Shh! Chief Harteau's advisory board at work in secret

A number of people selected by Minneapolis Police Chief Harteau for an advisory panel to help with the Departments problems are currently meeting as the Chief said in a tweet to me doing: "subcommittee meetings w sharing of ideas, perspectives & thoughts, with specific recommendations to rpt to full committee"

But again this is all being done in secret with a sense of anonymity and total disregard for transparency.

Now who are the who's, who are deciding the direction with recommendations about the Minneapolis Police Department's perennial problems and are meeting in secret without the public input?

A good question, as WCCO's Jason DeRusha would say.  I did a data practices request and got the names.

I encourage the public and particularly those people who want to finally put a stop to the antics and bad behavior of some Minneapolis cops and to rid of the institutional patterns, policies, and practices that perpetuate the same bad behavior over and over again to:

(1) Demand public meetings of the Chief's advisory council and it's subcommittee meetings.

(2) Contact the Advisory Council members to see and hear what they are saying and doing.

As a quote I read only recently is how the Chief and the Advisory Council should guide iself:

         "Only by opening our doors can we build trust, and truly serve and protect"

The Minneapolis Police Department is not doing this now.


Please note below are the names of the Chief's Advisory Council as given to me exactly by Minneapolis Police Department and my tweet interaction w Chief Harteau:

Hassan Mohamud
Somalia Community Islamic Dawah Center

Bill Ziegler American Indian Community
Executive Director Little Earth of United Tribes

William Means American Indian Community
MN O.I.C. Council

Bishop Richard Howell Arnetta Phillips  African American Community
Shiloh Temple

Renee Jenson  Mental Health Community
The Barbara Schneider Foundation

Mark Anderson
The Barbara Schneider Foundation Mental Health Community

Pastor Charles Graham  Reverend Joan Austin
Macedonia Baptist Church Bapist Church

Silvia Ontaneda
Consulate General of Ecuador to Minnesota Ecuadorian Community

Harry Davis Jr Circle of Discipline

Dominick Bouza Salvation Army Harbor Lights
Operations Director The Salavation Arny Harbor Lights Center

Amay Yang Hmong Community Executive Director
Hmong American Mutual Assistance Association

Fr. Michael O'Connell Catholic Church
Ascension Church

Shane Zane Downtown Improvement DID
Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District

Joanne Kaufman Warehouse District
Executive Director, WDBA

Phil Davis Mpls Community College
President, Minneapolis Community and Technical College

Jana Metge
Citizens for a Loring Park Community 1st Precinct

Michael Rainville
Resident NE Mpls 2nd Precinct

Kate Lee
Near North Neighborhood 4th Precinct

Doris Overby
Standish Neighborhood 3rd Precinct

Marian Behr 5th Precinct Executive Director
Whittier Alliance

Adonis Frazier Circle of Discipline

VJ Smith  Makrim El-Amin MAD DADs


John Delmonico MPD Federation

Sondra Samuels Northside Achievement Zone

Scott Gray Mpls Urban League

Velma Korbel  Director of Civil Rights
City of Minneapolis

Michael Browne ` Director OPCR

Rich Neumeister ‏@richneumeister 12 Aug

1. Now if the next meeting of @ChiefHarteau advisory group not til September. What are they working on now during interim?

   4:26 PM - 12 Aug 13 · Details
2. Chief Janeé Harteau ‏@ChiefHarteau 13 Aug

   @richneumeister; subcommittee meetings w sharing of ideas, perspectives & thoughts, with specific recommendations to rpt to full committee

MNsure: Locked doors and names

This past week I visited the offices of MNsure, Minnesota's new health exchange program.  They are located in a newly renovated building in downtown St Paul.  There was no sign yet stating that MNsure was there, but I had help in locating it by people being trained to be possible navigators or something like that in another building.

I went to the building where MNsure was in, but low and behold the door is locked.  No sign stating how I can get in contact with them, zero, zip info.  I knocked on the window for someone to let me in so I could go to a public agency of the state to ask a question or two and to see the status of my data practices request.  To no avail, people looked at me through the window, but I did not have my Sunday dress on so I was ignored.

All of a sudden a person entered the door with his special pass key and let himself in.  I followed indicating I want to go to MNsure.  He stated it was on third floor.

The elevator door opens and I proceed to the MNsure office.  Do not remember for sure, but I believe that door was locked too.  Anyway I got through the door.  I introduced myself, stating I would like to speak with either their General Counsel or Data Practices person.

