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How NY Gov. Cuomo Sidesteps Freedom of Information Requests With His Blackberry
New submitter wrekkuh writes "The Daily News is reporting that if aides of New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo cannot speak in person or by telephone with the Governor, they are told to use BlackBerry's PIN-to-PIN messaging system — a function that leaves no lasting trail because it bypasses data-saving email servers. Consequently, a Freedom of Information request for all e-mails to and from Governor Cuomo's office resulted in an empty reply from the Records Access Officer: 'Please be advised that the New York State Executive Chamber has conducted a diligent search, but does not possess records responsive to your request.'"
Why do sysmgr geeks love RIM? Above is one of many reasons, along with enterprise integration, remote administration, custom device policies. For years nothing could compete.
Droids/iStuff can run apps, but none of them could do exactly what a BB does, although perhaps that gap is narrowing. Too bad RIM is so far behind on the game nowadays no one will buy their devices and market share is plunging. 10% of value 1 year ago? Madness.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
politicians should be tagged like sex offenders
Do as they say, not as they do.
If this were a Republican Gov, Kieth, Rachel, and all the other left wing loudmouths would be engaged in a quasi-journalistic orgy of condemnation and gnashing of teeth.
Next thing you know the Legislative Branch will start writing laws to sidestep the Judicial!!
Do you think all his phone conversations have been recorded?
There will always be unrecorded means for government officials to communicate, unless it becomes illegal, and still even then.
They don't want Jefferson's informed populace. Go back to watching the Kardasians please.
Silence is a state of mime.
"Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink." - Martin Michael Lomasney
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Biased fringe liberal press outfits just use email to attack mainstream conservative politicians they hate. This kind of practice is what a modern, intelligent, proactive administration needs to do to make sure the government works. Who cares if it pisses off some useless MSNBC gasbags.
Not storing information is the oldest trick in the book. This is not news.
It makes me think of ISPs getting subpoenaed for information that simply doesn't exist.
Isn't there a law that mandates all official government written communications should be recorded?
We have a classic problem with the freedom of information requests:
1) We want accurate historical records maintained of how decision were made, by whom and why.
2) We want a have an open press and legal system to have access to those records so our legal processes and our political processes are based on accurate information.
3) We want to have an open campaign system where all available information is discussed as part of the process of choosing leaders.
Pick any 2.
Had a former employer demand that I get an iPhone so he could text me the instructions on everything he wanted me to do, much of which was either illegal or leading me to suspect that he was basically building up an elaborate scam. But then of course he demanded emails that would show evidence that I was the one at fault for providing false information to him the whole time (me being the programmer). I cursed him out and quit for insulting my intelligence, and made sure the rest of the company employees got wind of it so they'd know better too. Younger less experienced employees might not have caught on to this, but I sure did....real fast.
Everything needs to be on record. It has to be a criminal offense to systematically use systems with no log. These people are public officials with enormous power. The ability to find out who knew what when is vital to the public trust.
What public officials are effectively saying is that we need to make this a felony for them to take it seriously. A felony conviction amongst other things would invalidate them from public service ever again. So indifferent to whether they actually served any jail time it would be the irrevocable end to their political career.
I don't see any reason to bother even sending them to jail for it. Just give them a felony conviction with a 1000 dollar fine for court fees.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It was an issue within the Canadian Federal Government a few years back. Many Departments were told (not warned) to stop and that was it.
As a bes sysadmin, I can tell you all pin to pin is logged on the server. Unless they are running a really old version, this is bs.
Oh, wait.....
Nevermind. This didn't happen.
It seems to me that everywhere you look, people are getting or already have enough of "the system". I'm one of them. This shit has got to go and it has got to go now.
A scumbag in New York.
Given the media's interest in "gotcha" journalism and the messy process of getting to good legislative compromise, I'm glad there are some ways government officials can talk privately. How else can they sit down with their legislative friends and reach a compromise if they can't discuss things that the special interests or their own party would attack them for. If we want compromise, people need to be free to talk privately.
Next thing you know the Legislative Branch will start writing laws to sidestep the Judicial!!
