Footage from a dashboard camera and a body camera on one of the police officers involved in the shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte last week have finally been released. It turns out the one officer who wore a camera didn’t turn it on until after Scott was already on the ground.

Two videos were released late Saturday after mounting pressure and some violent protests that left people wounded and one dead. The footage from the dashboard camera shows a plainclothes officer aiming his gun at a car. The officer in the car with the dash cam gets out and joins him. Then Scott is seen exiting his car and backing away, and the officer without a uniform fires four shots. Since the video is from inside the police car, there is no audio to prove what was said. But it’s clear that Scott did not aim any gun at the officers at that point.

The body camera footage is grainy and jumpy and shows an officer standing behind Scott’s car, as the officer wearing the camera comes up and knocks on the window with his baton. Scott is then seen getting out from the car but disappears from the video. Next time he’s in the picture, he’s on the ground. The sound on the camera is not turned on until this point, which is why it’s unclear what happened and who said what. It’s also impossible to see from that footage whether Scott had a gun or not. When the sound is turned on, the officers are heard yelling “handcuffs, handcuffs” and asking each other whether they are okay, while Scott is moaning and lying on the ground dying.

Body camera footage shows Keith Scott shooting https://t.co/W0NhU5sBn8 pic.twitter.com/t44YKbjFlK

— Ruptly (@Ruptly) September 25, 2016

Charlotte was the first major city in North Carolina to start using body cams for officers in 2015. The cameras are always on, but they don’t save the footage until the officer presses a button to activate it. That’s when the audio sets in, and it also automatically saves the last 30 seconds of video from before that.

According to protocol, all patrol officers should wear a camera and must activate it as soon as they anticipate any interactions with civilians. But the officers who first approached Scott were wearing plain clothes and therefore did not have any cameras. They claim they realized Scott had a gun, so they retreated to put on police vests and wait for a uniformed officer. That officer was wearing his camera, but he waited to activate it until after Scott was shot.

This news upset many.

Yet another example of why body cameras are not the way to end police shootings. Sometimes, cops don’t turn them on. https://t.co/Q1jNRKYYkU

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) September 26, 2016

But this might be the last footage you see from a police shooting in North Carolina. A new law goes into effect on October 1 that will prevent the public from obtaining footage from body or dashboard cameras. According to Governor Pat McCrory it’s about: “respecting the public, respecting the family, and also respecting the constitutional rights of the officer.”

Under the new law, police videos like the ones in Scott’s case would no longer be considered public record.

The day before the footage was released, Scott’s wife published her own video of what happened, in which the officers are heard yelling “drop the gun” to Scott inside his car. She repeatedly says, “he doesn’t have a gun,” and also points out that he has a traumatic brain injury and just took his medicine. In the video she begs the officers not to shoot her husband, right up until they shoot him.

Wife of #Charlotte police shooting victim #KeithScott films encounter https://t.co/kL9M8WjC4P

— YouTube Newswire (@ytnewswire) September 23, 2016

The attorney for the Scott family, Justin Bamberg, argued that the officer not activating his camera is both a violation of department policy and also meant there was little evidence to show what had actually happened. He said:

Information that we could have had is forever gone because of this officer’s failure to follow department policy and procedures. Those policies exist for a reason, and there is a reason the CMPD equips its officers with body cameras–because body cameras provide visual evidence so that when tragic things do happen we don’t have to question exactly what happened.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Officer Did Not Turn on Body Camera Until After Keith Scott Was Shot appeared first on Law Street.

Police officers in Idaho are hereby banned from talking to the media on weekends. The new policy from the Police Department in Lewiston, Idaho became official earlier this week in order redistribute resources during understaffed weekends. Journalists seeking weekend updates must now be present at an actual crime scene, even if it’s only to get a quick brief.

Lewiston’s City Councilman Jesse Maldonado disapproves of the new rule and called it “disquieting.” He told the Idaho Statesman, “City residents reading the newspaper, their interest doesn’t stop on Friday. That’s just not how it works.”

Newspaper readers aren’t the only ones affected by Idaho police suspending communications during weekends. The decision also hinders transparency between the police and the public, preventing them from interacting openly with the community. In the midst of recent discussions about police misconduct and violence, it would probably be in the police department’s own interest to show openness towards the media.

As Law Street reported previously, the number of prosecutions of police officers involved in civilian shootings is higher than it’s been in a decade. It’s possible that these numbers have grown in part due to growing media attention on the issue. Therefore, the media could play an important role in bringing cases of misconduct into the limelight.