As I was waiting to see if they would be able to talk with me I noticed three conference rooms in MNsure's reception area, large rooms with temporary paper sheets posted near the doorways.

Each room from left to right was named Atkins, Lourey, and Dayton.  When I saw this I was flabbergasted because I have not seen conference rooms in government agencies named after living and still serving public officials.  I thought it was just downright cornball and trite.

I have no problem with Representative Atkins, Senator Lourey, and Governor Dayton I have worked with them all and I regard them highly, but naming a room after them while they are still living or still in office, come on.

I decided to communicate with someone at MNsure about this.  I stated that naming the conference rooms after living elected officials is hokey.  The person then asked what names I would suggest.  I suggested two names immediately, former Minnesota elected officials Arne Carlson and Linda Berglin.  These two people worked together on health care, Ms. Berglin (DFL) and Mr. Carlson (GOP) in the early nineties on MNCARE.

I was told by the MNsure staff person, good suggestions, but the names of Atkins, Lourey, and Dayton will remain.

I do not believe in naming anything for people who are living and a current elected official.  Do not know if MNsure will get nice name plaques on the doors, but if they do it's like putting a campaign sign out there as long as they are current living elected officials.

But wait if they keep their doors locked like a fortress and access for the public is nil no one may ever see the signs.

St Paul cops new toy (cameras) for surveillance, raises ongoing issues

With fanfare the St Paul Police announced their new toy to be used for law enforcement purposes.  Its a mobile real time camera or cameras that can placed almost anywhere to observe the public in its coming and goings.  

Granted, St Paul Police have used stationary cameras over the last decade to monitor and do surveillance on its citizens, but questions about this new tool and their current surveillance program need questions answered.  Some of them are as follows: How effective is their surveillance program?  What has been the impact on the public's privacy and liberty? Do they keep snippets of video on people without a criminal investigation?  Do they have a audit process to see who views the scenes captured and to make sure they are destroyed if there is no criminal investigation?

I have addressed the issue of surveillance and cameras before in a previous post entitled:  Cops and cameras----Modern peeping toms?

As with the license plate readers, St Paul Police had a big roll out to promote that new technology, but rebuffed privacy and liberty concerns by saying something like this, "Hey we are just taking pictures of plates in the public, and furthermore there is no privacy in public, anyway."  Well, based on the debate in the Minnesota House of Representatives on license plate readers  (HF 474) I would beg to differ. 

The "new portable high-tech surveillance camera" that St Paul is on the hunt for is much different than the cameras used in the RNC 2008 surveillance activities.  Technology moves fast and improves on tools that we use in our everyday life or used by law enforcement.

With the possibility of St Paul and other cities/towns getting new and improved cameras there should  be public discussion.  Does the law enforcement agency have policies/protocols?  Is the camera equipped with the ability to do facial recognition with high probability with a match from Minnesota Drivers License photo database or MRAP data base?  Is the new real time camera or cameras equipped with sophisticated microphones to listen to people's conversations as they go down the street?

See I believe, you and me have a right to privacy in public places in many circumstances and situations.

As Robert Ellis Smith, one of the leading privacy advocates for nearly 4 decades and the publisher of Privacy Journal states:

"Simply because the cameras are in public places does not mean that the right to privacy does not protect many of the activities captured in the millions of images.  To concede these points is to default on our birthrights of privacy, autonomy, and anonymity, even in "public" places."

Governor Dayton, Secret Agent Man

When I saw a tweet two days ago by Tom Scheck of Minnesota Public Radio stating that Governor Mark Dayton was going on a no name mission out of state on Wednesday, I tweeted this:

"On a secret trip, to a secret destination, to meet with a secret company, to offer secret $$$ goodies? #secrecy"

This morning when I got up to read the PRINT papers I saw huge letters on the the Star Tribune B section which said:

 "Secrecy is Job 1 on this jobs trip"

I thought of the mid 60's theme song of Secret Agent Man as I read the story.  Now Governor Dayton is no John Drake, the character played by Patrick McGoohan.  But Governor Dayton likes to play with the secrecy cloak when it comes to economic development.

I do not know how often Governor Dayton and public officials make announced and unannounced trips these days.  But the reason why this is of interest is because of the shenanigans of secrecy that went on with the Baxter deal, basically, a big time public subsidy for Baxter International to expand here in Minnesota.  As the public knows there were sworn oaths and written declarations of secrecy on that deal.  It was like a bunch of kids taken blood oaths and cross their hearts motions not to say anything. Even as the piece of legislation was being talked about at a public hearing on the subsidy proposal many legislators did not know it was for Baxter International.
 
