Body Camera Footage Shows Cameras Aren't Making Boston Cops Better Police Officers

from the here's-hoping-there's-a-long-tail-deterrent-effect dept

So much for body cameras giving us better law enforcement. What started as an accountability effort has turned into a boon for prosecutors and little else. Every so often, citizens win lawsuits or have charges dropped because recorded footage differs greatly from the official narrative, but those are relative anomalies. When footage would be useful, it tends to go missing or is never recorded.

Every so often, footage that was never meant to see makes it into the hands of the public. The Appeal was given access to 66 hours of footage recorded by officers handling protests in Boston. The recordings show bad cops will continue to be bad cops, even when they're aware (or should be) they're all wearing recording devices.

Recordings show officers deploying force against people attempting to comply with their orders and discussing what appears to be an arrest quota. It shows an officer appearing to pocket a tie (with the price tag still on it) picked up near a looted store. It shows officers repeatedly pepper-spraying peaceful protesters and discussing targeting certain individuals for more spraying.

One of the most disturbing clips shows a cop bragging about hitting protesters with his unmarked car:

In another clip, a sergeant approaches the officer behind camera X81331058 and begins telling him about using a police vehicle to attack demonstrators.

“Dude, dude, dude, I fuckin’ drove down Tremont—there was an unmarked state police cruiser they were all gathered around,” says the sergeant, laughing.

“So then I had a fucker keep coming, fucking running,” he continues. “I’m fucking hitting people with the car, did you hear me, I was like, ‘get the fuck—'”

Some of the worst cops also appear to be the dumbest cops. Here's what happened next:

At this point the officer behind the camera pushes the sergeant’s head away and walks off in the other direction. He comes back a few seconds later, saying, “it’s on,” about the camera.

The sergeant quickly changes his story.

“Oh, no no no no no, what I’m saying is, though, that they were in front, like, I didn’t hit anybody, like, just driving, that’s all,” he says. “My windows were closed, the shit was coming in.”

Instead of the officer with the camera telling the sergeant he screwed up, the officer instead apologizes for his camera activating.

“This thing just fucking went on automatically,” he says.

And that's how bad cops stay on the job. Because even marginally better cops are unwilling to do anything about their misconduct.

Now, there will be some accountability, albeit belatedly. This footage could have been reviewed any time by these officers' supervisors or other oversight efforts. Either it was never reviewed or no one saw anything wrong with what was recorded. Neither outcome is ideal.

But some of these cops may find their jobs on the line in the near future. The Appeal reports Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins has forwarded the recordings to her special prosecution team. The Boston Police Department has also opened its own investigation into officers' actions during the May 31st protest.

If something actually comes out of this, the cameras may finally have a deterrent effect. Or it may just make bad cops act better when there's a chance they're being recorded. But even if the better behavior is only performative, there should be some overspill that results in fewer people being abused or having their rights violated. And that's probably the best we can hope for until police departments actually start taking employee discipline seriously.

Filed Under: body cameras, boston, boston police, policing, transparency

Boston The Latest City To Ban Facial Recognition Use By Government Agencies

from the returning-the-public's-faces-to-them dept

San Francisco led the way. Then the entire state of California followed suit. And on the other side of the country, a few smaller cities in Massachusetts did the same thing: banned facial recognition.

It just makes sense. The tech that's out there is as dangerous as it is unproven. Mostly known for its false positive rates, facial recognition software has shown it's capable of amplifying existing biases into actionable "intel" with the power to severely disrupt people's lives.

It's not just hypothetical. Just recently, a Michigan man became the first false positive arrested. He was detained for 30 hours based on a mismatch delivered by facial recognition software. Even companies that have been pitching facial recognition tech to law enforcement agencies have pulled back in recent weeks, refusing to become part of the problem… at least for the time being. One company that has done nothing but sell tech to cops has decided it won't be adding facial recognition to its near-ubiquitous body cameras.

With all of this going on, news of another facial recognition ban in a major city is no longer surprising. But it's still welcome news.

