
Local computer security expert investigates police practices - wglb
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/418746_video.html
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lurkinggrue
Shame the police can't be forced to give everybody their arrest tapes on a usb
stick as a matter of policy.

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rlpb
On a similar note, it's a shame that erasing tapes regarding matters still
under investigation in the name of a retention policy doesn't appear to be
considered as seriously as destroying evidence should be.

~~~
pyre
They didn't erase the tapes though. It sounds more likely that they just
automatically err on the side of 'provide the least amount of information to
people outside of the precinct as possible.' So when someone submits an
information request that's past the '90 day retention policy' they just
automatically deny it without checking whether or not it really was erased
hoping that the request ends there.

The rest of the lies are just a bunch of PR backpedaling because someone
called them on their bluff.

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rlpb
> They didn't erase the tapes though.

But they said that they did. I'd prefer it if they'd be in more trouble for
destroying evidence on something that is ongoing than claiming a retention
policy. This would provide an incentive for them not to claim that data is
destroyed.

~~~
pyre
> _But they said that they did. I'd prefer it if they'd be in more trouble for
> destroying evidence on something that is ongoing than claiming a retention
> policy. This would provide an incentive for them not to claim that data is
> destroyed._

It's not like the police station operates as a single unit (always in sync).
There are multiple people doing multiple jobs. It's entirely possible that the
person fielding these information requests didn't know that this was part of
something on-going.

In reality, it wasn't even on-going anymore. He filed the information request
once the court case was over, and before he filed the current suit against the
police. At that point there was no way for the police to know that he would
file a suit against them, and to their knowledge all of the pending cases that
involved those recordings were over with.

I'm sticking with the idea that the person fielding these requests
automatically denies requests over 90 days without checking whether or not the
recordings were _actually_ removed. This could be due to formal (or informal)
department policy, or just individual laziness.

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dthakur
Sticking it to the man -- great; hitting passers-by with foam balls and
laughing at them -- not so great.

~~~
mustpax
_Rachner was wearing a faded t-shirt, jeans and leather jacket, and didn't
remotely resemble the guy who misfired the ball, who wore English golfing
duds, a Tattersall's hat and fake orange sideburns._

Doesn't sound like he had much to do with the golfing incident, the police was
just ID'ing everyone they came across, he just had the audacity to refuse to
comply.

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pyre
It sounds like he was part of the 'urban golfing' group. He wasn't arrested
for hitting the guy with the ball:

    
    
       Arrested instead, based on victim identification, was
       security researcher and computer cryptologist David
       Hulton of Seattle. The city attorney dropped the
       misdemeanor assault charge, but only after Hulton spent
       $2,500 on a lawyer. Hulton has joined Rachner in his 
       project, helping to pay for attorney Stockmeyer's 
       expenses, because he said, "I want to effect change."
    

The guy that got hit by the ball also didn't seem to think it was as big of a
deal as the police made it out to be:

    
    
      The sponge ball victim Gabriel Scott Clark, then a
      Seattle coffee house worker and now living in Miami,
      said he was surprised by the multiple arrests: "I didn't
      think it would be that big of an issue. I was just mad
      at the one guy."
    

The police never even got the right guy:

    
    
      Marcus Johnson of Los Angeles apologetically admitted in
      an interview that he sliced the ball that hit the victim. 
      Police never detained or identified him, but he and others
      said Johnson was "in the thick of things" when police
      arrived.

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epochwolf
I recall reading that you can't refuse to provide your name to a police
officer.

~~~
pyre
It obviously depends on the local, state and federal laws where you live. In
this case, the Supreme Court of Washington State says that it's
unconstitutional because it gives too much power to law enforcement. It could
be different elsewhere.

