
Judge rules Seattle media companies must hand over protest images to police - danso
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/judge-rules-seattle-media-companies-must-hand-over-protest-images-to-police/
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dmix
I've been very vocal against mass surveillance, mostly with the argument that
the court warrant system is entirely sufficient for police to do their jobs.

One important thing about warrants and subpoenas is that they are often
limited to strictly collecting data related to a specific investigation - not
a fishing expedition.

> The judge placed some limits on the subpoena. He said police could use the
> images to identify suspects only in the arson and gun theft investigations.
> Detectives could not use the photos or video to pursue suspects in vandalism
> or other lesser crimes — even if police found such evidence.

> The subpoena would also be limited to professional camera equipment and
> would exclude reporters’ cell phone photos and videos.

This seems to fit the criteria - especially since police firearms were stolen.

The only red flag is that they are asking 5x different news organization to
hand over journalist's raw recordings. I'd be highly skeptical of this
subpoena if I was a judge - unless they could prove the journalists were
likely the only ones at the time recording the incident, that they know were
present, and it didn't apply to material involved in any specific reporting.
Broad footage taken at a public event is always less concerning and less
protected.

But at the same time tons of people are recording protests besides journalists
and it might just be laziness on the police's part. Although that said,
sometimes rioters intimidate people trying to film crimes being committed (as
seen here:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/hu9l...](https://old.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/comments/hu9lz0/protesters_in_seattle_peacefully_looting_an/)).
And the police claim "the department was at a dead end in its investigations."
So I'm not sure much outrage is warranted here, but I'd still probably lean on
the safe side.

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defnotashton2
Well that and what kind of visibility and process and oversight do we have
into this process that the police will truly stay within the judges
confinements.

I mean let's be honest. They are going to feed it into facial recognition,
identify their targets and then gather whatever additional evidence. They
could then potentially present a new case with evidence external to the data
collection and construct a narrative around that.

I think it's slippery.

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cm2187
A case against someone peacefully demonstrating? How so?

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Fjolsvith
Exactly. If you are not committing a crime, what do you have to worry about?

~~~
atomi
Apparently a whole lot when it comes to a corrupt federal police force - from
made up charges to family being targeted. The list goes on.

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rcw4256
If the data exists within US jurisdiction, the US government feels (and, in
practice, is) entitled to it. Plan accordingly.

~~~
vinay427
This is true in virtually every country with a system of warrants for evidence
collection when investigating a crime. The problem here for many people is the
underlying police violence that in part instigated these crimes against the
police.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Unfortunately, this order will prevent the police from using any video
evidence of crimes perpetrated by a police officer found in the evidence
siezed.

~~~
defnotashton2
It wouldn't happen either way as that requires somebody to prosecute the
police.

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kevindong
> The SPD subpoena seeks media images taken during a 90-minute span in a four-
> block area between Fourth and Sixth Avenue and Olive Way to Pike Street that
> day.

For reference, that's a 2 by 2 block centered around Westlake Station.

[https://goo.gl/maps/kcJnTW9yw82VE1PLA](https://goo.gl/maps/kcJnTW9yw82VE1PLA)

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barnaclejive
SPD wants video?, shoulda thought of taking it themselves then. Don't slicken
a slippery slope.

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blue52
This is a great example of why a "warrant" is nothing other than an abusive
fishing expedition.

A "warrant" can be rubber stamped to exfil all of your internet data, phone
records, credit card statements, to raid your home or business...

All gestapo techniques. I'm very glad we have encryption and other related
technologies that can prevent this type of tyranny.

With all of the tech I design, privacy is the number one priority. That
includes being warrant-proof.

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dencodev
Warrants aren't even needed these days with the Patriot Act

~~~
blue52
You are right, thanks. I don't live there anymore so that atrocity slipped my
mind.

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beervirus
Why are we still calling riots “protests?”

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHb3xVqxcp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHb3xVqxcp8)

~~~
ianleeclark
You'd be absolutely livid if you found out how your ancestors earned the right
to a weekend and a 40 hour work week.

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clarkmoody
The only reason we have days off is because of productivity gains due to
investment in capital goods. If we can wean ourselves off of a debt-based
economy, then we might be able to whittle that workweek down even further. We
seem to have stalled right around 1971 when dollar convertibility was
suspended.

~~~
ianleeclark
The reason you have days off is due to decades of labor agitation.
Productivity has continued to climb even after the 70s.

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salawat
This is why everyone should be raising hell over things like RealID and the
requirement for you to allow the Federal government to get a hold of
biometrics for you in order to fly.

This is also why Third Party Doctrine is screaming for reassessment in the
wake of expanded capabilities for meta information collection, storage and
reproduction.

In the past, your recordings/pictures/artifacts of reporting were physical
things that cost time, money, and effort to reproduce. No one would want to
ask for anymore than is absolutely necessary due to the inconvenience.
Nowadays, with terabytes of data being able to be stored in the palm of one's
hand, and copied, moved in minutes, there is a much greater risk for old
precedents to turn into dangerous overreach based upon the sheer exaggeration
of the capability to get blood from the stone of a photograph.

Get a picture with a partial match in a database of a subject? Spin by their
residence with a a Stingray and sniff some IMEI's. Take that to a telco,
Google, or a data broker, and geofence. Or look at the latest data dump
acquired and see if you can match them with some data point in the area.

In this age, the things we can do with data scare the ever loving bajeezus out
of me, and it's not that I don't want LE to be unable to do their jobs, but we
really need to get a societal handle on how we treat digital footprint.
Otherwise, it's not that far to a world nobody wants to see or live.

