Contents:
- Petitions on Future of CRA
- Community Forum on the Future of the CRA
- Public Hearing on CRA Board Member Appointments
- Next CRA Board Meeting
- Police Complaints Case Oral Arguments
- Cyberspying: Feds Use Social Networking Sites to Spy on Activists, Others
THIS WEEK: THE FUTURE OF THE CRA IS AT STAKE
SIGN THE PETITION IN SUPPORT OF KEEPING DAVE BICKING ON THE CRA BOARD: http://www.petitiononline.com/CUAPB004/petition.html
SIGN THE PETITION DEMANDING DON BELLFIELD RESIGN FROM THE CRA BOARD: http://www.petitiononline.com/CUAPB003/petition.html
COMMUNITY FORUM ABOUT THE CIVILIAN POLICE REVIEW AUTHORITY
What is the future of the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA) in view of its recent and long-standing problems?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
7:00pm
Walker Church, 3104 16th Ave S, Minneapolis
What is the future of the CRA? Will it be an effective agency to reduce police abuses? Or will it be window dressing to deflect community anger? Will it become so obviously powerless that it is either discarded or redesigned once again?
The CRA board is currently in turmoil. Some important progress has been made by the board, particularly in its evaluation of Police Chief Dolan's performance relative to the CRA. Recently, internal divisions have led to the Board Chair's unilateral cancellation of the last board meeting, with no reason given. The board chair has also called for the resignation of one of the most active members, Dave Bicking.
How can the CRA board move forward? How can the CRA be more effective? How can we help Dave Bicking, who is up for reappointment by City Council and the Mayor? These questions will be addressed by past and present members of the CRA and other long term activists against police brutality. All are welcome to come and share ideas, areas of disagreement, or any relevant information or experience.
Speakers:
Michelle Gross, Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB)
Dave Bicking, member of the CRA*
Pam Franklin, member of the CRA*
Michael Friedman, Executive Director of Legal Rights Center, and past Board Chair of the CRA
Papa John Kolstad, sometime candidate, musician, small businessman, and political activist
*for identification only, not speaking on behalf of the CRA board
This forum comes just before the appointment of new members to the CRA and the possible reappointment of Dave Bicking. We hope to engage the community at this important time for the CRA and to provide information for action.
Sponsored by Communities United Against Police Brutality and New Broom Coalition
PUBLIC HEARING ON CRA BOARD MEMBER APPOINTMENTS
Wednesday, March 24
1:30pm
Minneapolis City Hall, Room 317
The Public Safety & Health Committee of the City Council will hold a public hearing to reappoint CRA board members and fill the open slots on the board. Applicants will have a chance to speak and answer questions. The public will also have a chance to speak. Normally, these sort of public hearings for appointments to city boards and commissions are very low-key with just the applicants showing up. However, this is a great opportunity to have an impact on who sits on this very important board. Already the dirty tricks have started, with Dave Bicking being listed as just another candidate for a slot on the board, rather than a reappointment. Take these actions:
1) Sign the petition in support of keeping Dave Bicking on the board: http://www.petitiononline.com/CUAPB004/petition.html
2) Contact the members of the Public Safety & Health Committee:
Cam Gordon, Ward 2 [email protected]
Diane Hofstede, Ward 3 [email protected]
Barb Johnson, Ward 4 [email protected]
Don Samuels, Ward 5 [email protected]
Meg Tuthill, Ward 10 [email protected]
Betsy Hodges, Ward 13 [email protected]
3) Show up at the public hearing and speak out.
NEXT CRA BOARD MEETING
Wednesday, April 7
6:30 p.m.
Minneapolis City Hall, Room 333
Please plan to attend the next CRA board meeting and let your voice be heard. Between Chair Bellfield's lawbreaking under the ordinance and his efforts to have Dave Bicking ousted from the board, things are really heating up with the CRA. This next meeting promises to be plenty spicy. There may even be a few surprises. You won't want to miss it!
ON ANOTHER FRONT...
Police Complaints Case Oral Arguments
Wednesday, April 7 at 9:30 a.m.
Judicial Center (building just east of the Capitol)
25 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, St. Paul
About two years ago, the city of Minneapolis started interpreting the Data Practice laws in a new and interesting way that made complaints about police almost impossible to access. CUAPB took the city to court and the initial judge gave a terrible ruling--so bad that both the city and CUAPB have appealed. The state appeals court will hear oral arguments on our case on Wednesday, April 7th at 9:30 a.m. This is bound to be a fascinating case. This hearing is open to the public so make your plans to attend. Join us in our continuing struggle to make police complaint data public again.