Boston has banned the use of facial surveillance technology in the city, becoming the second-largest community in the world to do so.

The city council unanimously voted on Wednesday to ban the use of the technology and prohibit any city official from obtaining facial surveillance by asking for it through third parties. The measure will now go to Mayor Marty Walsh with a veto-proof majority.

Veto-proof… and yet:

Walsh's office said he would review the ban.

The mayor's office has spelled "sign" incorrectly.

The discussion leading to the vote included the case of Robert Williams, who was arrested by Michigan police officers after their software said a screen-grab from a lo-res CCTV camera matched Williams' drivers license photo. Even local law enforcement reps -- who say they aren't currently using the tech -- expressed their reservations.

During a hearing earlier this month, Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said the current technology isn't reliable, and that it isn't used by the department.

"Until this technology is 100%, I'm not interested in it," he said.

“I didn’t forget that I'm African American and I can be misidentified as well," he added.

The ban [PDF] says it's illegal for any city agency or official to obtain facial recognition tech, either directly or through a third party. It also forbids agencies from employing contractors who plan to utilize the tech.

There aren't many loopholes or carve outs. Law enforcement will be able to use evidence derived from facial recognition tech in investigations so long as this evidence wasn't generated by any entity covered by the ban. Hopefully, this won't result in a bunch of requests being sent of out-of-state/federal agencies for secondhand searches.

The bill also includes a loophole for phones, tablets, computers, and social media services that use facial recognition software to verify identity, saving the city the trouble of having to rewrite the law to ensure employees can still use their personal and city-issued electronics -- something San Francisco failed to consider when it became the first city in the country to ban the tech.

The new law also gives people the right to sue if they think they were the target of unlawful facial recognition tech. And it makes anything derived from the banned tech illegal, making it impossible to further investigations, use in court, or otherwise exploit for the city government's gain.

It's a good bill and it's on the way to joining the handful of pioneering anti-surveillance creep laws on the books around the nation. Given the current state of citizen/law enforcement relations, there are certainly more bans on the way.

Filed Under: bans, boston, facial recognition, privacy

Boston PD Is Helping ICE Track Down The City's Least Dangerous Immigrants

from the quantity-over-quality dept

It's good to see ICE is still working hard to round up all these "bad hombres." Instructed by the President to round up the hordes of undocumented criminals -- each one more dangerous than the last -- ICE and its parent agency (DHS) have struggled a bit to live up to Donald Trump's imagination.

We were supposed to be overrun with rapists, murderers, and RICOists because President Barack "Thanks" Obama loved illegal immigrants more than he loved Americans, possibly due to his non-citizenship. But as ICE and DHS have come to realize, immigrants aren't any more dangerous than natural citizens. In fact, they're less dangerous than the average American, which makes it pretty difficult to focus only on the "worst of the worst."

So, ICE has expanded its targeting. It has expanded this targeting as it has expanded its surveillance capabilities. Hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the US are willing to be ICE's posse, helping it bypass federal restrictions and feeding the agency whatever information local cops think might be useful.

Boston radio station WBUR recently obtained hundreds of pages of emails from the Boston PD as the result of a public records request. The released documents show the PD is assisting ICE in its important work of ridding the city of dangerous… misdemeanants.

There is a regular pattern of communication between Boston police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that includes emails regarding arrests for low-level offenses like trespassing and shoplifting, according to documents obtained by WBUR.

[...]

In emails reviewed by WBUR, Boston police and federal immigration officials regularly offer information back and forth between the agencies. Often, the agencies are comparing arrest records of individuals accused of non-felony violations — like operating a vehicle without a license and shoplifting — to see if they have potential civil immigration violations, and vice versa.

I guess this works out for the Boston PD. It frees up its officers to tackle serious crimes and actually dangerous criminals. I mean, theoretically. This information-sharing doesn't appear to be linked to any uptick in enforcement or case clearance rates.

