Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"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.
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.
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 attorney calls a dispatcher first that turns the system off before connecting to the inmate. They built a system that records 70+ million calls ... they can't build a feature to exclude authorized calls?
If you had taken the time to actually read tfa, that point was answered. Scroll back to the bottom of the article - Securus' reply - and you will read how they try and exclude such calls. You will also read their claim that this was not a hack, it was a leak (paraphrasing).
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Right, so if I setup Private NSA Inc, take a couple of major loans from the US government, use that to buy up all the NSA sites, and then provide my "services" to the NSA. Its all good because the government isn't doing it. I get a cherry on top by giving myself a huge bonus, going bankrupt, selling my assets for cheap to Private NSA Two Inc, and reneg on the loans.
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.
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.
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.
Strictly speaking, most of that is legal. What isn't legal is the part where the US government uses your services for anything.
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.
I don't give a Couric about THEIR rights.
BAD attitude to have. People sitting in jail aren't necessarily convicted yet. Add to that the number of convicted people sitting in prisons because of rogue prosecutors; ie; wrongly convicted, which DNA testing has shown a number of. If we had your attitude we'd continue (not that we've stopped, but we've seen a growing number of these) we'd be the most murderous (from executions) and punitive nation on earth. And I have a hard time with that, given we're a "civilized" society and all. I'd like to hear your attitude after you were fingered for a murder you were no where near.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
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".'
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.
Legally, the prosecutor can NOT act on any information they have obtained illegally, unless they can demonstrate those actions would have been done anyway.
That is, before the video tape from the store owner can be entered into evidence, the lawyers must convince a judge that they would have asked for it even if they did not know about your confession.
If you can convince a judge that they would not have done that, that tape becomes "fruit of a poisoned tree" and not admissible as evidence.
If a prosecutor comes into contact with information like your illegally obtained confessions, Prosecutors S.O.P. is to recuse themselves from the case and hand it over to someone else that is NOT aware of your confession. This is considered proof that that the actions were not influenced by the illegally obtained confession.
Now, some prosecutors may violate this law and/or lie, but that is what the laws of our country say.
Note, in the particular, example you gave, if your accident was already classified as 'suspicious' then the store owner would most likely be questioned, and therefore that tape would be allowed in. But if you can demonstrate that the police in question (who did not here your confession) were not suspicious at all, then the tape from the store owner would be thrown out.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The recording is legal, but listening to it is not. Prisoners give up the right to privacy when they enter the prison, but they retain attorney/client privilege.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"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.
It's cute that they *try* to obey the constitution.
The NSA also tries when it's convenient to them.
It is SUPPOSED to only be used when you have legal evidence obtained that you wish to keep secret to protect undercover cops. Legally it should not be used to cover up the use of poison fruit.
As I stated in my first post, THERE ARE PROSECUTORS that break the law, and this is one technique they may use to do that.
But just because a prosecutor did something, it does not make what he did legal. In cases like this, chances are you won't get a fair trial unless:
1) You pay a huge amount of money to a good lawyer.
or
2) Your judge/appeal judge is particularly diligent about civil rights.
But we are discussing what is legal, not the practicalities of obtaining your rights.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The Chain-gang hasn't gone away, well the chains part has, but we have jail prisoners doing lots of thing around here. Prisoners pretty much run the day to day operation of our county's animal control, cut grass and clear snow for parks and recreation and forestry; it's all voluntary and quite popular with the inmates. Even during WW II German POWs worked in the communities, often leaving and returning to camp without supervision. It's all a matter of risk assessment.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So you don't tell the judge where you actually got it. Welcome to "parallel construction".
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Any recordings of Charlie Manson?