CYBERSPYING: FEDS USE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES TO SPY ON ACTIVISTS, OTHERS
With the recent raid on the home of activists who used Twitter to communicate during G20 protests, we all need periodic reminders that communication through social networking sites is not secure and that under the new expanded monitoring rules, feds rarely need a warrant to spy on us. Bottom line: never put things in writing that you wouldn't want used against you in court. The RNC 8 case provides ample proof that even if you don't break the law, cops can investigate you and then prosecute you justify the investigation.
Break the law and your new 'friend' may be the FBI
By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press
Tue Mar 16, 3:25 am ET
http://tinyurl.com/yhch4n9
WASHINGTON The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.
U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.
Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI.
The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.
Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, obtained the Justice Department document when it sued the agency and five others in federal court. The 33-page document underscores the importance of social networking sites to U.S. authorities. The foundation said it would publish the document on its Web site on Tuesday.
With agents going undercover, state and local police coordinate their online activities with the Secret Service, FBI and other federal agencies in a strategy known as "deconfliction" to keep out of each other's way.
"You could really mess up someone's investigation because you're investigating the same person and maybe doing things that are counterproductive to what another agency is doing," said Detective Frank Dannahey of the Rocky Hill, Conn., Police Department, a veteran of dozens of undercover cases.
A decade ago, agents kept watch over AOL and MSN chat rooms to nab sexual predators. But those text-only chat services are old-school compared with today's social media, which contain mountains of personal data, photographs, videos and audio clips a potential treasure trove of evidence for cases of violent crime, financial fraud and much more.
The Justice Department document, part of a presentation given in August by top cybercrime officials, describes the value of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other services to government investigators. It does not describe in detail the boundaries for using them.
"It doesn't really discuss any mechanisms for accountability or ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly," said Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the civil liberties foundation.
The group sued in Washington to force the government to disclose its policies for using social networking sites in investigations, data collection and surveillance.
Covert investigations on social-networking services are legal and governed by internal rules, according to Justice Department officials. But they would not say what those rules are.
The Justice Department document raises a legal question about a social-media bullying case in which U.S. prosecutors charged a Missouri woman with computer fraud for creating a fake MySpace account effectively the same activity that undercover agents are doing, although for different purposes.
The woman, Lori Drew, helped create an account for a fictitious teen boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages to a 13-year-old neighborhood girl in his name. The girl hanged herself in October 2006, in a St. Louis suburb, after she received a message saying the world would be better without her.
A jury in California, where MySpace has its servers, convicted Drew of three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization because she was accused of violating MySpace's rules against creating fake accounts. But last year a judge overturned the verdicts, citing the vagueness of the law.
"If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal activity'?" the document asks. It doesn't provide an answer.
Facebook's rules, for example, specify that users "will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission." Twitter's rules prohibit its users from sending deceptive or false information. MySpace requires that information for accounts be "truthful and accurate."
A former U.S. cybersecurity prosecutor, Marc Zwillinger, said investigators should be able to go undercover in the online world the same way they do in the real world, even if such conduct is barred by a company's rules. But there have to be limits, he said.
In the face-to-face world, agents can't impersonate a suspect's spouse, child, parent or best friend. But online, behind the guise of a social-networking account, they can.
"This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most personal relationships," said Zwillinger, whose firm does legal work for Yahoo and MySpace.
Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico.
Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last year after learning that federal agents were investigating the alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo on Facebook.
While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the U.S.
The Justice document describes how Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have interacted with federal investigators: Facebook is "often cooperative with emergency requests," the government said. MySpace preserves information about its users indefinitely and even stores data from deleted accounts for one year. But Twitter's lawyers tell prosecutors they need a warrant or subpoena before the company turns over customer information, the document says.
"Will not preserve data without legal process," the document says under the heading, "Getting Info From Twitter ... the bad news."
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The chief security officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam, said MySpace doesn't want to be the company that stands in the way of an investigation.
"That said, we also want to make sure that our users' privacy is protected and any data that's disclosed is done under proper legal process," Nigam said.
MySpace requires a search warrant for private messages less than six months old, according to the company.
Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company has put together a handbook to help law enforcement officials understand "the proper ways to request information from Facebook to aid investigations."
The Justice document includes sections about its own lawyers. For government attorneys taking cases to trial, social networks are a "valuable source of info on defense witnesses," they said. "Knowledge is power. ... Research all witnesses on social networking sites."
But the government warned prosecutors to advise their own witnesses not to discuss cases on social media sites and to "think carefully about what they post."
It also cautioned federal law enforcement officials to think prudently before adding judges or defense counsel as "friends" on these services.
"Social networking and the courtroom can be a dangerous combination," the government said.
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On the Net:
Justice Department cybercrime section: http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/
Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.eff.org