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Prison Hack Shows Attorney-Client Privilege Violation (theintercept.com)
Advocatus Diaboli writes with this excerpt from The Intercept: An enormous cache of phone records obtained by The Intercept reveals a major breach of security at Securus Technologies, a leading provider of phone services inside the nation's prisons and jails. The materials — leaked via SecureDrop by an anonymous hacker who believes that Securus is violating the constitutional rights of inmates — comprise over 70 million records of phone calls, placed by prisoners to at least 37 states, in addition to links to downloadable recordings of the calls. The calls span a nearly two-and-a-half year period, beginning in December 2011 and ending in the spring of 2014."
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications — calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. The recording of legally protected attorney-client communications — and the storage of those recordings — potentially offends constitutional protections, including the right to effective assistance of counsel and of access to the courts.
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications — calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. The recording of legally protected attorney-client communications — and the storage of those recordings — potentially offends constitutional protections, including the right to effective assistance of counsel and of access to the courts.
"Constitutional rights? Bah! Who needs 'em!" seems to be the watchword of the new millenium.
and seriously, if you're worried about the attorney client privilege, how do you want those calls filtered when ALL calls are being automatically recorded?
There is usually a large sign near the phones in prisons and jails that says something like this, "Phone Use Is Recorded". In person conversations between client and lawyer are not supposed to be recored though.
Passionately Indifferent
You know? CRIMINALS!
I don't give a Couric about THEIR rights.
Bring back the chain gang!
"Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications calls that never should have been recorded in the first place. "
My family was involved with a fairly complex trial recently (hah -- 'recently' took over 2.5 years from start to finish).
What I recall was that ALL calls were recorded and then screened (I honestly don't recall how) and the defense was notified of each recording between client and 'accused'. The post-screened calls were then filtered (removing privileged calls) to the police. All recordings (including privileged calls which were separate and sealed) were submitted to the defense as part of discovery.
Given how much we pay to incarcerate these people and given that they would be receiving lots of government handouts outside prison, I think the obvious solution is to give them a limited number of free domestic phone minutes per week.
Handing a phone monopoly to a private company is cronyism and government corruption.
IIRC, There already is precedent that private companies are not beholden to the Constitution in this respect. The Constitution applies to government, and government alone. A private company can do what they feel like, and Article IV of the Constitution doesn't apply to them.
Violates their Constitutional rights? The federal Constitution specifies and limits what the federal government can do. Did the federal government get copies of the conversations, of the recordd from this private company? If not, one can argue a -privacy- issue, but not a -Constitutional- issue.
The explanation is obvious. The NSA listens in on any comms, including prisoner-lawyer and catholic-confessioner calls. The NSA served Securus with papers, forcing them to do the recording.
Otherwise, for the rest of the world, it is difficult to understand USA's fascination with providing an infinite roster of protecions, loopholes and all kinds of excuses for criminals to escape due punishment for their crimes. America celebrates and cherishes ciminal lifestyle, not just as an isolated case, like the romantic image of european highwaymen and pirates, but in general the american society clearly prefers criminal-active people vs victim-passive people. The criminal is a valuable member of the society, who takes money from the passive people and actively injects it into the economy via gambling and prostitution. Especially ethnic and coloured criminals are cherished, they are all-american superstars.
Some american member states, especially Florida verbosely cater to the criminal classes with special protections. E.g. if you kill n+1 people, rob their money and buy a luxury mansion and land with it, those cannot be confiscated (except in very narrow cases, where FBI is able to get hold of the case under federal jurisdiction).
This is why parallel construction was invented. So you can perform all kinds of illegal NSA-style surveillance to get "evidence", then have someone else construct a case around it while not knowing about the surveillance.
Convenient.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Constitutional rights don't end because the government had a 3rd party do the illegal stuff. In this case the 3rd party company is acting as an agent of the government.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
The 14th Amendment extends those prohibitions to the states as well. It doesn't matter that the government in question isn't the US federal government, it is *A* government within the US.
I know the 14th Amendment is relatively new and all (it was only ratified in 1868), but do try to keep up.
If you follow the DoJ's interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, it's only a violation if someone listens to the recording...
What the fuck are Constitutional rights? The constitution has never granted you rights.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Violates their Constitutional rights? The federal Constitution specifies and limits what the federal government can do. Did the federal government get copies of the conversations, of the recordd from this private company? If not, one can argue a -privacy- issue, but not a -Constitutional- issue.