It also works out for ICE, which is willing to settle for apprehending mildly-disruptive hombres in lieu of bad ones. Since no one up top is paying too much attention to the quality of ICE apprehensions, anything that increases the quantity of apprehensions is welcome.

This runs contrary to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's declaration that city law enforcement would not assist ICE in anything but actually rounding up the "worst of the worst." Cooperation was supposed to be limited to violent crimes and suspected felons.

Maybe the rest of the police force is complying with Mayor Walsh's wishes. But one officer definitely isn't. The documents obtained by WBUR show a single officer -- Police Sergeant Detective Gregory Gallagher -- is handling almost all of ICE's requests for information. When not acting as a single source provider for immigrant info, Detective Gallagher is also offering to cover shifts for DHS special agents.

Detective Gallagher's work makes a certain amount of sense considering he's the PD's point man for the department's own immigration enforcement efforts. And it makes sense more broadly since local law enforcement agencies have been authorized to "perform the full range of law enforcement duties of a Customs Officer" on behalf of ICE since 2014.

But what doesn't make sense is this officer's insistence on acting as an ICE liaison to hunt down shoplifters and unlicensed drivers when ICE isn't supposed to be focusing on these non-threats to national security/public safety. It also doesn't make sense when the mayor has specifically instructed the city's police force to provide assistance only in the most severe cases.

The response to this report by the city's top cop isn't necessarily reassuring.

Boston Police Commissioner William Gross told WBUR Thursday that his officers are focused on violent crimes and drugs, not a person's immigration status.

That's great and all, but someone inside the department is very much focused on immigration status. While the rest of the PD may be busying itself with actual police work, one detective has transformed himself into ICE's top lackey -- one with access to records and databases ICE possibly can't access legally on its own.

Even if everything about this was completely above-board, it would still be problematic. ICE has limited resources but it's using them to hunt down scofflaws, not dangerous criminals. It has a shortage of manpower, but still feels compelled to busy itself with low-level offenses committed by people who pose no threat to anything but the administration's bullshit-shoveling.

Filed Under: boston, boston pd, ice, immigrants, police, worst of the worst

Woman Complains About Trooper's Behavior, Ends Up Getting A Whole Bunch Of Cops Fired For Timecard Fraud

from the start-small,-think-big dept

It's not often a citizen's complaint results in a fired officer. Even more rarely does it result in a criminal investigation and prosecution. But a woman known only as "Debbie" hit the accountability jackpot, as Matt Rocheleau reports for the Boston Globe. And it all started with nothing more than a state trooper being an asshole.

The woman was driving through the Ted Williams Tunnel on her way to Logan Airport on a weeknight three years ago when a Massachusetts State Police trooper popped out of nowhere in front of her car, arms flailing, gesturing to pull over.

“Do you not speak English?” the trooper yelled after she rolled down the window.

An Asian-American with a medical degree from Harvard, the woman spoke four languages fluently.

“Sir? What should I do?” the woman recounted in a complaint she later filed.

Again and again, the white trooper yelled, “Don’t you speak English?” she wrote, adding that several times he put his hands on his hips against his gun holster.

Debbie was given a ticket for driving 10 mph over the speed limit by another trooper at the scene. She filed a complaint with the State Police about the trooper, only to be greeted with the dismissive disdain so many law enforcement agencies direct at complainants.

Two days later, she received the first of two calls from a State Police investigator, according to an e-mail she wrote to an attorney she had consulted, and shared with the Globe. The investigator “seemed particularly bothered by my reporting racial discrimination,” Debbie wrote to the attorney. “He stated repeatedly that he did not feel that what I reported sounded racist to him and that he found my labeling it as such ‘inflammatory.’ ”

This wasn't the only investigator Debbie spoke to. Another investigator seemed completely uninterested in her story about a bigoted cop. This investigator was far more interested in when the incident had taken place. Debbie's ticket had been tossed when she challenged it. The clerk magistrate saw the date and time were incorrect and dismissed it. That's when things started to get really interesting.

