1 (First the kicker and then read mmmore)Florida City Officials Spend $50,000 To Find Out Who Gave Journalists A Public Record
from the pettiest-cash-of-all dept
The city government of Tamarac, Florida has found a novel way to spend taxpayers' money: paying someone to find out who handed public records to someone entitled to receive public records. (h/t Peter Bonilla)
The cost to Tamarac taxpayers will be as much as $50,000 for the city to hire a private investigator to figure out who gave public records to a reporter, according to records released Friday.
City leaders are scheduled to approve hiring the law firm of Kim Vaughan Lerner on Wednesday to conduct a “forensic” search to try to find who gave the South Florida Sun Sentinel a memo that is a public record in Florida.
$50,000 from taxpayers to hire someone taxpayers likely don't believe needs to be hired to discover the source of records taxpayers are entitled to have access to. An investigation so self-serving the city can barely be bothered to defend it. But since the city holds the power and the taxpayers' purse strings, the investigation will continue.
Why are city leaders so hot and bothered they're willing to chase the paper trail of a presumptive public record that ended up in the hands of journalists? Well, it sure as shit isn't because they're concerned in any way about the public they're supposed to be serving.
No, this expensive paper chase is the result of city leaders being embarrassed by their own misuse of public funds. . ."
No commissioner expressed any dismay with the outsized set of perks being handed to them or the willingness to waste money investigating a non-existent breach/leak. But one commissioner mistook her public platform for a mirror, issuing this… um… statement:
Commissioner Debra Placko chastised whoever gave out the information, saying at last week’s meeting, “Shame on you for being despicable.”
LOL. "Despicable" is spending $50,000 to find and punish the person who embarrassed you using nothing more than public records anyone could have obtained. Good luck with that.
And good luck with your next election run, charlatans A-D (the decision to hire an investigator passed 4-1). This is not just stupid. It's expensive. And it does nothing more than show the public who their servants are actually serving.
Filed Under: florida, foia, private investigator, public records, tamarac, transparency
New York Police Union Tells NYPD End Of Qualified Immunity Will Force Officers To... Act Lawfully
from the kind-of-an-anti-climax dept
One of the NYPD's unions -- the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) -- is feeling ways about stuff again. Last month, the New York City Council passed a number of police reforms which included taking away qualified immunity as a defense in civil lawsuits filed in local courts. The bill has yet to receive the governor's signature, but the SBA is already making its unhappiness known.
The SBA issued a statement (via its lawyers) about the supposed downsides of giving the public a fighting chance in civil rights lawsuits. And in doing so, it has inadvertently generated a few arguments against qualified immunity, as Jay Schweikart points out at Unlawful Shield.
What was written as a cautionary advisory about the changing legal atmosphere is instead an unforced error that shows how often cops are protected by this immunity even when it's clear they've violated rights. . .First, the SBA restates the doctrine's intent:
Qualified immunity means that government employees are immune from lawsuits if they acted reasonably and not in violation of a “clearly established statutory or constitutional right.” It is designed to protect all government employees and officials from lawsuits and liability when they perform their duties in good faith and within what one reasonably believes to be the scope of existing law.
But then it skips right past all the case law that shows the doctrine protects plenty of bad faith actions and unreasonable officers. As Schweikart notes, truly reasonable officers know where the Constitutional lines are drawn and have no need to worry about not being protected if sued.
Officers who are genuinely acting in good faith aren’t violating anyone’s rights in the first place, so by definition, they don’t need qualified immunity to protect them. By suggesting otherwise to their members, these unions are engaged in reckless, dishonest fearmongering.
And that's where the SBA letter veers into an unintended endorsement of ending qualified immunity . . .
. . .If an action seems brutal, vindictive, or not entirely justified, it's probably a violation of someone's rights. There's plenty of leeway given to officers to engage in their duties. Courts allow cops to lie to suspects during interrogations, take people's property with almost zero justification, draw them into reverse sting operations involving make believe contraband, and make up the law as they go along to engage in pretextual traffic stops.
And the courts have also taken a very expansive view of the term "reasonable," allowing all sorts of unreasonable violations to be waved away by innovations of qualified immunity. This is the only thing being removed by the proposed law. And it only affects cases brought in the city's courts. It's hardly the end of qualified immunity and it isn't the death knell to good policing the SBA pretends it is. If officers start exiting the force -- or refusing to do their jobs -- because QI is no longer available, it will merely indicate these officers are unable (or unwilling) to perform their duties lawfully.
Filed Under: civil rights, nypd, police union, qualified immunity
Companies: sergeants benevolent association
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