According to the Idaho Statesman, surrounding towns have very open and transparent relationship with the media. One sheriff claimed that he bas given his cell phone number to reporters and another officer claimed he allows reporters to have access to call logs and personnel during regular business hours.

“As an agency we have a good, efficient, working relationship with the media and we keep those channels of communication open,” said Joel Hasting, Police Chief in Clarkston, Washington. “It’s about the police department being part of the community and not segregated.”

Progress is being made to make police departments more transparent, with more and more officers wearing body cameras and being indicted for use of excessive force. Prohibiting police officers from talking to the media seems like a step backwards. However, the mayor of Idaho pointed out that they can change the new policy at any time if it ends up hindering public information. Hopefully he will keep an eye out for that.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Idaho City Bans Police From Talking to Media on Weekends appeared first on Law Street.

Twitter is suing the the United States Department of Justice for violating its First Amendment rights, the company announced on Tuesday. The social media service is arguing that it has the right to disclose to the public how often the government requests data from it for national security purposes.

Currently, the government requests information for such investigations from tech companies like Twitter in the form of national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Security Act court orders. The government does let these companies disclose how many times it requests information, but not down to the exact number. Instead they can report ranges of the requests they’ve received in “bands” of 1,000. For example, a firm can report that it has received between 0 and 999 government information requests, without being any more specific.

Twitter’s complaint is that these restrictions inhibit its freedom of speech. It argues that it should be allowed to disclose to its users a more precise number of government information requests. In particular, if it hasn’t received any requests in a certain category, Twitter wants to say publicly that the number is zero.

Ben Lee, a Twitter Vice President, said in a blog post on Tuesday:

It’s our belief that we are entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users’ concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance – including what types of legal process have not been received.

Twitter tried to accomplish the same thing earlier this year without going to court, by sending a sample transparency report in April to the DOJ, asking which information it could or couldn’t publish. Unfortunately, that attempt wasn’t fruitful. “After many months of discussions, we were unable to convince them to allow us to publish even a redacted version of the report,” Tuesday’s blog post also disclosed.

The current restrictions stem from a January settlement between the DOJ and Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook, and LinkedIn. At that time, the companies were were looking for permission to publish any number at all related to national security requests. That settlement allowed these companies and “similarly situated companies” (that includes Twitter) to use the bands of 1,000 rule to report the number of government requests. Twitter hints in its formal complaint that the number of requests it receives is relatively small, and argues that it  should be allowed to reflect “limited scope” of government surveillance on its accounts in its transparency reports.

In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks that revealed the vast extent of government surveillance online, tech companies have tried to show their users that they care about privacy. Apple and Google made news last month when they announced that their new generation of mobile operating systems would encrypt user data with the user’s passcode, making it impossible for either the company or the government to access private information without the passcode. Even if the government requests it, the company can’t reach it.

Unlike on most social media platforms, anything the average Twitter user tweets is publicly visible. So, intuitively, the government doesn’t need to request from Twitter too much information; it’s there for the picking. That seems to be what Twitter is hinting at when it says that it would like to be allowed to report that it has received zero national security requests. That being said, it would be nice to know what other information the government is asking to have – information that supposedly isn’t public. Twitter comes off in this story as the noble tech company trying to stay accountable to its 271 million active users. The company can stay even truer to the value of transparency by letting its users know what non-public information the government wants, and this suit will decide whether they get to do just that.

—

Zaid Shoorbajee

Zaid Shoorbajee is a an undergraduate student at The George Washington University majoring in journalism and economics. He is from the Washington, D.C. area and likes reading and writing about international affairs, politics, business and technology (especially when they intersect). Contact Zaid at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post A Tech Company That Has Your Back: Twitter Sues the DOJ appeared first on Law Street.

As the highest court in the United States, the Supreme Court is viewed as having the greatest authority over the interpretation of the law. It is often assumed that when the court issues a decision, the ruling marks the final word on the legal question proposed. However, something that many citizens might not know is that the Supreme Court decisions can be altered after their publication without public notice.

Richard J. Lazarus, professor of law at Harvard University, has written an article set for publication in the December 2014 Harvard Law Review that exposes the Supreme Court’s practice of editing and changing opinions after they are initially published. He states that the Court’s decisions do include a statement in small text that reads, “this opinion is subject to formal revision before publication.” However, in many cases, these changes are not simple edits, and the court does not make a public notification of these additions or deletions from opinions.

