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Judge Slams Tacoma for Not Releasing Stingray Records

posted by chromas on Monday July 02 2018, @08:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the css dept.

takyon writes:

Judge slams Tacoma for not releasing stingray records

A judge in Washington state has excoriated the Tacoma Police Department for withholding public records pertaining to its use of cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays. Back in 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state sued the TPD on behalf of four community leaders, arguing that the department has not adequately responded to their public records requests concerning the use of stingrays, which included asking for a blank form authorizing its use.

"The [Public Records Act] establishes a positive duty to disclose public records unless they fall within specific exemptions," Judge G. Helen Whitener wrote in her Monday opinion. "This mandates that the City, upon receiving a request for documents, must first do an adequate search and then must produce the documents requested if there is not an exemption. The PRA does not require the City to analyze the reasons why the document is requested or to determine the relevance of the documents requested even if they are blank forms. The blank form taken in context of the other forms may have meaning to the requestor, and it is not for the City to analyze its relevance. To adopt the City's interpretation of the PRA would defeat the broad mandate of the PRA to allow access to public records not covered by and exemption."

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday July 02 2018, @11:11PM (2 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday July 02 2018, @11:11PM (#701622) Journal

    Chris Hedges has some interesting comments on how quickly things can can change:

    As a foreign correspondent I covered collapsed societies, including the former Yugoslavia. It is impossible for any doomed population to grasp how fragile the decayed financial, social and political system is on the eve of implosion. All the harbingers of collapse are visible: crumbling infrastructure; chronic underemployment and unemployment; the indiscriminate use of lethal force by police; political paralysis and stagnation; an economy built on the scaffolding of debt; nihilistic mass shootings in schools, universities, workplaces, malls, concert venues and movie theaters; opioid overdoses that kill some 64,000 people a year; an epidemic of suicides; unsustainable military expansion; gambling as a desperate tool of economic development and government revenue; the capture of power by a tiny, corrupt clique; censorship; the physical diminishing of public institutions ranging from schools and libraries to courts and medical facilities; the incessant bombardment by electronic hallucinations to divert us from the depressing sight that has become America and keep us trapped in illusions. We suffer the usual pathologies of impending death. I would be happy to be wrong. But I have seen this before. I know the warning signs. All I can say is get ready.

    https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/21/coming-collapse [commondreams.org]

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  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by frojack on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:06AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:06AM (#701685) Journal

    There's been a Chris Hedges or three around every decade.

    Come on for christ sake, read a little history.
    Thomas Malthus ring any bells?
    Aldous Huxley maybe?
    Al Gore?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18tier.html [nytimes.com]

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:00AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:00AM (#702853) Journal

    It is impossible for any doomed population to grasp how fragile the decayed financial, social and political system is on the eve of implosion.

    So... you're claiming that US citizens are unusually well-informed for a doomed population?