Governor Dayton worked in tandem with Governor Perpich on a number of economic development proposals.  But with many of those proposals there was a penchant for secrecy, more secrecy then what was necessary. The one big proposal that I still remember and Governor Dayton still does because he was the point person for it was the competition for the first Saturn car plant in the United States in the mid 1980's.  The State of Minnesota was hot in the competition.

It was the subsidy package of all subsidy packages.  The package if I remember right included possible land, property tax abatement, grants and loans, fast track process to get through the local and state processes, basically promising public heaven and earth.  But it was all kept secret by Commissioner Dayton at the time.

Eventually, the proposal became public because there was an outcry by the public.  There were also other factors such as the Department of Administration saying basically you cannot keep all the data in the Saturn proposal secret.

Governor Dayton taking up flight and bringing secrecy into his comings and goings like yesterday,  has brought the possible spin of a cloak-and-dagger farce as it did with the Baxter situation.  As Bob Hume said in the Star Tribune story, there were three options.  They chose to release limited information.  Mr Hume, director of Q Branch, did not suggest for the Governor to go the route of baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and fake beard. 

With the Governor mentioning on Tuesday he was going on a no name mission for a purpose, there was some hint of the cloak of secrecy being lifted, but not enough.

Governor Dayton is a good man as many of the people who have served as our Governor have been.  Generally, people who have served as Governor see a whole wide world of possibilities and want to bring some of that to Minnesota.  Many of the Governors I have known and observed have known how a piece of the world can fit in with piece's of our state.  But does it have to be done in secret? No.  There can be more sunshine.

Sorry, just cannot get that song out my head:

"Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name......................

Does the FBI want your Minnesota DL or ID picture?

I have been reading about efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to find out about the FBI's initiative to have agreements and understandings with states to where states share photographs from their own photo databases.  You know that photo that was taken when you got your Minnesota drivers license or when you applied for your Minnesota ID, well it's digitally ready for facial recognition.  And the FBI wants it for their Next Generation Identification (NGI) Facial Recognition Program, without your consent.

EFF has gotten through public record requests and the Courts information about NGI and it efforts across the county.  Two such documents that EFF have received are memorandums of agreement with the states of Hawaii and Maryland with the FBI being their partner.

FOX9 did a story or two how the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) is using facial recognition to catch fraud with drivers license.  DPS got millions of Federal dollars to make all of our photos in their DL databases "facially recognizable" ready.

Well I wanted to find out if the Minnesota Department of Public Safety is in discussion with or making contact with the FBI on the Next Generation Identification and want to vacuum all our "photos".  So I did a data practices request and this is their response:

July 5, 2013

Rich Neumeister

RE: Data Practices Request in regards to sharing Minnesota DL/ID photos with the
FBI

Dear Mr. Neumeister:

Thank you for your data request regarding the above referenced matter. In it you
request all government data that the Department of Public Safety may have with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in doing a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with the FBI in sharing and giving access to Minnesota driver's license and ID
photos.
I have spoken with representatives of the Driver and Vehicle Services Division and
the Department does not have any such Memorandum of Understanding.
Consequently, there is no data responsive to your request. Again, thank you for
your email, and should you care to discuss it further, please contact me.

Sincerely,

E. Joseph Newton

General Counsel

Restore the 4th Amendment (In Minnesota)

It was great to see thousands, if not tens of thousands of Americans rally across the USA in support of the 4th Amendment which many Americans consider a most precious of the Bill of Rights.  There were a number of Minnesotans who rallied at the Hennepin County Building Plaza yesterday. The emphasis of the rallies where to wake up Americans of the need to watch government and its doings in the collection of millions, if not billions of bytes of our personal data and to set high standards when the US Government wants our personal data.

But it is also important to "restore the 4th Amendment" on the local and state level, specifically here in Minnesota.

Many people may not know this, but we have a 4th Amendment equivalent which is in the Minnesota State Constitution. In our state Bill of Rights, it is Section 10.  The 4th Amendment of the US Constitution has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in a number of ways which has set out limits as to what privacy means.  But our State Constitution can be interpreted to give us Minnesotans more rights and protections than what the Federal Constitution does.  For example:

You may have heard about roadblocks being set up with the yellow horse saws with local police stopping every car and asking to see an ID, possibly registration, but also at the same time seeing if there may be any indications that may lead them to suspect you for something.  Many times in other parts of the country roadblocks have been set up to check for impairment in driving (drunk driving), check for registration, among other reasons.  The United Supreme Court in a case said that roadblocks are constitutional per their view of the 4th Amendment for purposes of sobriety checks.

