Oregon Cop's Inability To Keep His Hands Off A Resident's Phone Costs Taxpayers $85,000 In Legal Fees

Furnished content.


Oregon residents will be opening up their wallets and handing out $85,000 to a citizen and her ACLU representation, thanks to a police officer being the only cop on the scene unable to handle being filmed while effecting an arrest.Carrie Medina sued the city of Portland in early 2015 after an officer seized her camera and ended her livestream of an arrest two years earlier. The lawsuit [PDF], filed by the ACLU, contains the full conversation between Officer Taylor Letsis and Medina during the livestream's premature conclusion.It contains some choice highlights in law enforcement overreach and the assertion of nonexistent authority. The confrontation starts with Officer Letsis claiming Medina's phone probably contains "evidence of a crime," and continues on through to Letsis claiming his seizure and search of the phone is neither a seizure or a search but is very definitely something he has the "legal jurisdiction" to do.After some back and forth with Medina about his supposed "legal jurisdiction," Letsis decided to seize the phone and view the recording of the arrest. And by "seize," I mean "rip Medina's phone out of her hand."

According to the lawsuit, Medina had offered to provide the video footage to the officer if he gave her a subpoena. After he grabbed the phone, a prompt popped up on the Ustream app to archive the video. Medina, concerned the officer wasn't going to save the video, urged him to archive it. He did, and she then walked him through the process of posting it to a social media site, the suit says.The officer handed the phone back to Medina and ordered her to show him the video and she complied, since he had posted it for her on social media.

"As soon as Ms. Medina pressed 'play' to start the video, Officer Letsis grabbed the phone from her a second time,'' the suit says. "Officer Letsis did so without warning, and without the consent of Ms. Medina, despite the absence of any probable cause - or any reason at all - to suspect either that Ms. Medina had committed a crime, that the phone contained evidence of a crime, or that the evidence (which he himself had just archived to the Ustream web server) was in any danger of being destroyed.''

On approximately February 15, 2013, KGW television published a report on the incident. During the report, a person identified as Gresham police spokesman Claudio Grandjean asserted that Officer Letsis' conduct during the encounter had been legal. Officer Grandjean stated:“He wasn't doing something illegal. Now, was he inappropriate, or... or or a little rough, or officious or whatever? We can look at that, but that's not nearly as important as was he doing something illegal."Thus, three days after the incident, the Gresham Police Department took a clear and public position that the actions of Officer Letsis were lawful.

In the March 5, 2013 memorandum, the Chief stated that "I highly discourage the seizing of property, or the arresting of persons, for simply recording your official actions without your knowledge."In the March 5, 2013 memorandum, the Chief stated that "I support the reasonable actions of officers to seize cell phones when there is probable cause to believe the recording contains evidence of a crime and there are exigent circumstances to seize the cell phone to prevent the destruction or loss of the evidence," but went on to warn that "[i]f no exigent circumstances that place the property at risk of destruction, you must obtain a search warrant to download the video."

The settlement agreement stipulated that Portland and Gresham must adopt new police policies and training regarding the public’s right to film police activities. The City of Gresham’s new policy under the settlement went into effect in May 2016 and the City of Portland’s new policy went into effect in October 2016. The City of Gresham was also required to pay $85,000 in legal fees to Medina.

Oregon law is now clear that the public has the right to record law enforcement doing their jobs in public, but dos Santos says the ACLU of Oregon still hears from people who have been hassled, detained, or arrested, or who have had their devices confiscated for filming the police, including an incident in Portland last November involving another local activist, Benjamin Kerensa.“We still see arrests, detentions, and seizures simply for filming the police,” dos Santos said. “With this settlement, we hope that law enforcement across the state will finally respect the public’s right to record. Otherwise, we’ll see them in court again.”

0 comments, click here to add the first

Copyright Society's 'World IP Day' Lesson: Give Us Your Copyrights For Nothing

Furnished content.


Every year around April 26th, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) hosts a weird dog and pony show of copyright/patent/trademark maximalism that it calls World IP Day. In the past, we've pointed out that the events and festivities are disturbingly one-sided and frequently clueless. For example, two years ago, WIPO used Bob Marley's famous line "Get Up, Stand Up" as the theme for World IP Day, ignoring the history of Jamaican music, in which the lack of copyright protections in the 50s and early 60s is basically what allowed Bob Marley to become a world phenomenon (and, later, the fact that Marley and Universal Music got tangled up in a fight over copyrights).Anyway, the "theme" for this year's World IP Day is "Innovation -- Improving Lives," which suggests a stronger focus on the patent side of the equation this year. WIPO has a list of suggested activities for World IP Day, including staging exhibitions, setting up a booth at the airport to talk about "IP and the role it plays" in your daily lives (really), or... hosting an "essay competition." It would appear that the Copyright Society of the USA has decided to take this approach and has announced an essay competition. Oddly, this is not on the website of the Copyright Society of the USA, but only over email -- and a recipient of that email has kindly forwarded it to me.As you might imagine, the Copyright Society of the USA tends to be fairly supportive of ever expanding and ever expansive copyright law. It is also -- apparently -- supportive of the idea that it's not so much the creator who deserves the benefits of copyright law, but rather the larger gatekeepers. Such as itself. After all, here are the "rules" for the Copyright Society of the USA's essay contest promoting the wonders of copyright:

• Essays must be 700 words or less in English
• Essays must be original and unpublished. Plagiarized entries will be rejected.
• Essays must be written by one person. Co-authored essays are not accepted.
• Copyright of the essays entered will be assigned to the organizer.

0 comments, click here to add the first