First, the State Police actually opened an internal affairs investigation into Debbie's claim of verbal abuse. This was upheld and the trooper who yelled at her during the traffic stop retired shortly thereafter. The other trooper at the scene -- the one who wrote the ticket with the wrong date and time -- was also under investigation.

As it turned out, the trooper whose name was on Debbie's ticket played it fast and loose with important details like time and date. It wasn't because the trooper, Eric Chin, wasn't detail-oriented. It was because Trooper Chin was frequently trying to do tomorrow's work today -- the sort of thing that might have been considered inspiring if it wasn't tied to criminal activity.

In court records filed in July, state prosecutors noted that Chin had written eight tickets on the day Debbie was pulled over and post-dated them to make it appear he worked the following day. Other records indicate he worked only a small portion of his shift on the following day.

Troopers charged in the overtime scheme used various methods to conceal their absences from shifts, according to court documents, including changing dates on copies of citations they submitted or writing entirely bogus tickets and failing to file copies to process the violation.

Chin pled guilty to an embezzlement charge in 2018. He was fired by the State Trooper's and forfeited his pension benefits. Trooper Eric Chin was a bad apple. But he wasn't alone. His unit was a barrel that held several rancid apples just like him, each one more anomalous than the next.

The findings prompted additional investigations into Chin’s colleagues at Troop E, and the case widened from there, eventually ensnaring about one-third of the unit. Troop E, which primarily patrolled the turnpike, was disbanded in spring 2018, with several troopers eventually brought up on charges.

Maybe former Trooper Chin feels the other officer, Michael Casamassima, is to blame for his downfall. After all, if Trooper Casamassima hadn't repeatedly asked if Debbie spoke English during the traffic stop, she wouldn't have filed the complaint that led to the discovery of Troop E's collective fraud. But the worst law enforcement officers tend to gravitate towards each other. There's safety in numbers. No one wants to break rank and bring the whole scheme crashing down, especially when they're equally complicit in the fraud being perpetrated.

If there's a moral to this story, maybe it's to always complain when you feel you've been mistreated by public servants. If they're willing to make bigoted assumptions out loud in public, there's a good chance they're doing worse things away from the public eye.

Filed Under: boston, eric chin, massachusetts, massachusetts state police, police, time card fraud

Lawsuit: Boston PD's 'Gang Database' Says People Who Wear Nikes And Have Been Beat Up By Gang Members Are 'Gang Associates'

from the guilty-until-negatives-proven dept

The Chinese government uses a number of measures to keep tabs on citizens. One is what's known as a "citizen score" -- a compilation of all the good/bad habits the government can track that determines whether a person should be viewed as a contributor to society or someone the government should take out of circulation.

We do the same thing here in the US. Credit scores determine who gets to live where and what vehicle they can own. It also can affect employment opportunities. This version of a "citizen score" is compiled by private parties who have access to information Americans are given no choice in relinquishing.

But the government also uses point-based systems to determine what kind of citizen you are: one of the good OK guys or possible a menace II to society. The ACLU is currently suing the Boston Police Department over its ad hoc "citizen score." The BPD adds and subtracts points to add and (possibly?) subtract people from its "gang database." Things citizens actively do -- and even things they passively don't -- can put them on this watchlist.

From the ACLU's public records lawsuit [PDF]:

Under the point system, a person is designated as a "Gang Associate" if he is assessed six or more points, and a "Gang Member" if he is assessed ten or more points. See Exhibit A, Boston Police Department Rules and Procedures Rule 335.

The point system makes it possible to designate someone a Gang Associate or Gang Member without any allegation that he engaged in violence or criminal activity.

An individual may be assessed eight points for being the victim of gang-related violence.

Yes, you read that right: Boston residents magically become "Gang Associates" if they're shot at by gang members. Or carjacked. Or mugged. If this happens twice, it appears they'll be upgraded to "Gang Member" thanks to their inability to avoid being victimized by gang members.