Incorporation TL;DR: Prior to 1925 the Bill of Rights was held to apply only to the Federal government, but a series of US Supreme Court decisions have held that most amendments do in fact apply to the states as well.
Is it the recording of the data or the listening to of the data that's a violation of client/attorney privilege? Just because the conversation has been recorded, doesn't mean that someone has listened to the conversation. Based upon what has been reported, this appears to be a case of FUD. If no one listens to the conversation, client attorney privilege has not been violated - the same goes for emails retained on email servers.
If you interfere with the right to counsel you are violating constitutional rights. Attorney-client privilege isn't a constitutionally enumerated right, but it is a legally defined privilege.
The threat to civil rights is that these companies who provide services to the prison system have an inherent bias to the prison system and law enforcement -- that's who their customer base is.
The idea that these companies can be entrusted to maintain the confidentiality of recorded attorney-client conversations is extremely doubtful due to their relationship with their clients. It seems extremely likely that they would be willing to expose privileged communications if pressured by law enforcement or prison officials.
On a side note, it's awfully tedious to be constantly reminded that "the constitution limits the rights of the federal government". Yeah, sure, but nearly every state constitution mirrors Federal constitutional rights, and if you're talking prisoners and their attorneys it seems obvious to me that constitutional rights are in play *somehow*.
And why is it that you yourself, while acting as if you care about constitutional rights, disparage those who support the right to be armed? I don't want a random person deciding which of my rights I should or shouldn't have based on their individual biases. I want them all.
Those who support infringing your right to privacy while supporting the 2nd amendment are making a terrible mistake. But by directing your anger towards them and supporting infringing on the right they hold dear, you are not only making the same mistake, but you are also playing into the hands of those who are perfectly happy taking our rights away a little bit at a time.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking that your ACLU card can't live next to an NRA one, or that the EFF membership depends on you having a specific political allowance as opposed to being committed to preserving as many rights as we can.
It's good to have different opinions and a debate... But once you say that you're okay sacrificing one right for the false hope of security, just because you don't care to exercise it, you don't get to argue for preservation of others against a similar promise of safety.
REPUBLICANS on the other hand realize that the Constitution is just a piece of paper and thus they don't need to actually gut the First Amendment.
Just quietly render the offenders.
[[Citation Needed]] There is a reason why during the Gilded Age, private police forces were used, because they don't have to abide by the Constitution. If they feel like kicking down a door and seizing stuff, they can, and they are immune to lawsuits because they are acting on behalf of the government, but not have to abide by the Constitution, sine they are private actors.
They're recording the calls of rapists, drug dealers, murderers? Oh whatever shall we do!?
Also black people caught with a few ounces of marijuana, petty thieves, people railroaded by police/justice systems out for blood or just trying to make quota, reporters who preferred to go to jail to protect the confidentiality of their sources and other such scum. So hang them all!
I love it when people start screaming about privilege and how they think it is a magic bullet against prosecution by the State. But, here's the real story.
Simply recording phone calls and storing records of privileged conversation is not a constitutional violation, neither is it a violation to use information from those calls to impeach a defendant so long as valid and lawful parallel construction techniques are used to arrive at the same information by legal means.
"Legal Privilege" is the right not to have privileged communications (that is, the specific act of communicating and the specific information communicated) used against someone in court. It is not an absolute right to privacy (and in fact no absolute right to privacy exists anywhere in human civilization).
For example, if I tell my lawyer that I accidentally hit a pedestrian and drove off, and the police listened to that call, they could NOT use that information by itself to obtain a warrant. However; acting upon that information, if they sought for a convenience store owner to voluntarily hand over security camera footage showing the accident, they could then obtain a warrant and prosecute me based upon the video footage. It matters not that they did not have a warrant for the video tape because the store owner handed it over voluntarily, and I have no expectation of privacy in a public place. All they would need to do is put the owner on the stand and ask them to explain how Police were requesting video tape for an accident investigation, and how he happily complied. End of trial, defendant guilty.
Advocatus Diaboli, indeed.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications
"Strong indication... likely..."
So, are they priveleged or not? What if the system actually worked perfectly, and no priveleged conversations were recorded? What is about the number "14,000" that gives rise to the suspicion that some of them were priveleged?
