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From the New York Times

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Police Lesson: Social Network Tools Have 2 Edges

Officer Trey Economidy of the Albuquerque police now realizes that he should have thought harder before listing his occupation on his Facebook profile as “human waste disposal.”

After he was involved in a fatal on-duty shooting in February, a local television station dug up the Facebook page. Officer Economidy was placed on desk duty, and last month the Albuquerque Police Department announced a new policy to govern officers' use of social networking sites.

Social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter can be valuable assets for law enforcement agencies, helping them alert the public, seek information about crimes and gather evidence about the backgrounds of criminal suspects. But the Internet can also get police departments into trouble.

Public gaffes like Officer Economidy's — his cynical job description on Facebook was “extremely inappropriate and a lapse in judgment on my part,” he said last week in an e-mail — are only one of the risks. A careless posting on a networking site, law enforcement experts say, can endanger an officer's safety, as it did in Santa Monica, Calif., last year when the Police Department went to great lengths to conceal a wounded officer's identity and location, only to have a retired officer inadvertently reveal them on Facebook.

And defense lawyers increasingly scour social networking sites for evidence that could impeach a police officer's testimony. In one case in New York, a jury dismissed a weapons charge against a defendant after learning that the arresting officer had listed his mood on MySpace as “devious” and wrote on Facebook that he was watching the film “Training Day” to “brush up on proper police procedure.”

In an Arkansas case, a federal appeals court cited as evidence of a police officer's character photos he posted on MySpace showing him pointing a gun at the camera, flanked by a skull and the legend “the PUNISHER.”

The problem is serious enough that departments across the country are scrambling to develop rules to govern what officers can and cannot do online.

“This is something that all the police chiefs around the country, if you're not dealing with it, you better deal with it,” said Mark A. Marshall, chief of police in Smithfield, Va., and the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police , which has developed its own model policy.

His department, Chief Marshall said, has had a few embarrassing episodes. In one, an officer who had been involved in a high-speed chase and ended up in “a little bit of a tussle” with a suspect posted a comment about what a good time he had during the dust-up. In another, an officer posted a photo of a tattoo of St. Michael on her hip. Both were disciplined, Chief Marshall said.

“Unfortunately, you have these extreme incidents that are out there,” he said, “and, candidly, you ask yourself, What on earth were they thinking when they posted that?”

Most social media policies try to balance a police department's interests against First Amendment protections for the officers. Many include prohibitions against posting any statements that could discredit or reflect badly on a department, that illustrate reckless behavior or that disparage people based on race, religion or sexual orientation. Posting crime scene photos or other evidence from criminal cases online is also prohibited by most policies.

Others go further. Albuquerque's policy, for example, prohibits officers from identifying themselves as employees of the Police Department or posting photos of departmental insignia — badges, uniforms, cruisers — without permission. And a recent policy by the Police Department in Pueblo, Colo., bans gossiping online with outsiders about department affairs.

Police officials say that the courts have generally upheld restrictions on the speech of government employees when the speech is job related.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken on it so often that the parameters are fairly well defined,” said Martha Stonebrook, senior city attorney in Salt Lake City, who was a co-author of a paper on social networking in law enforcement given at the international police chiefs association's annual meeting in Orlando last year. In one famous 2004 case, the Supreme Court upheld the firing of an officer who filmed himself stripping off a police uniform and masturbating and sold the video on eBay's adults-only area, using the name Codestud3@aol.com.

But David L. Hudson Jr., a scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, said the lower courts were still sorting out the implications of the Supreme Court's decisions involving job-related speech.

“The question of when employees can be disciplined for off-duty speech is hazy,” he said. “Part of our core nature is what we do for a living, and to prohibit somebody from engaging in any kind of expression related to their job is arguably too broad.”

In fact, the Albuquerque policy has met some resistance from the rank and file. Joey Sigala, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers' Association, said that while the department was entitled to dictate what officers wear and say on the clock, “I don't believe they have the right to tell us what to do outside of that.”

He said that requiring officers to get permission before posting pictures involving department insignia made it difficult to share news about awards or honors spontaneously with family and friends. “They're taking away the ability to demonstrate the good, as well as the bad,” he said.

Chief Ray Schultz of the Albuquerque police said that department officials researched policies from around the nation before developing their own.

“You need to get a handle on this very quickly, because this has the potential to damage the reputation of the organization and also adversely affect you in the courtroom,” Chief Schultz said, adding that some social media sites appeared to be “like the bathroom wall of 20 years ago, except now the entire world can see it.”

His department, he said, has hired a compliance officer to investigate the online presence of any police officer “who comes to the attention of the department,” by examining social network pages and running the officer's name through Google.

Media coverage is often what prompts a department into action. The Indiana State Police initiated its policy after WTHR in Indianapolis discovered photos of drunken revels on a trooper's Facebook page. One showed the trooper, Chris Pestow, with a .357 Magnum pointed at his head. He also posted a comment about a homeless man beaten by police officers in California, saying, “These people should have died when they were young, anyway, i'm just doing them a favor,” according to the report by WTHR.

After the controversy, Trooper Pestow resigned, said First Sgt. David Bursten, a spokesman for the State Police. He said he instructs new police officers, “Don't do or say anything that you wouldn't be proud to have your mother see or hear.”

“That really sums it up,” he said.

Asked about his experience, Mr. Pestow said in an e-mail, “A written policy concerning social media from the Indiana State Police prior to my unfortunate misstep would have benefited me considerably.”

Chief Joseph E. Thomas Jr. of the Southfield, Mich., police said that when it comes to social media, it is important for departments to enforce discipline even for small infractions. He cited one instance when an officer photographed goats on a resident's rooftop before confiscating the animals, then posted the photos. The officer was told to remove the photos from the site and given a verbal reprimand.