This practice of editing court opinions is by no means new: the Supreme Court has been altering the wording of its decisions since the early days of its existence. Indeed, some of the most famous rulings have been edited after they were issued. The 1857 Dred Scott case, for example, received an additional 18 pages written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion for the case. More recently, the 2003 case Lawrence v. Texas, which significantly struck down a Texas law against sodomy, was altered: a sentence written in Sandra Day O’Connor‘s concurring opinion was struck in which she had stated that Justice Antonin Scalia “apparently agrees that […] Texas’ sodomy law would not pass scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause.” In these cases and so many others, justices have changed the wording, added or deleted sentences, and made other edits to their opinions without the notification of these alterations. Something here doesn’t seem right.

3 reasons why these discrete changes are problematic:

1. It can cause discrepancies in understanding the law.

Law professors rely on many court decisions in their instruction. If changes to court decisions are not announced, these professors continue to teach and discuss older versions of court decisions that may have undergone important edits. How can professors properly instruct the next generation of lawyers and lawmakers if they do not have access to the most recently updated copies of case law? Additionally, lawyers also need to have the correct version of court cases at their disposal in order to use Supreme Court decisions as precedents for their current cases.

2. Failing to notify what changes were made in the final draft of a decision does not allow for uniformity of the law.

The fact that the court makes unpublicized changes to the law leads to a number of different versions of court decisions, which can become confusing. Supreme Court decisions are extremely important: as the highest judicial body in the nation, the Supreme Court can, through its rulings, overturn decisions by lower courts and declare laws at the local, state, and national level unconstitutional. After the Supreme Court reaches a decision, government at all levels in the United States must comply with the Court’s ruling and make the necessary changes to the law. However, in order to do so, there needs to be a uniform understanding of what the Supreme Court has ruled.

The fact that the court makes discreet changes to the law without public notification allows for different renditions of their decisions to circulate. Some who pay close attention to the court may realize that a ruling’s wording has changed, but many websites continue to have older versions of court rulings. The copy of O’Connor’s concurring opinion on the Cornell Law website, for example, still contains the sentence that, as previously explained, has been admitted. The fact that even law websites exhibit older versions of cases is troubling.

3. The public deserves to be made aware of any changes to the interpretation of law that could affect them.

The Court not publicly announcing when edits are made to its decisions provides yet another example of the lack of government transparency. Even though the court notes that its decisions are subject to change, it is hard for average citizen to realize when edits are made unless the Court announces them. And while many of these changes constitute simple word changes, it could also be the case that the court could make a substantial addition to a case that could affect the livelihoods of Americans. Even something as simple as the addition or deletion of a few words could change the way a phrase in a decision is interpreted, and this could be crucial in Americans’ understanding of the law.

Unfortunately, there is no law or mechanism that can force the supreme judicial body to publicize these changes. However, the court should still choose to do so, and some justices of recent times such as Harry Blackman realized that the Court “operates on a strange and ‘reverse’ basis, where the professional editing is done after initial public release.” To preserve the credibility of their institution, it is incumbent upon justices to publicize their changes

[NY Times] [Harvard Law] [Cornell Law]

—

Sarah Helden (@sheldren430)

Featured image courtesy of [Kenudigit via Flickr]

Sarah Helden

Sarah Helden is a graduate of The George Washington University and a student at the London School of Economics. She was formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Sarah at staff@LawStreetmedia.com.

The post 3 Reasons Why the Supreme Court Needs To Publicize Its Edits appeared first on Law Street.

Verizon released its first transparency report earlier this month sparking new exchanges between the government and technology companies.

Many telecommunications companies will likely follow Verizon’s lead after Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a joint statement, allowing for more detailed release national security requests. Shortly afterward the statement was made, many notable technology companies dropped a FISA petition that was jointly filed last summer.

While many other companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook have already published transparency reports, Verizon was the first major telecommunications companies to do so. The new arrangement set forth by the Justice Department will allow corporations to disclose how many national security letters they’ve received in ranges of 250 or 1,000, depending on the circumstances. This report appears to be starting a trend as AT&T recently announced its plans for a similar report at the end of last year.

The release of this information comes after many articles like this one published by the Wall Street Journal indicated that American companies may be suffering financially due to surveillance concerns. A survey published by the Cloud Security Alliance concluded that non-U.S. residents are 56 percent less likely to use cloud providers based in the U.S. in light of the debate sparked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The Snowden controversy, and government’s response, has also prompted a unique partnership among many of the large technology companies in response. AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo have all joined forces to advocate for change through the creation of www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com. The site focuses on improving transparency, protecting user information, and creating oversight and accountability within the government.