As long as the Judicial Branch doesn't start declaring that "Up" really means "Sideways" in the Constitution or just start making stuff up from the bench, we'll be OK. I mean, sheesh, will we ever be in trouble if that happens.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'm sure they're logged somewhere.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Here in the UK, we learn that during the "cash for honours" scandal, a separate non-government computer was operating in No. 10 specifically for the purpose of doing business without oversight.
The arsehole also shredded all his expense data just before the storm over MPs claiming for duck ponds and tennis courts broke.
Labour, Democrat - it seems they are all in it together.
Maybe they have a local history of chat logs.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Am I the only one who thinks this is completely reasonable and acceptable?
activist judge (noun, plural "activist judges"): a judge with whom I disagree.
"Up" doesn't mean "Sideways", "Up" has been ruled to clearly mean "Interstate Commerce".
You're behind the times. Up and Sideways are actually a tax now.
But but but ROMNEY and BAIN. And oh, BUUUUUUUUUSH.
Laws that regulate government in the sunshine are not meant to be bypassed by an electronic device or system. They probably feel secure that he can't be charged as a criminal but a lovely civil suit or obscuring the transparency of government might work as a variation of a citizen's civil rights being violated.
I am on a condo board with three members. In my state is is almost illegal for me to say hello to another board member as it is a meeting out of view of the membership. Could a mayor or governor be operating under less stringent laws than a condo board?
This is the media trying to score sensational revelations to make money. Also the executive trying to do a job where people can communicate honestly without fear that the sensationalist press will partially quote them the next day.
As someone who ordered something that would usually have been posted the next day concealed because it was the details of a negotiation position, I see some cases where secrecy is justified. And once the negotiations were concluded, the item was published. You can't negotiate when the other side can know every detail of your bottom line positions.
I guess what I'm saying is it isn't as simple as some would make it.
I would simply ask for every email the Gov. has sent or received and then see if he's circumventing FOIA. If the only emails that come back are fluff crap or none at all then that would provide a pretty good indication of circumvention.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The Bush administration was raked over the coalsby the press for Blackberry use, and Sarah Palin was nailed for occasionally using private email as governor. Currently the press is complaining about Romney deleting information when he left as governor.
Note the common denominator: They're all Republicans. I'll be surprised if the press inflates this to the scale of a national scandal since Cuomo is a Democrat.
The mainstream press didn't care much when the Clinton administration "lost" thousands of emails under subpoena, even with a Democrat operative threatening contractors who were knew about the loss, and the fact that person got promoted out of the mess. I hear the Obama administration has hired her for a sensitive post at Cyber Command, *chirp* *chirp*.
He's part of the 1% and plays by different rules than the rest of us.
All Cuomo really had to do was sign an executive order. Everybody knows those overrule legislation now.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
All non-routine city business (new development proposals, top-level hires, etc) gets routed through his top aide, Michael Kineavy, who regularly deletes correspondence from his old Windows laptop w/o mail server backup. The city's IT systems are deliberately kept ancient.
(I personally experience this every year - the database of car owners liable for the auto excise tax is completely separate from the database of residents to whom excise tax bills are sent. I've had a number of discussions in City Hall and they couldn't care less).
So much for "transparency."
If the device is going through a BES (which I sure hope it is), then the admin needs to have logging turned on for all messaging. The messages may be encrypted, but they can still be logged through policies...
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem
Activist judge actually to me means.
Judge whom for what he perceives as a need decides to attempt to interpret the constitution in a way that solves a problem.
Once a judge goes from "What did they mean?" to "What could it mean?" he is an activist judge.
Me wanting the decision to go that way or not.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Conspiracy theorists who think the government is after them, or has some other conspiracy going. Also, you get a lot of people who are just curious and order a huge amount of information just to satisfy it. Let's just say that, even where partisan politics isn't an issue, a large number of FOIA requests really don't serve the common good.
Yes, I knew a FOIA officer.
Internal back-and-forth messages - whether on paper or by email or PIN-to-PIN messaging - are not by law available to the public, said Robert Freeman, of the state Committee on Open Government.
(From Article)
Interesting. IIRC, when government things send out things for records requests in my state, they have to cite the appropriate state law to exempt something.