There's more to the list -- things that assure plenty of other non-gang members will be treated like gang members by cops relying on this ridiculously-compiled database.

An individual may be assessed two points for each instance in which he is seen with an alleged gang member or associate, even in a photograph, and even if that alleged gang member or associate is a classmate, neighbor, or family member.

An individual may be assessed four points for each instance in which a police report describes him to have been "[w]alking, eating, recreating, communicating, or otherwise associating with" a gang member; for making a hand gesture believed to be a gang sign; and for wearing clothing that police deem to be gang-related.

Going to school that gang members attend: that's going to cost you. Being even distantly related to gang members? That's a few points.

If it wasn't all ridiculous enough already, here's the best part: cops can use calling a person a gang member to rack up points on the gangland score.

Other factors the BPD considers are circular. For example, an individual may be assessed eight points if another law enforcement agency determines he is a gang member, without regard to the evidence or criteria used, or nine points for being in possession of court or "investigative documents" that label him a gang member.

If a Boston resident is served with a summons from another law enforcement agency and it happens to say something about "suspected gang member" on them, that's nine points: "Gang Associate." If the documents say this designation was based on some sort of mystery database, that's 17 points and the full "Gang Member" designation with points to spare.

The ACLU's lawsuit is seeking a decision forcing the BPD to turn over documents on its gang database so the citizens affected by it can see what's being used to treat them as criminals, even when they haven't officially been accused of anything. As the suit notes, these designations -- based on bad/circular reasoning -- routinely ensnare people who've never been arrested, much less suspected of criminal activity. And yet, there they are, listed as associates or gang members in a database police officers have access to when making stops.

Just getting dressed in the morning is enough to turn someone's life upside down. The lawsuit points out the BPD has designated things like Chicago Bulls caps and Nike sneakers to be "gang apparel." Officers routinely surveil youths at parks, schools, and recreation centers -- places they're sure to see people wearing NBA merchandise and Nike shoes. And, because gang members are also human beings, they'll frequent public places to use those facilities, putting everyone else in the same location in danger of being deemed "gang associates."

The problems aren't just local. ICE has access to the BPD's database and makes deportation decisions based on this extremely faulty info.

The lawsuit pits the ACLU against the state with the most public-unfriendly public records laws in the nation. Overcoming the dozens of exemptions the BPD can use isn't going to be easy. Hopefully, though, the court will see the public interest outweighs the built-in excuses provided by the state's terrible laws and force the department to turn over the requested documents.

Filed Under: association, boston, boston police department, citizen score, gang database, gangs
Companies: aclue

Jury Balks At Trademark Claim Against Ex-Member Of Rock Group Boston

from the these-are-the-facts dept

When you cover enough stories about trademark disputes, you sometimes are amazed at just how petty these types of things can get. I imagine for those who cover the kinds of arguments and disputes that happen within musical acts, it can be a similar experience. But when you intersect petty band members and a petty trademark dispute, that's when your faith in humanity is truly put to the test.

Serving as an example of this is your one uncle's favorite band, Boston. It seems that a one-time member of the band, guitarist Barry Goudreau, has since continued his musical career with other acts. Those acts have occasionally promoted themselves as including a former member of Boston. For this, the band's frontman, Tom Scholz, filed a trademark suit against Goudreau.

Goudreau has referred to himself as “Barry Goudreau from Boston,” “Barry Goudreau of the Multi-Platinum Group Boston,” and, in an advertisement for an appearance last summer with James Montgomery, “Barry Goudreau Lead Guitarist Rock Legend from the Band Boston.”

Scholz's suit goes to great lengths to minimize the role Goudreau had in the band, which amounted to being the lead guitarist on their first two albums. Which, whatever, as far as trademark law goes. It then goes on to note that there was an agreement in which Goudreau would have no right to the "Boston" name. And perhaps, depending on how formal the nature of this agreement was, there might be a discussion to be had over contract violations. Except that this is a trademark dispute, so one wonders just how formal that agreement was.