But our Minnesota Supreme Court interpreted our State Constitution, Section 10, in Ascher v Minnesota Department Public Safety Commissioner in 1994 and stated that we have more protection of our privacy in certain roadblock situations which makes them illegal and unconstitutional.

Another way to "restore the 4th" is in state statute.  Many of you have heard of the Jones case decided by SCOTUS last year.

The case basically says that the 4th Amendment of the Federal Constitution requires a search warrant which is the highest protection for privacy from the government when they want to put a tracking device on you car.

But did you know in Minnesota we were only a couple of states that had a law that protected our privacy when tracking devices are placed on cars.  This came about because of work I did with Senators Randy Peterson, Gene Merriam, and Fritz Knaak, and Representative Pugh in 1989.  The statutes are 626A.35 through 626A.39  Our state statute was even cited in the briefs used by the parties in the Jones case.

I illustrate the above as examples, how we in Minnesota can restore the 4th Amendment and the protections it envisions for us in Minnesota.  Whether it be through state laws at the Legislature or through the state courts we can make a difference.

There are a number of privacy and civil liberty issues that confront us immediately in Minnesota. Some are of the following:

Whether it be the use of familial DNA, the collection and use of DNA when arrested which in Minnesota you need a search warrant to get based on Court of Appeals decision which is different than the recent SCOTUS decision. (There may be attempts in Minnesota Legislature to change law to make it easier to collect DNA).

Or even how Minnesota law enforcement agencies have easy access to many of our personal emails, documents,  and personal papers in the "cloud" through a simple use of an administrative subpoena or a simple court order (not a search warrant) based on a legitimate need for a law enforcement inquiry.  A very low standard.  There is no 4th Amendment protection for Minnesotans in some of their emails, "personal papers", and documents when they are held by third parties in the electronic storage and communication business.

Restore the 4th in Minnesota. 

NSA spy apparatus is J Edgar Hoover on steroids

On page 63, of Robert Ludlum's, "Chancellor Manuscript", he describes J Edgar Hoover's penchant for information and rationale for collection of data.

"Every paper, every insert, every addendum related to Security crossed Hoover's desk.  And as we know, 'Security' took on the"Every paper, eve widest possible range.  Sexual activities, drinking habits, marriage and family confidences, the most personal details of the subjects' lives---none were too remote or insignificant.  Hoover pored over these dossiers like Croesus with his gold."

Ludlum describes in the fictional book, a 20th Century version of how a government agency hand powered their files to use for the purposes of national and domestic security.  But the National Security Agency's (NSA) version for gathering data and rationale for collection is so grandiose in comparison to what J Edgar Hoover did.  A similarity with the fictional Hoover (I contend real Hoover) and the NSA is the broad definition of "security".  Hoover had and the NSA has as their principle "we must collect everything we can" for the good of the state.  

I can picture old J. Edgar in heaven or hell salivating and rubbing his hands together and saying aloud, "If I only had this type of technology that NSA has."

The existence of NSA's broad scale intelligence gathering system disclosed by the Washington Post and The Guardian is no surprise to me.

We just have to review our government's (local, state, and Federal} history from Hoover's early days of collecting data when he was an employee of the Bureau of Investigation, to  military intelligence wiretapping Eleanor Roosevelt during World War 2, to the US Army intelligence spying on protesters in the sixties, and where even Minnesota State authorities kept collected data on innocent people during World War I to keep track of subversives -- often better known as German immigrants.

Now the NSA has a history of surveillance and spying since its birth in the early fifties.  Their efforts is documented in the Church Committees Volume 5 - The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights.  The NSA had two unique programs called Shamrock and Minaret.  One intercepted electronic communication, the other project dealt with telegraphic communication.

In comparison today with NSA's PRISM, there is none. The early programs of Shamrock and Minaret were very limited.  PRISM and it's sister program of phone number collection is a souped-up and wild behavior of filing, documenting, and preserving much more information about who an individual associates with, what they may think, and the coming and goings of their lives than Hoover could have ever dreamt of.

Now if Robert Ludlum wrote his book in 2013 maybe he might say something like this:

"Every e-mail, every video, every stored data related to Security crossed NSA's computers.  And as we know, 'Security' took on the widest possible range.  Sexual activities, drinking habits, marriage and family confidences, the most personal details of the subjects' lives---none were too remote or insignificant.  NSA pored over these electronic records like Croesus with his gold"