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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.
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
I'm pretty sure posting a large sign doesn't make unconstitutional actions legal. That's kind of the point of the Bill of Rights.
Got a citation for the claim that felons voting to legalize their crimes was a problem in the past?
Because the way I see it, if there is such a broad danger that a crime won't be a crime if there are enough criminals to support removing it from law, then perhaps it shouldn't be a crime.
Or putting it another way, if criminals can form enough of a voting bloc to where they make for a significant impact on politics, then perhaps we have made crimes of too many behaviors.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
locked up
therefore
don't... deserve
This is the shit kind of logic that messes up our society. There is no room in there to think that _maybe_ someone is locked up incorrectly. You are guilty because you are locked up, you are locked up because you are guilty. The logic assumes so much about the perfection of our justice system is or the powers that can control our lives. With that as a starting point, what margin is there to question the leaders, or the laws, or to give second chances.
they are inmates so considering that being locked up has already been deemed acceptable based on what they've done, don't be thinking they deserve the same rights as an inmate as you and i do on the outside
Important distinction to keep in mind here: "Securus Technologies" provides phone service/wiretapping to both jails and prisons. People in prison have been convicted of something. You can(and people frequently do), end up in jail if you cannot afford to post bail, or if the court refuses to allow release on bail, pending your trial.
Aside from more general concerns, that is perhaps the most worrisome population: can't make bail, or don't have the option, so they are presumably mostly poor and/or suspected of something gruesome; and are stuck in jail so have few options for coordinating their upcoming trial with their lawyers aside from using the phone or hoping that their(probably less than stellar and somewhat overworked) legal representation can squeeze all the necessary prep into the jail's visiting hours and policies.
If they are laboring under all those advantages and prosecutors get to listen to their calls to their attorney, apparently without bothering to disclose this fact, it's hard to even pretend that something remotely close to justice is being done.
There are some legitimate purposes for keeping an eye on prison phone calls(coordinating witness tampering, relaying instructions to confederates who remain outside, organizing smuggling operations into the prison, etc. are hardly unknown uses of the phone); but do not forget that the incarcerated population includes pre-trial detainees, who have not been found guilty of anything in a court of law yet; and the call metadata and recordings(which apparently have no particular retention limit) are not restricted to use in combating illegal conduct, prison contraband, witness intimidation, etc; but for any purposes that people with access to them see fit. Perhaps most...delightful...is Securus' own "Threads" technology: an intelligence product specifically designed to use call data to associate inmates with the non-incarcerated, so that police can more effectively focus on them. If the poor bastards in jail pre-trial aren't enough, the "More than 600,000 people with billing name and address (not incarcerated)" might object to the fact that they are part of Securus' product.
Not only that, but that kind of logic also leads to prisoners becoming repeat offenders even if they try to go straight. A prisoner can get released after serving his time only to find out:
1) He has no money to afford rent, food, clothing, etc.
2) He can't live with relatives because of laws forbidding certain residents from allowing felons to live in their apartments.
3) Jobs pass him up immediately (not even giving him an interview) once he checks "Have you ever been convicted of a felony" on the application form.
4) Parole officers set odd times for him to check in - requiring him to choose between skipping out on a job he was lucky enough to get or skipping his parole hearing.
5) Even having a parole officer is an expense that he has to pay for.
All of this conspires to make it hard for someone released from prison (again, after having served their time) to live their life without committing more crimes. However, any attempt to make it easier for ex-convicts to live honest lives is painted as being soft on crime because "obviously" once-a-criminal-always-a-criminal.
(John Oliver recently had a great segment on this subject. It's on YouTube, but unfortunately I don't have the link here.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
I doubt that many of them bother. Voting is for plebes, the real ballots have dead presidents on them and you don't have to wait until Election Day to cast them.
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.