Of course, this could just be my state laws(I've heard my state is fairly liberal in what you can request and get) and are not applicable in this case, but I would still like to know what law it is that the person claims denies access to it. And for that matter, if the PIN-to-PIN are stored on the device(perhaps the person is driving, receiving the messages, and it is building up a queue), then there is a record. They just need to rephrase what they ask for. (And if they delete, does that mean they are not following their records retention schedule?)
Because the feds have been tapping our email communications, phone communications, bank transactions and more without warrant or limit for years now. Try to keep up: if the government wants to do it "legally", the supreme court will rubber stamp it, or the government just does it in secret -- but they will do it.
Here, have a Google-party:
Carnivore, Enhanced Carnivore (DCS 1000), ECHELON, Oasis, Fluent, Total Informational Awareness (TIA), MATRIX, CALEA, TEMPEST... and these are just the (primarily) US programs. Russia, the UK, China, India, Israel, all are active in these areas as are smaller, but no less motivated (and considerably less hamstrung, legally) players.
If you don't want your words to come back to haunt you, you must never commit them to electronic form, and keep them very, very close and well-controlled in whatever other form you may record them. Otherwise, you must assume they have been recorded, and if encrypted, decoded or able to be decoded if you are of interest to any of the various alphabet soup agencies.
Also remember: if the material to be used against you, or the actions taken against you aren't going to go through a courtroom, the question of a warrant is much less likely to arise at all, regardless of any basis you might think you have in making an argument that the collection itself was unauthorized.
When falcon5768 says, "He's a republican..." he's referring to the AC that started this thread (the AC that made the parent post to CanHasDIY's).
Actually the real definition of activist judge is: A judge who interprets the constitution in a way I don't particularly like.
Activist judge actually to me means.
Judge whom for what he perceives as a need decides to attempt to interpret the constitution in a way that solves a problem.
Once a judge goes from "What did they mean?" to "What could it mean?" he is an activist judge.
Me wanting the decision to go that way or not.
Do not let the words you quote get in the way of thinking you have something to add.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Well, since we're thowing in our own definition: to me an activist judge is not just someone who says a law is unconstitutional but then mandates that actions x, y and z must be taken.
That is because President Bush is the president. Sarah Palin was an inflammatory public figure of the Team Party movement, and Mitt Romney is running for president.
Who is Cuomo in comparison to that? Just a Governor. He isn't a national party figurehead. He isn't the commander in chief. He isn't even in the running to become either.
Don't underestimate the deliberate nature of Cuomo's actions. He is acutely aware of technology, what it is, and how it can be used. He has a lot of good advisers who are technologically aware. He also knows a lot of the dangers posed by email and what it can do.
During his time as Attorney General, he learned very quickly how crucial email was to a case. I don't specifically have to name cases, but a reader can easily find landmark investigations he conducted that hinged on getting email, mining it using some very sophisticated tools, and finding the right evidence.
I'm sure as he conducts himself and his staff now, mis-steps are keenly in his mind. This is a man who is not satisfied as Governor and will run for President.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
The law that Cuomo is being accused of dodging is FOIL (Freedom Of Information Law)
New York citizens should just use Initiative powers to require all electronic text communications be documented and held similar to email, which would see an immediate decline in the number of texts etc.
Oh, wait.... New Yorkers don't have the initiative. All you're left with is petitioning the lawmakers themselves to give up a perk that serves them as much as the Executive. Good luck with that one.
Once a judge goes from "What did they mean?" to "What could it mean?" he is an activist judge.
Depends who you ask. An originalist interprets the text by "What did they mean?". A strict constructionist goes by "What does it say?". Typically both are more acceptable to conservatives than someone who interprets the text by "What is the most reasonable way to read this in current society and based on other precedents?". But to a strict constructionist, asking "what did they mean?" is irrelevant.
PIN logging has been available on any version of the Blackberry Enterprise Server since 4.1
It's disabled by default, but many companies enable it for compliance reasons. I wonder if they requested the PIN logs.
Logged? Yes. Is the content recorded and available for playback? Certainly not.
