Seattle Hacker Catches Cops Who Hid Arrest Tapes 597
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.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Police officers in theory are not above the law. They are supposed to be held accountable to the same laws as us. If they lied in an investigation and intentionally withheld evidence, they should be charged with obstruction of justice.
They arrested Rachner for obstruction of justice for not identifying himself. Every lawyer on the planet tells you never to talk to a cop for any reason. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I understand the logic behind it. However you can't just arrest someone for not talking to a cop.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:5, Interesting)
They are police... so yes they should be charged... but I'm sure that "an internal review concluded that no police policies were violated".
This shit happens every day. NYPD stole hundreds of bicycles today [thisisfyf.com], this innocent teenager was arrested for "resisting arrest" [carlosmiller.com] after being mistaken for a burglar, and of course this is what happens [carlosmiller.com] when you videotape the police. We live in a police state, plain and simple.
Re:A few bad apples (Score:1, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Code_of_Silence
Re:A few bad apples (Score:5, Interesting)
A few bad apples making the other 1% look bad...
I really wish I thought it was a ratio of 99% to 1%, but the lines are certainly not clear cut. I know quite a few cops. My brother used to be a cop. The profession attracts people with particular mindsets; the fearful, sadists, people with too much testosterone, people who are emotionally underdeveloped and who have seen too many action movies. When you're talking to 5 cops and 3 of them tell you the reason they went into police work was because they wanted to shoot someone without going to jail, well you've got to figure something.
...seriously, why do cops always circle the wagons to protect dishonest cops?
I don't know any cops who don't break the law regularly. The attitude I've witnessed seems to be that they are above the law, at least to some extent. Since they all break the law they all worry some citizen will get them fired because of it, so they can all sympathize when one of them is accused. They try to cover one another's backs and give one another the benefit of the doubt instead of objectively looking into it.
If there were a culture of discipline and more strict adherence to the law than is the norm, things might be different. That's not how cops are hired in our society though or how they are taught in their on the job training. I'd love to meet a cop who refused to speed when not necessary for the job because of the principal of upholding the law, but I suspect such individuals make up less than 1% of cops, rather than 99%.
Re:A few bad apples (Score:5, Interesting)
because they're hated by a large majority of the population ... until they're needed. both sides are right, who hasn't seen a cop, not in uniform, flip their lights on to run a red light (and no they weren't going to an under cover investigation)? i know i have. i've been repeatedly harassed by police for how i was dressed, both as a kid and as an adult, and done experiments along these lines. clean cut, white, and in jeans and a tshirt? no problem. put on a trenchcoat and grow a beard? you're a criminal, i've even been stopped and questioned by police i knew and worked with. i work with police regularly and have for a long time.
i've received parking citations for my car facing the wrong way from a cop who lived in my neighborhood and who i had pictures of his cop car parked the same as i did, facing the wrong way for the lane he was in. i have worked 3rd shift hotels and dealt with racist security teams who were also off duty cops, most of them extremely corrupt and definitely only wearing a badge for power and the 'respect' it garners them (fear would be a better word), and i did see some women want to fuck them solely because of this too.
there are also a LOT of dishonest cops who abuse their power. many (most?) of them are little more than state sanctioned and funded gang members. not all but enough to notice. i forget the exact quote but a friend once said there are two kinds, the corrupt power hungry kind who mostly got picked on in school, and the superman wannabe kind who thinks they're the moral police and are totally smug about their decisions, i have seen the latter even disgusted by other police they worked with and said so but, no they would NEVER under any circumstances turn each other in; it's more of a talk behind their back or pat them on the shoulder and ask them to stop kind of thing. both are dangerous, both abuse power, some more than others.
generally if you are polite, so are they, sometimes they're good to have around but they're pretty much always like restless invading armies, if they don't have something else to do they will turn on you very *very* quickly. maybe YMMV, i live in the midwest and have lived in the city most of my life and my experiences have been consistent with police for more than 14 years.
Procurement Contract and System Specs (Score:2, Interesting)
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!
Re:A few bad apples (Score:5, Interesting)
How is that different from being a gangster...?
Re:A few bad apples (Score:3, Interesting)
When criminal after criminal accuses you of brutality/rape/robbery/false arrest I can see why cops may defend each other.
I believe its a "crying wolf" issue mainly.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:4, Interesting)
And conspiracy. And fraud. And assault/threat.
The worst thing is that the taxpayer will pay for this while the cop gets off. The whole system is messed up because the police are not required to be champions of the law -- they are taught to make assumptions and are trained with perpetuated illegal methods by their peers of the same creed.
Re:Why do geeks cricle the wagon? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, with the Reiser case a lot of people on slashdot and other places weren't rooting for him, most "pro-Reiser" comments seemed to be of the "I suppose it's possible that he's innocent because... ...and I sure hope that's the case" variety.
And this is hardly the Reiser case, this guy was innocent, the police lied about the footage and audio recordings, Reiser murdered his wife and eventually confessed.
As for the Terry Childs case, that's a pretty infected issue that's hardly over yet. My personal impression is that Childs was following the rules to the letter even though it should've been obvious that he was putting himself in a bad place...
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:5, Interesting)
The recording is an interesting listen. It's clear that Rachner knew his rights, but also that the arresting cop didn't. The cop isn't grinding an ax or going out of his way to be unreasonable, he was just misinformed about the law (rather inexcusable for an officer). The two were chatting peacefully about the legality of the arrest; Rachner instructing the cop (correctly) about civil liberties and the cop politely disagreeing. Rachner obviously made a conscious choice to be arrested to get a chance to stand on the principle of the thing.