Conclusions from the Verizon Report:

In its report, Verizon states that it received approximately 320,000 requests for information about its customers from federal, state, or local law enforcement in 2013. These requests consisted of:

164,184 Subpoenas – From law enforcement agencies to provide basic customer information.

70,665 Court Orders – That were signed by a judge compelling the release of information.

36,696 Warrants – That were issued based on “probable cause,” and typically sought content related data.

50,000 Emergency Requests (approx.) – For information intended to resolve situations deemed serious emergencies.

Nearly 1,500 of the court orders were “Wiretap Orders,” which provide the actual content of communication in real time. Such content can be in the form of either telephone or internet communication. Verizon states that it requires court issued warrants or a legitimate emergency situation before it will release any stored content or non-content records (See the report’s FAQ page for definitions and details).

The report also indicates the government’s growing interest in location information, as it made nearly 35,000 requests for such data. Verizon noted an increase from the previous year’s levels, but did not disclose that number in this report. 3,200 of these requests were for “tower dumps,” which disclose the phone numbers of all devices that interacted with a cellular tower during a given period of time. Such information is often used to identify and track the location of specific people. According to the Washington Post that the government made over 9,000 tower dump requests in 2013, about a third of which were to Verizon.

Finally, it is also important to note how the United States government compares to other countries around the world. According to the international data also released by Verizon, Germany made the second most requests for information. With less than 3,000 demands from law enforcement, Germany remains far behind the over 320,000 made by the American government.

Does it Matter?

Organizations like the ACLU cite Verizon’s report as a significant step forward in government openness, yet some criticize Verizon and companies releasing similar information as not going far enough. Others argue these transparency reports are inconsequential to the security debate and may purely be an effort to improve public relations. The released information only details formal requests made to those companies specifically, and because much of the recent controversy involves informal or undocumented gathering of data, the released information may not shed enough light on the situation.

[Verizon] [Washington Post] [NY Times]

—

Kevin Rizzo (@kevinrizzo10)

Featured image courtesy of [Verizon Communications via Wikipedia]

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Verizon Starts New Transparency Trend appeared first on Law Street.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D- Ore.) have co-authored a bill that would make the Medicare claims database available to the public, allowing for unprecedented transparency in medical costs.  If this bipartisan bill becomes law, the media, advocacy groups and consumers will be able to see how much the federal government pays for healthcare procedures for those on Medicare.  Doing so would give the American public the ability to compare the costs of different treatments, procedures and even the varying prices between hospitals.

Americans spent $2.7 trillion on healthcare last year, nearly $600 billion of which was paid for by Medicare alone.  Insight into the largest purchaser of health services in America would provide the public with an unprecedented amount of information about the healthcare market, and could potentially create a check on medical costs.  However, opponents of the proposed legislation claim that releasing this data to the public would reveal too much about the practicing patterns of individual doctors, hospitals and providers.  There is certainly a trade-off, but providing new information to consumers may be in the public’s best interest.

[Politico]

—

Featured image courtesy of [Sharyn Morrow via Flickr]

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Bipartisan Bill to Change Healthcare Market appeared first on Law Street.

The largest internet companies have joined forces with top civil liberties groups to call on the White House and Congress to increase transparency surrounding the government’s controversial National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program. Apple, Facebook and Google are among the companies that signed a letter to the feds, asking for the right to disclose information about national security data requests.

The  tech giants’ call for greater transparency represents a push back against allegations that they had a deeper involvement with the NSA’s surveillance program, PRISM, and allowed the NSA ‘direct’ access to their servers. In particular, Google has vehemently denied that they granted the government such access. Last month, Google petitioned a secret U.S national security court to soften the restrictions on the information it can reveal about the government  data requests made under Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA), claiming such restrictions violate the company’s First Amendment rights. Microsoft also had a similar request.

Tech companies are prohibited from revealing anything about requests they receive for such information because FISA requests are classified as top secret.

[Time.com]

—

Featured image courtesy of [Mike Mozart via Flickr]

Ashley Powell

Ashley Powell is a founding member of Law Street Media, and its original Lead Editor. She is a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post NSA Transparency Push: Apple, Google, Facebook Join Civil Liberties Coalition appeared first on Law Street.