There are a lot of people in US prisons, you know, and if there is such a thing as an unpriveleged inmate/attorney conversation (I have no idea how it works), then there are probably a lot of those going on. What if they call the attorney's office and they're not there? Is that priveleged?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law
Maybe you think insider trading shouldn't be a crime, but there are a lot of us who would disagree with you.
Poppycock.
Posting a large sign indicating that your constitutional rights are no longer valid is a perfectly valid way to violate them.
Just consider the TSA. They post a large sign indicating that your 4th Amendment rights are no longer valid beyond a certain point before boarding the plane. And apparently; the entire fucking country just accepts that.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Uh, no. As noted earlier, just because you are a third party doesn’t make you immune from constitutionality and law suites. Evidenced by the many issues we've seen in the news the last few years by bounty hunters breaking in the doors of the wrong house. They most certainly have had to face constitutionality and law suites, as well as the local authority they were acting under. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, in many jurisdictions bounty hunters must be deputized by the local sherrif.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
I do..
As humans we all have rights,
These individuals pay for the right to use a secure communication with their legal representatives in private..
This obviously circumvents this...
So now, what legal recourse is there?
I mean, inmates cant sue outside of the facility or inside for that matter as well..
So,
What the fuck?
Is Securus a state government now?
Again, if the -government- is listening to attorney-client conversations, there's a Constitutional issue. If some other random person is doing so, it might be illegal, but it's not unconstitutional.
people who are incarcerated can appeal to the sitting governor of most states for reinstatement of their voting rights. Its typically accompanied by a processing fee and requires the use of an attorney. if youre unlucky enough to do this in an election year, the likelyhood a sitting governor will do anything but deny this request is poor. ex convicts can be legally discriminated against in housing, education, and employment. In more than 20 states ex convicts cannot receive local section 8 housing benefits, food stamps, or public assistance. Credit tracking companies like experian will also kindly obliterate your credit rating once its been known you've spent time in prison. you cant get a loan for everything from a house to a car or even a small business. and it gets worse. Felons released for time served arent released, they are typically put on 2-5 years mandatory probation. that means they have a curfew, they cant go to bars, they cant own a gun, and they have to abide by whatever arbitrary soothsay a judge imposes. any screwup sends you back to jail for committing a non-crime after punishment. Did you commit a cybercrime? then that means you cant use everything from an ATM to the sytem that lets you check in to your parol officer and schedule meetings/hearings.
your visas and passports? those are also now invalid and reinstatement after a felony conviction takes twice as long and requires an extra processing fee to pull your criminal records during incarceration. Police that stop you for anything from jay walking to speeding are legally allowed to profile you based on your criminal record, so what started out as a 10 minute inconvenience on the way to work is now a 40 minute ordeal in handcuffs on the side of the road. And lets talk about reparation. Remember that stay in prison? turns out you now owe in most states close to $60,000 in restitution for everything from shelter to food and even civil penalties for the original criminal conviction. cant pay? more than 40 states will send you right back to jail for being too poor.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"a leading provider of phone services inside the nation's prisons and jails"... the summary fails to mention the country at all. Is Slashdot really so US-centric now so it needs no mention?
Nice. It looks like some inmates will get more than 20 bucks when they get out if they sue their asses off those guys.
True, but this isn't unconsitutional: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-jail-record-telephone-conversation-lawyer.html
They have no expectation of privacy so it can be recorded. That said, it may still be privileged (i.e. you can't use it in court) even if it's recorded.
They remain a resident of their previous municipality while in prison. That means voting on the municipal, county, state, and federal elections that they would otherwise be a part of if living on the outside.
No special rules needed for rural cities. If all the local inmates also happen to be residents of the town, then more power to them for voting out the warden/mayor/etc who put them in there.
Police are sometimes under political pressure to collar someone in a high-profile crime. A lot of people later exonerated by DNA fall into the category of, "The mayor said we gotta bring somebody in, Sarge. Shall we round up the usual suspects?"
Try getting it entered into court as evidence, the judge will just throw it out.
Just playing devil's advocate here, but does it matter that these calls were recorded since they could never be admitted in court (and, btw, neither could any evidence discovered as a result of knowledge obtained from these calls)?
Any recordings of Charlie Manson?