Nothing will change without transparency (Score:3, Interesting)
Douchebag (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe not, but apparently prosecutors are above the law.
The US Supreme Court, in a case heard in Nov 2009, whether prosecutors are immune from prosecution for framing someone. So if after an arrest, a prosecutor goes ahead with a case even knowing without a doubt that the defendant could not have committed the crime, he is immune from penalties, including civil. It stems from a 1978 case where a couple of guys, named McGhee and Harrington (both black), spent 25 years in prison for a murder that not only did they not commit, but the prosecutors knew they were innocent, fabricated evidence against, and had strong evidence against the guy (happened to be white) who DID commit the crime.
McGhee and Harrington went to the Supreme Court, not to get justice, but just to get the right to ask for justice. A decision has not yet come down, but smart money is on a 5-4 decision in favor of immunity for the corrupt prosecutors with the conservative justices coming down in favor of the prosecutors. Sickeningly, national prosecutors' organizations, as well as the Obama justice department, have sided with the prosecutors, saying that if prosecutors are worried about prosecution themselves, they will be afraid to prosecute vigorously. That's a strange argument, which I guess assumes that fabricating evidence is nothing more than "vigorous prosecution".
Thank god the ACLU has some very good people working this case. The only hope is that Antonin Scalia gets into some spoiled scungilli before the case is decided.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:3, Interesting)
"Therefore, regardless of whether the constitutional violation occurred, the officer should prevail if the right asserted by the plaintiff was not `clearly established' or the officer could have reasonably believed that his particular conduct was lawful."
Upshot: If the police officer genuinely believed that what he was doing was legal, it doesn't matter if it actually wasn't.
Who the hell wants to be a police officer? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, I mean...Where are you going to find better people? Who grows up wishing to be a police officer any more? You guys go on about how these people should be suspended or fired. Who the bloody hell is going to take their place?
They work in a high-edge profession that, in some ways, is kind of like some medical or military fields: You have to take care of a problem FAST, and mistakes are going to happen. That's a really shitty job. Their nerves are shot. And believe me, they would be way happier if there was more funding so they could have better people on the force, or more backup. But until awesome people start wishing to be cops again, until the profession starts paying better, we won't see any improvement...
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:3, Interesting)
Hm. I lived for quite a long time in Germany and walked around without my passport. And now I live in Ukraine and I don't remember last time I took a passport with me.
No problems so far.
PS: I'm Russian.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:4, Interesting)
Not suspended, fired.
Imprisoned. And fired.
No-one else who breaks the law in the course of their employment gets away with just losing their job.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet that cop won't do it again. And maybe others won't. Maybe if a few peopel stood up for their rights, we might all get them back.
Re:A few bad apples (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. It's cops lying to get a conviction. It's prosecutors not wanting/getting the facts, but pursuing a conviction anyway. It's demonstrating that anyone anywhere can, while not violating the law at all, be arrested and convicted. That's a really big problem.
Re:A few bad apples (Score:1, Interesting)
You can say that because NOW we know about the logs, but it was this very event that brought their existence to light and it was not police who told us about them.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:1, Interesting)
Then you don't want to live in Portugal. In Portugal ID cards ("bilhete de identidade" or the new fangled "cartão do cidadão"/"citizen's card") are mandatory and every citizen always has to carry theirs. The scary thing is that the new cards, the "cartão do cidadão", not only have RFID chips but also store the citizen's DNA.
I have had an ID card since around 10yo. Yet, only now, exactly while I was typing this post, I noticed how fucked up and totalitarian-like that is.
Re:Show ID (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik [youtube.com]
Re:A few bad apples (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, it just seems like some beat cops that wanted to break up a rowdy bunch of drunk guys with sticks before something bad happened
I prefer to live under the notion that I'm innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:3, Interesting)
"That's because you're white and look like a Ukrainian, "
I'm a bit older than you. I remember when Poles, Slovaks, and others weren't "white". I don't know how many generations your family has been here, but maybe you should talk to your grandparents about being "white". In my hometown, there were 4 distinct ethnic regions: Black, White, Italian, and Slovak. Today, those boundaries have been pretty much erased, but the oldtimers still remember them.
Definition of "more" (Score:1, Interesting)
Spun wrote, regarding someone hit by a foam ball accidentally:
Aside from assuming facts not in evidence, your post reminded me of the following from the works of Lewis Carroll:
`Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'
A solution to local / state government abuse? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Obstruction of justice (Score:2, Interesting)
Love the title 'peace officer'.. yeah right!
Though let's be honest, this is just BS legislation to give people the illusion of some kind of protection but in actuality only requires the cop to have a good excuse lined up.
If the cop wants to stop and question you, 'your walk was hostile' and then if you are even slightly annoyed or do not answer fast enough they have justification for the next action i.e. 'being hostile'.
Then they will try to arrest you and you will automatically 'resist'... the next justification.
I once saw 5 police officers pounce on a teen because the teen was intoxicated (though legal in Germany) because ... wait for it ... he was in danger of hurting himself or others (i.e. 'imminent danger' justification).
The kid was walking straight, able to articulate himself, though somewhat slurred. But I have been in worse conditions and never fell out of line.
No friggn reason for the cops to pounce on him and naturally the kid resisted. The kid MIGHT have hurt himself if we was left alone, but the cops took care of that uncertainty the wrong way.
Re:A few bad apples (Score:2, Interesting)
And whose fault is that? It didn't just happen.
When I was growing up cops were respectable, and were respected. Somewhere along the way they came to believe they were different and more special than other people. They rationalized that because they were so different and more special, what they were doing was right and good. Since what they were doing was right and good, any conduct was acceptable.
I no longer respect cops; I despise them.