I think it would be entirely reasonable to have a time constraint such that the information can be kept private for a strictly limited time for exactly those reasons. But in a case like that the statute of limitations (or equivalent) should apply only once the information is made public.
Strict constructionalists are the ones who debate over the exact meaning of the comma placement in the second amendment. Real complications come from the chain of rulings though - often a long series of precidents can be followed, each one building inevitably from the last, until by the end the supreme court came up with something which appears to make no sense when looked at in isolation.
"What is the most reasonable way to read this in current society and based on other precedents?"
reasonable to who? want to amend the constitution for current society? there's an article for that.
Just ask the people arrested and tortured in Syria, Egypt and India!
The Blackberry Enterprise Server platform allows full logging of what users do with their company blackberries.
You can log email, SMS, PIN, BBM, phone calls (but not record the call itself). This is does silently with no indication that the logging is occurring.
It's just a couple clicks to enable these options. If NY state isn't using these options, it's deliberate fraud.
In fact, the Blackberry Enterprise Server platform is very handy for some firms that have to keep track of employee communications (ie, investment banks).
A law says that no motor vehicles are allowed to operate inside a city park. A hiker, deep in the park, has a cardiac arrest. Someone calls an ambulance, but at the entrance to the park there's a sign that says, "motor vehicles not allowed; punishable by $500 fine and up to 6 months in prison".
Ambulance driver proceeds anyhow and saves the man. The district attorney, wanting to look tough crime, has a zero tolerance policy for all law breakers, and indicts the ambulance driver.
The poor driver is brought before a judge for a preliminary hearing. The judge can
a) Allow the trial to proceed, because he clearly broke the letter of law
b) Use common sense--and a 1000 years of AngloAmerican judicial precedent--to "read into" the rule an exception for public safety to the benefit of this criminal defendant.
If the judge chooses (a), he's not a judge. If the conservatives had their way (that is, the way according to the party platform, not what actual politicians believe), we would lose the third and coequal branch of our government. Judges can and should have some degree of "law making" powers.
Anything else is absurd and a road to tyranny. Most judges have far more experience and wisdom when it comes to the analysis, application, and understanding of law in society. Politicians are complete idiots compared to a seasoned judge. Obviously there are democratic issues with giving judges too much leeway. But some leeway they should have. We wouldn't have a free society without powerful, independent, and decidedly "political" judges.
To clarify, he's not a judge because a judges job shouldn't be to rubber stamp legislative law. To have a sane legal system, real judges need some authority to call bullshit.
Some people believe we have this simple and strict hierarchy of legal authority culminating in state and federal constitutions. But the real world isn't that simple. Not every problem can be solved by resort to "the constitution". Most fo the time constitutions are silent on an issue, and where the constitution is silent and a judge is faced with a stupid legal result because of a stupid legislative law, we must recognize some power in that judge to do the right thing.
If we recognize that power, it's going to be abused, and we won't always like what happens. But the alternative would be and increasingly is worse.
The problem is the the Public is really stupid.
The problem is that people are stupid, and that the only candidates for political office are people, but we somehow pretend that the people holding office aren't as stupid as everybody else.
Never trust any authority any more than you would trust an ordinary schmuck, because ordinary schmucks are all there are. You and me included.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Not so long ago the UAE banned RIM Blackberry usage within their borders.
RIM responded.
UAE then allowed RIM Blackberry usage within their borders.
So, What were the 'particulars' of the deal?
Of course the USA will not do nor allow the 'Dubai Deal' be promulgated within USA borders.
That's life ... in the USA.
LoL
Remember too, judges take a slightly more active view of constitutionality. Cases can only come before the Supreme Courts when a bad law has been written, and the DA prosecutes somebody, and the person is gutsy enough to risk appeal vs a plea Bargin before the court actually takes the case.
That means 90% of bad laws can have rulings "avoided" by carefully prosecuting so the law is never appealed.
"A felony conviction amongst other things would invalidate them from public service ever again."