Regardless, the suit went before a jury which, thankfully, found its claims to be of little merit.

Barry Goudreau, onetime guitarist for Boston, did not infringe on the band’s trademark by billing himself as a former member of Boston after leaving the group. That’s the verdict in a lawsuit brought against Goudreau by Tom Scholz, leader and principal songwriter of Boston in US District Court.

Likely because even for those not familiar with the minutiae of trademark law, it strains the mind to accept that issuing a factual statement should somehow violate intellectual property rights. Goudreau was a member of the band. Promoting him with that fact on material for another act has a roughly zero chance of confusing anyone. Still, Scholz's follow up to the verdict highlights the pervasive misunderstanding that caused him to bring the suit to begin with.

“Despite the jury’s verdict on our trademark violation claim, today’s outcome was satisfactory because it reinforces a clear message for musicians and artists across the nation,” Scholz said in a statement. “Trademark law exists not just to protect the rights of those who create, but to preserve the legacy and value of their art.”

Note the complete absence of any reference to the actual purpose of trademark law: protecting the public from product confusion. If Scholz had instead viewed his former bandmate's actions through that lens, instead of one in which the law serves only creators, as though it were copyright, he would have known better than to bring the suit to begin with.

Filed Under: barry goudreau, boston, tom scholz, trademark

After Ripping Off Cities, States For Years, Verizon Makes Some Familiar Broadband Promises To Boston

from the fool-me-sixteen-times,-shame-on-me dept

We've long discussed how Verizon has a bit of a pattern of getting billions in tax breaks and subsidies in exchange for fiber broadband it only half deploys. State after state, city after city, Verizon gets politicians to sign off on cozy deals that effectively give Verizon everything it wants -- in exchange for promises of "full" city or state fiber broadband deployment. Except time, and time, and time again, cities that signed these sweetheart, loophole filled deals then stand around with a dopey look on their face when they realize they've been had.

Fast forward to this year, when Verizon surprised everybody by announcing that it would finally deliver FiOS to Boston, one of more than a dozen cities Verizon left hanging when it stopped seriously upgrading its fixed-line network -- to apparently focus on gobbling up failed 90s internet empires. The announcement crows that the $300 million dollar deal will absolutely revolutionize the city of Boston's telecom infrastructure:

"Mayor Martin J. Walsh today announced a new partnership with Verizon to make Boston one of the most technologically advanced cities in the country by replacing its copper-based infrastructure with a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network platform across the city. The new network will offer enormous bandwidth and speeds. Through an investment of more than $300 million from Verizon over six years, this change will bring increased competition and choice for broadband and entertainment services in Boston, and support the ongoing efforts to spur innovation and economic opportunity in all neighborhoods."

This announcement was quickly translated by the press as "FiOS is coming to the entire city," though if you look more carefully at the language it becomes clear that Verizon isn't actually promising that:

"This will be a fiber platform across the entire city,” Verizon Wireline Network president Bob Mudge said at an event at the Bolling municipal building in Dudley Square Tuesday. “This is not just about a fiber investment — that’s important, and it’s a fuel. But the fire and the excitement will come from the applications.”

If you study the release it's actually pretty ambiguous as to what Boston gets out of the deal. What's actually happening? Verizon struck a $300 million deal with the city that will deliver a combination of fiber, wireless service, fiber backhaul for wireless towers, and Verizon's internet of things technologies. Much of this is stuff Verizon already planned to spend money on (especially wireless backhaul), and a sizable chunk of it (especially on the IOT front) may or may not actually wind up actually benefiting anybody, as the mindlessly over-hyped IOT is wont to do.

How much actual last mile fiber is left utterly ambiguous. Learning lessons from failures of the past, Verizon isn't getting specific, though speaking on an earnings call this week Verizon made it pretty clear most of these connections will be fifth generation (5G) wireless:

"I think of 5G initially as, in effect, wireless fiber, which is wireless technology that can provide an enhanced broadband experience that could only previously be delivered with physical fiber to the customer," McAdam said. "With wireless fiber, the so-called last mile can be a virtual connection, dramatically changing our cost structure."

