person detained under this section shall state the person's true full name, but shall not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of a peace officer.
Colorado - 1) A peace officer may stop any person who he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime and may require him to give his name and address, identification if available, and an explanation of his actions. A peace officer shall not require any person who is stopped pursuant to this section to produce or divulge such person's social security number. The stopping shall not constitute an arrest.(2) When a peace officer has stopped a person for questioning pursuant to this section and reasonably suspects that his personal safety requires it, he may conduct a pat-down search of that person for weapons.
etc
The important part is that in most states you cannot be compelled to state your name unless it is under circumstances that have clearly articuable facts that a reasonable person would believe indicate imminent criminal behavior.
"obstruction of justice" is one of those "bad laws". It's a catch-all, that any cop with an agenda can twist to make whatever you happen to be doing, illegal. "Failure to obey an officer of the law" is another good one. With that particular gem, they basically can tell you to do practically anything (short of something unconstitutional) and if you don't do it, bam, failure to obey, cuff 'im Dano.
Laws like that were passed quite possibly in good faith, to give an officer the ability to stop somthing that clearly SHOULD be illegal but that there wasn't a law on the books at the time. It shifts the job of the officer from enforcing the law to creating and interpreting it. Senators create laws. Juries and judges interpret laws. Officers enforce laws. When you create a law that permits or requires the officer to interpret it, it's a Bad Law. And if you can't figure out a way to word a law to make only exactly what you want to be judged illegal, that's no excuse for creating a Bad Law. Either word it to give more benefit of the doubt, or DON'T make it in the first place.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
When you create a law that permits or requires the officer to interpret it, it's a Bad Law. And if you can't figure out a way to word a law to make only exactly what you want to be judged illegal, that's no excuse for creating a Bad Law.
Amen.
Someone with mod points, please spend them on the parent.
So what? I mean, really, so-fucking-what? The illegal problem is of epidemic proportions here. I've experienced it first hand on numerous occasions; just last month I was at the hospital with my grandmother and withing 10 minutes, 2 separate people came into the emergency room with no ID (no Drivers license, no state ID, no green card, nothing) and no insurance so they get treated on the state's dime and not even a billing address to send a bill.
The feds are clearly too engrossed in courting a potential major voting block to do anything about it. I say good job to the AZ legislature. It's really quite simple; if someone commits a crime, breaks a traffic law, etc they need to provide ID or they get their info run to see if they're legal. This applies to everybody. Now obviously, the majority of illegals will be Mexican or Central American in origin: It's not like we have a bunch of illegal Canadian's down here, eh, but that doesn't make it racist in any way shape or form.
I'll save you the trouble of searching the internet for the bill. Here it is, it's not that long: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf I don't see anything in there about Mexicans, do you?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
OK, I was actually there. Not, "I heard this from a guy." I mean, I'm Dan Kaminsky, who's named in the article.
This was kind of a silly situation. One of the guys in our group hit the ball and it sort of sailed into this guy's face. It's a styrofoam ball, the maximum speed of those things is maybe ten miles an hour. It's actually slower than a Nerf ball.
Anyway, the guy who actually hit the thing was sort of an awkward nerd, and laughed about it nervously. You know in the article when the guy's like, it was just one guy? That's because it was just him. There was certainly no mob taunting.
Really, this was a bunch of nerds and burners. There was no damage going on, just general silliness and large scale commerce with institutions that were each contacted in advance and specially staffed to seat all of us. I don't think it'll happen again, and that's sort of sad. Urban golf was a lot of fun for everyone.