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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.
Shouldn't the officers in this case be charged with obstruction of justice?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The dream of cops, reactionaries, xenophobes, and fascist thugs everywhere...
What are the odds those cops got one of the few people left in their city who know their rights and have the means to defend them.
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Motherfucking pigs...
Not all cops are pigs, but these ones were.
A few bad apples making the other 1% look bad...
seriously, why do cops always circle the wagons to protect dishonest cops?
Actually, that's not what they said. They said they can no longer be obtained. They didn't say they were destroyed. They didn't say *who* could no longer obtain them. Are they saying "You can't obtain them" (because it's past 90 days and that's our policy) or "We can't obtain them"? (because they were destroyed). The language is intentionally unclear. They *implied* that the recordings had been destroyed, and that the police themselves could no longer obtain them, but that's not what they actually said.
Either way, this is a good lesson for those /.ers who maintain that you don't have to show a cop your ID in the U.S. when asked (that you don't need "papers" in the U.S.). That may *technically* be true, but it can still cost you a weekend in jail and a $3500 legal bill if you actually pull that shit with a real cop.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
ANY time the cops, spooks, politicians, corporations-- anybody, really-- claims to have "lost" the evidence, they are lying or they deliberately destroyed it. Like when the CIA, at the behest of Bush, just happened to lose hundreds of torture tapes after they'd been ordered by a court to preserve them. Like they did with much of the Abu Ghraib evidence.
Police in particular can NOT be trusted to police themselves. The few honest cops are often threatened by the rest. Rat on us and good luck when you call for backup...
"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."
I'm glad that he went after the SPD, and didn't back down until he exposed their deceipt.
Additionally, he and his companions should have been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, but not for refusing to ID himself. Oh, and the one that hit the other guy in the face with the foam ball should have been arrested for assault. They were all a bunch of hooligans, and a public nuisance.
So they spent months, thousands of dollars in defense, thousands in city funds all over the fact that some drunk tool refused to tell the cop who he was?
No, you moron. They spent that money because the police made an arrest under false pretenses, then tried to cover it up by lying about the presence of evidence.
Look at the Hans Reiser case, or the Terry Childs case. On Slashdot we see tons of support for them, claiming they couldn't have done it, are being railroaded, etc, etc. They get consideration that people in other professions don't. A circling of the wagons.
It seems to be human nature.
From the article:
Rachner didn't hack the police computers, but with attorney Stockmeyer's advice he spent several late nights starting in October poring line-by-line over technical aspects of the video and audio recording system. He examined the Houston-area manufacturer's contracts, specifications and procedures.
Rachner hit pay dirt when a procurement contract and system specs revealed that a computerized log is kept permanently on every video and audio recording, showing when anyone uploads it, flags it for retention, plays it, copies it or deletes it.
He also discovered recordings aren't regularly destroyed every 90 days, but are kept for a variety of reasons. While they can be destroyed after three months, that erasure isn't mandated."
I wonder if the police department lawyers are scrambling to get the procurement contract and system specs 'modified'.
Police Department: Damn Open Source Software!
Actually, if you RTFA, it wasn't him that hit someone in the face with the ball. Even the victim said he was only mad at the one person who did it, and it wasn't the subject of this article.
And he did really just refuse to identify himself and/or show his ID; it's all right on the recording in the linked article.
The issue here is that everyone is saying the cops are bigs, but in most jurisdictions, it is completely legal for a police officer involved in an investigation to ask an individual to identify him or herself. What is at issue is whether or not it is legal to arrest/detain someone ONLY for refusing to identify themselves if they are suspected of no other crime (the other issue here is that perhaps playing street golf/hockey is probably against some ordinance, but let's leave that aside).
This really isn't about "papers, please". It's about a law enforcement officer making a legitimate, legal request...not complying with an officer's legal request, even if you haven't yet done anything else wrong, is itself a crime in many jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it hasn't been (and still isn't) established whether or not and under what circumstances it is inappropriate in the State of Washington for a police officer to request an individual's ID.
I get a kick out of all the posts here laying into the cops. Typical, though, and not surprising.