And while 5G wireless should be faster with lower latency than existing 4G connections, it's not truly going to be a substitute for traditional fiber. The 5G standard itself hasn't even been agreed upon yet, and most analysts don't believe 5G will see serious deployment any time before 2020. There's also a matter of cost: while Verizon FiOS is uncapped, Verizon Wireless service is capped, metered, and among the most expensive in the country, and 5G will be no exception. It's a $300 million investment, yes, but what it's being invested into isn't really clear.

But good news! Whatever mish-mash of half-promises Verizon is delivering this time may be coming soon to your city, states the telco:

"We will create a single fiber optic platform that is capable of supporting wireless and wireline technologies and multiple products," McAdam said. "In particular, we believe the fiber deployment will create economic growth for Boston and we are talking to other cities about similar partnerships."

Most reporters covering Verizon's plans can't be bothered to note Verizon's long history of not delivering what it promises, or the multiple hearings ongoing in several different states trying to hold Verizon accountable for that fact. Fast forward several years from now, and you'll likely find Boston (and any other cities excited to "partner" with Verizon without reading the fine print) complaining that Verizon delivered only a small fraction of what was actually promised. You'll also find a media incapable of tying all of these narrative threads together.

Still, on a positive note it's great to see Verizon spending anything at all on cities it has been neglecting for the better part of a decade, given this was the same company that claimed net neutrality would kill all telecom investment dead in the water.

Filed Under: boston, broadband, empty promises, fiber, fios, promises
Companies: verizon

Boston PD Finally Confirms It Has A Stingray Device In Its Possession

from the so-many-months,-so-few-disclosures dept

The Boston Police Department has been fighting two FOIA requests -- one from Mike Katz-Lacabe and one from Shawn Musgrave -- for months. We covered Katz-Lacabe's battle back in June. In that one, the BPD denied the release of documents related to Stingray devices on the questionable grounds that they were covered under the "investigative materials" exemption.

The information you have requested is exempt from disclosure by MGL c. 4s. 7(26)(f) and (n). Disclosure of the information contained in these documents would not be in the public interest and would prejudice the possibility of effective law enforcement. More specifically, the protection of such investigatory materials and reports is essential to ensure that the Department can continue to effectively monitor and control criminal activity and thus protect the safety of private citizens.

Whatever the BPD might have imagined about the documents' release "prejudicing the possibility of effective law enforcement," it certainly had no basis to claim the public had no interest in the contents of the withheld documents.

To date, it is still withholding the fiscal and policy documents Katz-Lacabe requested. It has, however, as Shawn Musgrave reports for the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, finally handed over its non-disclosure agreement with the FBI.

Boston police have confirmed that they deploy devices capable of secretly locating cell phones in real time, a controversial practice that critics say impinges on the public's privacy and constitutional rights.

Former Boston police commissioner Edward Davis signed an agreement with the FBI in 2013 to obtain the cell phone tracking systems, documents released to a privacy activist yesterday in response to a public records request reveal.

This is the first official confirmation that BPD is one of dozens of law enforcement agencies nationwide that deploy the controversial technology.

The agreement is one we've seen before in the hands of other law enforcement agencies, containing the FBI's instructions that all public records requests must be submitted to it first ("to prevent disclosure") and that cases should be dropped if the exposure of Stingray technology/capabilities seems inevitable. The document is signed by the police commissioner, a handful of detectives and a member of the Massachusetts State Police, who apparently also has access to the device.

That last signature seemingly makes this statement made last year by the state police technically correct.

In June 2014, the Massachusetts State Police told the ACLU of Massachusetts that it does not own any cell site simulators.

"Own?" No. But it still has one it can use.

