Seattle PD Dash Cam lawsuit

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Seattle-sues-attorney-over-public-records-request-136704018.html

The City of Seattle is suing an attorney over violating Privacy Law in regards to FOIA requests for multiple Dash Cam recordings.

The tax payers have to be thrilled to see the city spending their dollars in such ways.

"The dash-cam videos can be critical in ferreting out officer misconduct. The U.S. Department of Justice reviewed hundreds of these clips in determining that the Seattle Police Department had problems with excessive force.

Holmes says before police start releasing dash-cam videos, they need a judge's guidance on the conflict between privacy laws and public disclosure laws.

"We're going to work with the DOJ on these broader issues regarding SPD," said Holmes, adding improvements will not be made "if we start deciding which laws we're going to enforce and which ones we're not."

The city argues it doesn't have to release any videos for three years. That also happens to be when the statute of limitations runs out for suing the city and, as a KOMO News investigation discovered, it is also when dash-cam videos are routinely erased from the system"

Umm, isn't that what the Attorney General is for? They can get a legal opinion on the interaction of the two laws?

I'm wondering why it isn't perfectly clear that public officials, acting in a public capacity have no expectation of privacy. They work for us. We have the right to see the dash-cam videos. They should never be able to hide behind privacy laws when their dash-cam's record them.

This is just another example of law enforcement overstepping the bounds. See how the Seattle PD has put itself in a bad light? They don't need anyone to do it for them, they keep doing it themselves.

I suspect (and this is just me spitballin' here) that they will claim it isn't the officer's privacy but the person who was stopped that they are concerned about...and in some respects, that is a valid issue. Not that I think the judge will allow that, but I am guessing that is the tactic the city will pursue.

If the officers have nothing to hide, I would think they would be eager to have the clips exposed.

Person: "No officer, I do not consent to a search."
Officer: "If you have nothing to hide, you would let me look in your trunk."
Person: "Then what are YOU trying to hide, by refusing to release and then destroying your Dash Cam footage?"

HAHA

oneeyeross said:

I suspect (and this is just me spitballin' here) that they will claim it isn't the officer's privacy but the person who was stopped that they are concerned about...and in some respects, that is a valid issue. Not that I think the judge will allow that, but I am guessing that is the tactic the city will pursue.

If the officers have nothing to hide, I would think they would be eager to have the clips exposed.

Click to expand...

A person walking down a public street has no expectation of privacy, either. It's the same thing they'd say if they were recording a person.

I can understand gaining access to private information being criminal, I can understand releasing private information to be criminal.
I'm sorry, but I can't understand how making a request to public information is criminal.
They could certainly refuse to provide the information (possibly, depending on the wording of the Washington Code... maybe.)

Anyone have a citation to the Washington Code re: privacy laws?

From the information given it would seem Seattle is claiming a conflict between
Chapter 42.56 RCW Public Records Act
versus
Chapter 9.73 RCW Privacy, violating right of and/or possibly
Chapter 10.97 RCW Privacy, criminal records

Fallschirmjäger said:

From the information given it would seem Seattle is claiming a conflict between
Chapter 42.56 RCW Public Records Act
versus
Chapter 9.73 RCW Privacy, violating right of and/or possibly
Chapter 10.97 RCW Privacy, criminal records

Click to expand...

There's some problems with that.

Is the city asserting that police officers are criminals under 10.97? If they are criminals, then they are barred from serving as law enforcement officers.

Then there's 9.73, violations of which are criminal from the moment of recording, not the moment of publishing. If the dash cam videos are illegal recordings, then whoever took them is guilty of a crime.

42.56.050 has some potential applicability though, assuming the video recordings would amount to an invasion of privacy that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person (I can't see such a claim being valid for taxpayer-funded recordings of a public official in a public place) or is not of legitimate concern to the public. 42.56.050 could backfire on the city, since if recording a person in public is highly offensive to a reasonable person, it would also prohibit things like dash cams or security cameras from being used.

National coverage

Judge Napolitano featured the Seattle police dashcam lawsuit: http://tinyurl.com/6pal3f8

Ajetpilot said:

Judge Napolitano featured the Seattle police dashcam lawsuit: http://tinyurl.com/6pal3f8

Click to expand...

Good find! I recommend Judge Napolitano's books, he don't pull no punches.

All of this is symptoms of an ailing, sick, system of law enforcement that has very little to do with fundamental rights and constitutional authority.