And pretty soon you have no rights left to give away.
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This douchebag was wandering around with a group of thirty or so people, drunkenly smacking people in the face with foam golf balls and then heckling them. I'm not sying the cops were right, they weren't, but this guy is no hero.
If you read the article, it says one person hit a passerby. Not the guy in question here. In fact, it says he did not even resemble the one who had hit the passerby with the foam ball.
Reply to That ||
According to Wikipedia, Washington does not have a "stop and identify" statute. So, unless there's other relevant legislation, no. You don't.
If an officer of the law requests to see your ID, you must present it.
[citation needed]
Reply to That ||
Because they like to beat up 15 year old girls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl67FmVRjYs
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/401779_schene28.html
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/01/former_deputy_paul_schene_says.php
I'll condemn them heartily. They should be arrested if they're causing real problems and don't immediately respond to police presence by quieting the hell down and dispersing. But once the cops decide to start arresting people, they'd better be damned sure they follow the law - because when they don't, they further undermine their legitimacy.
It is even worse in Northern Virginia
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.
Have any of you posting listened to the audio? Especially the ones claiming they were a group of 'drunken douchebags'?
If you listen to the audio you'll notice that nobody was loud, obnoxious or incredibly rude. Eric sounds a bit curt, but he's defending his rights against an office who clearly is uniformed of the laws or has gotten too used to getting his way because he is a police office.
But honestly, I don't fault the officer either. He was as polite as can be expected and I believe he thought that he was in the right.
The this should have gone down, Eric gets arrested, police realize "Oh crap, you shouldn't have done that." Eric gets compensated for his attorney fees, the police officer gets sent to additional training and a memo is written to the rest of the department reminding them of how the laws ACTUALLY WORK.
That would have been justice, but we live in a society where everyone is out for blood for the most minor injustices and neither side is willing to say "oops, we screwed up."
Everything that happened afterward could have been avoided by simply saying "we were wrong, we're sorry" and then providing the necessary training to the police force so that they understand that citizens DO have the right to refuse to identify themselves.
I went to High School with Eric. I thought he was a douchebag then, and I'm sure he's still a douchebag now. Don't read that as support of the police, 'cause it ain't. Just saying that sometimes only a douchebag has enough of a "F**k the World" spirit to get the job done...
---As my daddy used to tell me: "You gotta be smart before you can be a smartass."
Refusing to show ID is not illegal as Washington does not have a Stop and Identify statute: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_identify
If you read TFA, you might note that the it was actually a different guy, not arrested by the police, who sliced the ball. And whether all of the people (security researchers) involved were assholes or not, that doesn't change the law, and the requirement for the police to follow it.
I think that the video demonstrates that the cop may have very well believed that his request was legal, but I hardly think refusing to comply with his actually illegal request means that the subject was to blame in any way. They were quite civil until he refused to produce ID. Then the cop escalates first, bolstered by his ignorant beliefs about his authority.
The case alluded to in the article is Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, in which the supreme court ruled that Nevada's stop and identify law, which requires only that someone suspected of a crime give his or her name, was constitutional. It was 7-2, with Stevens and Breyer dissenting. In that case, there was a Nevada law explicitly allowing a request for identification (and requiring a response), a situation which does not obtain in Washington.
Let us consider another example. At first glance, New York's law on this seems particularly heinous, allowing that an officer "may demand of him his name, address and an explanation of his conduct." It doesn't actually say whether the subject is required to respond, however. In fact, New York's law merely limits the scope of questioning to which an officer may subject a suspect before arrest. If other probable cause to arrest is not found, refusal to answer those questions is not grounds.
So, in New York and most states, you really can refuse to answer police questions. That doesn't make you a "douchebag." On the contrary, because Rachner had been following his state court decisions, he was able to upgrade himself from "drunken nerfball golfer" to "American Hero."
You might think it an inconsequential 'freedom' that one doesn't have to identify themselves to law enforcement officers. You might think that convenience trumps standing up for one's freedom. Rachner didn't. I agree with his choice. "Papers, Please" is something my German relatives have told me about from personal experience.