Katz-Lacabe received the long-disputed document November 6th. Musgrave has yet to receive a response to his similar request, which dates back to April of this year. And neither requester has received the fiscal and policy documents they've asked for, so unanswered questions remain about the process used to procure the cell tower spoofer as well as the BPD's rules governing its use.

Filed Under: boston, police, stingray

City Of Boston Left License Plate Data Unprotected And Unencrypted

from the the-city-invites-you-to-perform-vanity-searches-on-its-ALPR-servers dept

If you want a rough estimate on how much respect law enforcement agencies (and the contractors they hire) have for your personal information, all you have to do is take a look at how well they protect the vast amount of data they slurp up.

Investigative reporter Kenneth Lipp has been digging up documents and data left unguarded by government contractors for several months now. While researching the use of ALPRs (Automatic License Plate Readers) in Boston, Lipp came across a publicly-accessible database of plate scans and motor vehicle records. The problem is: it wasn't supposed to be publicly-accessible.

Prior to two weeks ago, when this reporter alerted authorities that they had exposed critical data, anyone online was able to freely access a City of Boston automated license plate reader (ALPR) system and to download dozens of sensitive files, including hundreds of thousands of motor vehicle records dating back to 2012. If someone saw your shiny car and wanted to rob your equally nice house, for example, they could use your parking permit number to obtain your address. All they had to do was find the server’s URL.

This data wasn't being housed by Boston law enforcement. Instead, it was in the hands of its contractor, Genetec, which owns the popular ALPR brand, AutoVu. As Lipp points out, the city of Boston's first ALPR deployments were no big secret. The camera system was mounted on the roofs of Transportation Department vans along with sodium lights. The surveillance was no secret, but the data collected certainly was -- which was why it was left in the hands of a private corporation.

ALPRs were eventually noticed by watchdogs, and in 2004 spurred a public records request, which was denied by the BTD [Boston Transportation Department] on the grounds that the database was privately owned and “on loan” from AutoVu.

Ten years later, the city is still putting its faith (and its un-FOIA-able records) in Genetec. Not that Genetec deserves it. When Lipp pointed out its unguarded portal, it denied any responsibility for its carelessness.

Reached by email for this story, the company’s Vice President of Marketing and Product Management Andrew Elvish wrote that the server in question was a “location used by a customer to transfer data to be used in a parking or law enforcement patrol car, equipped with a Genetec system.” The data, Elvish added, was “not gathered by a Genetec AutoVu ALPR system … [which is] automatically encrypted.”

Lipp investigated further and found that the server was actually run by a Xerox subsidiary. Two hours after being notified of the security hole, the company closed it.

This would normally be the end of the story. But it goes on from there. What was uncovered during Lipp's foray into a supposedly secured and encrypted server points to further dishonesty, going beyond Genetec's disowning of a database it has (or had) direct access to.

As the ACLU's Kade Crockford points out, autogenerated notifications found on the server point to Boston law enforcement continuing to utilize a program it had previously told the public it would be abandoning.

I was surprised to discover these records because in 2013, in the wake of local reporter Shawn Musgrave's expose on privacy and civil liberties problems with the department’s license plate reader program, the Boston Police told the public that it was scrapping the program altogether. The Xerox records suggest scrapping isn’t at all what occurred. Indeed, the automated emails from BTD’s license plate reader program to the Boston Police, left on the Xerox server for anyone to download at will, appear to have started at around the same time the cops told the public they’d stopped using license plate readers. That's to say, instead of scrapping the program as the police told the public they would, BPD appears to have bootstrapped their license plate reader program from BTD data.

The government may claim license plate data has no expectation of privacy (unless you ask for it…) but people hardly expect their records to be exposed to the public at large. And they certainly don't expect them to be accessible from the web and stored in plaintext. Even if the public is willing to accept the portrayal of plate/location data as nothing more than the digital equivalent of human eyeballs on public streets, it will be far less likely to forgive the government's apparent disinterest in ensuring these records received even a minimal level of protection.

Filed Under: alpr, boston, license plate data, license plates, privacy, security
Companies: autovu, genetec