“That was cute and it was something that did not harm anybody, but it's inappropriate,” Chief Thomas said.

He said department officials routinely checked police recruits' social networking pages when they apply for a job. In one case, he said, a candidate posted this update on Facebook:

“Just returned from the interview with the Southfield Police Department and I can't wait to get a gun and kick some ass.”

He was rejected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/us/07police.html?pagewanted=print

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Critics Call Terrorism Hearing in Manhattan Anti-Muslim

A state senator has scheduled a daylong hearing for Friday on terrorism preparedness in New York City, featuring an array of experts in law enforcement, emergency response and counterterrorism.

But his plan to take testimony in Manhattan about the threat from radical Islam is drawing sharp criticism from Muslim and interfaith groups that call the hearing anti-Muslim and incendiary — a local version of the contentious session held last month in Washington by Representative Peter T. King of Long Island.

In fact, the witness list includes Mr. King, a Republican who has promised more Congressional hearings on what he calls the radicalization of American Muslims.

The state senator, Gregory R. Ball, a Putnam County Republican who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs, said he did not intend his inquiry to focus unfairly on threats from any one group.

“But there are people who seek to hurt and destroy us,” Mr. Ball said. “We have to move beyond political correctness.”

Among the witnesses whose scheduled testimony has raised objections is Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born American who is president of a group called Former Muslims United. Mr. Ball said Ms. Darwish would testify about Shariah law and “being taught to hate Israelis and Americans” in Islamic schools she attended in Egypt.

Adem Carroll, a spokesman for the New York State Interfaith Network for Immigration Reform, one of the organizations protesting the hearing, said that by including witnesses like Ms. Darwish and Frank Gaffney, a former Defense Department official who has often criticized Islam, Mr. Ball was exploiting deep public concern about terrorism to incite fear of Muslims as a group.

“None of us are condemning the hearings' stated purpose,” Mr. Carroll said. “The issue of terrorism is of concern to all Americans. But hate speech and defamation can and do perpetuate a cycle of violence.” He cited the killing of United Nations workers in Afghanistan recently after a Florida pastor burned a copy of the Koran.

Not all the witnesses scheduled to testify at Mr. Ball's hearing have been a cause of objections. They include Richard Daddario, the New York Police Department 's top counterterrorism official; Thomas LaBelle, executive director of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs; and a raft of experts on emergency communications, nuclear safety and international security.

Mr. Bal l, 33, an Air Force Academy graduate and two-term state assemblyman elected to the Senate in 2010 on a platform of cracking down on illegal immigration , said criticism of witnesses like Ms. Darwish and Mr. Gaffney was “just an attempt by some to drum up national publicity.”

Eight Democrats in the State Senate have signed a letter of protest to Mr. Ball from State Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Democrat whose Brooklyn district includes one of the city's largest populations of Pakistani immigrants, most of them Muslim.

“By including Islamic law as a topic of the hearing,” Mr. Parker wrote, “you conflate the religious observances and practices of a faith into a security matter. Some opportunists and political leaders have sought to create hostility against Muslims by raising the specter of the Shariah ‘bogeyman' as a threat to America.”

He urged Mr. Ball not to follow that example, and suggested that he also call witnesses who are not biased against Islam.

Mr. Ball said he announced his intentions in the Senate chamber weeks ago, and invited members to propose witnesses. None did, he said. Mr. Parker said in an interview that “that is not my understanding of the facts.”

The hearing is to be held at the State Senate office building in Lower Manhattan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/nyregion/07muslim.html?pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

Better Protecting Prisoners

The Justice Department is finalizing new rape-prevention policies that will become mandatory for federal prisons and state correctional institutions that receive federal money. The rules, based on recommendations from a Congressionally mandated commission, would be a major improvement. But the department needs to remedy several weaknesses before it issues final regulations.

Rape and other forms of sexual abuse by fellow inmates or correctional officers are a chronic hazard in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities across the country. According to federal estimates, 200,000 adult prisoners and jail inmates suffered some form of sexual abuse during 2008.

That works out to about 4.4 percent of the prison population and 3.1 percent of the jail population. The numbers are even higher in juvenile institutions, with 12 percent of the total population suffering some form of sexual abuse. Statistics showing that some institutions have higher rates of assault than others are consistent with the finding of the rape commission, which reported that some prisons had successfully created an atmosphere of safety while others tacitly tolerated assaults.

The commission came up with a long and compelling list of rape prevention recommendations, most of which have been adopted by the Justice Department. It is demanding a zero-tolerance approach to rape behind bars and will require better training of staff members, more effective ways to report assaults, more thorough investigations and better medical and psychiatric services for victims. In perhaps the most revolutionary development, prisons would be required to make sexual assault data public so policy makers could get a clear view of how well or how poorly vulnerable inmates were being protected.

Still, there are problems with the Justice Department's approach. The decision to exclude immigration detention centers holding noncitizens goes against the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which defined a prison as any confinement facility administered by federal, state or local government.

Victims of sexual assault are often too traumatized to immediately speak out. So the provision permitting prisons systems to invalidate most complaints not lodged within 20 days seems arbitrary. Complaints should be taken seriously whenever they are reported. The department has obviously done the right thing by limiting cross-gender strip searches to emergency situations. But it should also set a goal of ending cross-gender pat-down searches.

Finally, the Justice Department needs to adopt the commission's call for regularly scheduled, independent audits of prison rape prevention programs. That is the only sure way to know whether they are obeying the law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/opinion/07thu2.html?pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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DHS Supports Exercise of Securing the Cities Program Designed to Detect Radiological and Nuclear Threats

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