Perhaps, or perhaps not. Remember District of Columbia mayor Marion Berry? A drug conviction didn't keep him from public office. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/barry.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry )
Barry was released from prison in 1992, and two months later filed papers to run for the Ward 8 city council seat in that year's election.[60] Barry ran under the slogan "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C." He defeated the four-term incumbent, Wilhelmina Rolark, in the Democratic primary, winning 70 percent of the vote, saying he was "not interested in being mayor",[61] and went on to win the general election easily.
Quite right.
All Stare decisis does is set fuckups in stone.
Actually what you'd probably get is preemption by a higher law requiring medical professionals to offer reasonable first aid to the wounded.
To be blunt, a city statute forbidding motor vehicles in the city park probably does not actually have the authority to restrain a first responder acting in the official performance of his or her duties.
I disagree that judges should be allowed to legislate from the bench. Especially federal ones that aren't even elected.
Judicial and legislative roles are separated for a reason.
The constitution is not at all silent.
It just says that all powers not delegated to the feds are reserved for the states or the people.
It's called a default rule.
Actually what you'd probably get is preemption by a higher law requiring medical professionals to offer reasonable first aid to the wounded.
Ahh, so you want to amend the example to change the scenario from one in which a judge must judge, to one in which the case would never have been brought. If only real life were so simple. There are certainly no bad laws on the books, right? Nothing that wasn't terribly well thought-out ahead of time?
In theory, bad laws are supposed to be prevented by two things:
1. An electorate responsive to the voters, and
2. A constitution that sets ground rules for what laws may be passed.
Federal law, for example, preempts state law. Case in point, the california medical marijuana law being trumped by federal drug statutes. Also an example of a bad law.
All Cuomo really had to do was sign an executive order. Everybody knows those overrule legislation now.
You say "now" as if it hasn't been going on for a long long time.
... except when you get different activists.
Lochner? ... I could go on, but I'm still amazed at the stretching of the Commerce Clause in various ways, and waiting for the ticking time bomb in Article III, section 2 regarding 'such regulations as the Congress shall make'. (Granted, opening that can of worms is one Constitutional-interpretation analogue of a nuclear option... )
Plessey v. Ferguson?
If the wrong things are set in stone, start thinking about where to use the chisel of truth...
In theory, bad laws are supposed to be prevented by two things:
The GP post wasn't talking about theory. He was talking about messy reality where bad laws have to be dealt with in court where lives hang in the balance.
Why is option b a FAIL? The law was stupid and poorly written. The judge has now made a minor exception to the law as it was written. He has not struck down the law as unconstitutional. He has continued the terrible course of keeping very bad laws on the books and expecting subsequent judges to keep making legal exceptions. If a law is bad it should be struckdown or repealed. If it is an important law it will be revised and passed anew. If it is a stupid law, as many are, all the palm greasing that went into the law and riders that were passed with the law originally will have to be reworked. If every badly written law was struck down by a judge only the laws worth spending time to recreate would remain. Striking down laws is a key power the judicial branch has. Unfortunately the judicial branch has taken to written expections to bad laws instead of making congress rewrite them. In all seriousness, this has nothing to do with the Afordable Care Act. It has to do with all the terrible legislation rotting away our country.
I don't follow this 'logic' at all.
If you have silly laws, and silly enforcement, the object of any judicial exercise isn't to make little excuses de novo, or find loopholes for the privileged or those who somehow qualify for 'special treatment'.
In this particular case, yes, the 'trial should proceed' long enough to establish what the conditions were, clearly illustrate the problems both with the implementation of statutes and with mistaken efforts to 'enforce' them with excessive strictness, and perhaps THEN to exercise reasonable leeway (but only based on precedent or other legally-established criteria -- not whim) either in verdict or sentencing.
This is really a problem with poor legislation, and poor low-level enforcement policy driven by aspects of poor legislation, not a proper judicial issue. Because once you allow a judge's preferences to dictate enforcement, you've destroyed equality before the law... unless some people or groups are more equal than others...
you only have yourselves to blame. you elected these twits. and they turn around and use whatever they can to get away with murder (of the contitution) and in some cases recently of deleting huge parts of it to suit their own needs. oh well, America is not long for this planet. i can see the break up coming soon. by your own hands.