Some people are just more willing than others to make sacrifices for their country and their countrymen.
Blar.
Yes, people will make mistakes. If they also immediately admit their mistakes and try to ensure they don't happen again, people will still trust them. That is a sign of integrity.
Covering up mistakes and abusing your authority to put the blame on your victim is a sign that you have no integrity.
You cannot be trusted and cannot function as a public servant without integrity.
...is no excuse." That's what LEOs always love to throw in your face. It should be no different for them.
1. Douchebaggery is not a crime.
2. He was arrested illegally and the police acted to cover up evidence of that fact.
First, when one examines the typical city budget (in this case Seattle) you will note millions of dollars in a miscellanous account line; this is for all those damages paid out in lawsuits against the Seattle Police, the Seattle Utilities departments.
Secondly, I have long held that Cleve Stockmeyer is, hands down, the finest attorney in the Northwest. He was also the finest board member on the Seattle Monorail Project which, if Seattle wasn't even more riddled with corruption than even San Diego, we would actually have a city-wide monorail today, instead of continuing to be fleeced with millions of dollars in payouts due to the highly-paid Seattle police department and Seattle utilities people.
Nope. Never talk to a cop. Ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Wow, that's the stupidest bit of travel advice I've ever heard.
Never walk around with your passport when you don't have to. Leave it locked in the hotel safe, take a photocopy if you need it.
Now I've been able to walk around unharrased without my passport in every nation I've been to, including but not limited to:
- Thailand
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- Singapore
- New Zealand
- Cambodia
- Vietnam
- China
- Indonesia
BTW, I'm an Australian.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am upset about these kinds of situations not only because it's a clear abuse of power but also because thoughless actions such as these waste millions of taxpayer dollars.
Here's what I think could work as a deterrent to abuse by government officials...
For every lawsuit that is lost by the city, county, state in similar matters... the offending department has their next yearly budget reduced by half of the judgement. So if the police department does something bad and ends up settling out of court or loses a court case to the tune of 1 million... then their next yearly budget would automatically get reduced by 500k.
There has to be some sort of penalty to government workers that is more meaningful than just dipping into the general budget (our tax dollars) to pay for mistakes.
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.
You are so fucking dumb I expect your head to implode.
They don't need your name to arrest you. Had they actually had a reasonable suspicion that he had broken a law they could have arrested him immediately.
The only thing they didn't need was his name.
I heard some good advice recently, tell me what you think: Try a little nuance in your thinking
I think it's a good idea, but you don't seem to...
not everything is black and white, the hero fighting the villain. Sometimes it's just two villains fighting.
After all there's ZERO evidence that this guy is even a jerk, let alone that he did anything wrong, and you're trying as hard as Glen Beck to paint him as the problem.
There's a rape victim. Go not-so-subtly blame her clothing, or judgment. Quickly, for great justice!
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....I don't see anything in there about Mexicans, do you?
Of course it doesn't say anything about Mexicans. That would be stupid, regardless of any intentions involved. You really think if they wrote a law like this with racist intentions they would state that explicitly? I'm not saying this is or isn't the case, but your proof is like asking people to play dumb.
Also your interpretation of the law doesn't match what I read in your link, nor does is coincide with what backers of the bill have said. The law states that they need "reasonable suspicion" and "lawful contact" to verify citizenship. Reasonable suspicion does not equal probable cause and neither does lawful contact. There is nothing in the law that establishes what reasonable suspicion is, and when asked what reasonable suspicion was, even the lawmakers who backed the bill can't come up with anything consistent. The only simple thing about the law is that it is open ended and poorly defined.
Another thing to note is your example is a bit ironic. Did you actually verify that the people in the emergency room weren't citizens? It's the emergency room where things aren't exactly planned out. Maybe they didn't have time to look for their paper work or it was lost in an accident. I carry around my drivers license but it might be in my coat on the table when I leave the office to get coffee. If I was rushed to the ER without it and was in their position would you have assumed I wasn't a citizen? Would the question be easier to answer if you could see what I looked like, or how I talked?