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The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

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Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#151

Post by chaps »

stevage wrote: post #144

Argh. I used to work a lot in open data, including a stint within the open data department of a major city government. This kind of behaviour does nothing to advance the cause. It just perpetuates the belief that open data and FOI are massive waste of time and resources and open legal risks for no good reason. I'm also pretty surprised that people think email metadata from government is legitimate open data. Do you t…

None of this is open data. Open data is data that's released on a discretionary basis; often times a FOIA request for the same data found within open data has a legal requirement for redaction. We see this happen all the time. What's worse is that at the executive level, eg chief data officers are often forbidden by legal teams from interacting with the media and adjacent orgs. I've literally been told by a CDO that they cannot speak with me.

My go-to phrase for open data is, "open data is a lie". Because at the end of the day, we have zero legal recourse to validate that what is provided through open datasets is complete, both in terms of available columns and available rows. Very rarely will it ever be explained why, or even if, information is missing. And the subsequent effects of that lead to a deep public misunderstanding of what's going on. And much of it is intentional out of explicit fear that the public will misinterpret the data. So we go through FOIA instead and we end up going through legal battles. There's a reason I've had to do ~10 FOIA suits.

tl;dr: open data is nice, but its lack of rigor and accountability makes it effectively useless for anything that requires depth.

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#152

Post by dvdkon »

I have to say, Seattle seems to have some very cooperative clerks. Here requests for large datasets (or extracts thereof) are more likely to be denied based on various phony reasons or the copying valued at ridiculous prices nobody's backing down from. That you got this data without involving at least one appeals process is pretty good.

That said, I mostly only make "difficult" FOIA-equivalent requests. Routine requests for specific documents are mostly no trouble here.

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#153

Post by l33t7332273 »

legitster wrote: post #116
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot get a warrant without probably cause that a crime has been committed. So asking for a warrant to search your computer is literally asking to be charged with a crime. That is just completely 100% wrong. Warrants are not (or at least, shouldn't be, your mileage may vary based on your local authorities) issued like candy. Prosecutors and judges issue warrants when there is probable cause to search in the ev…

WA state says you cannot issue a warrant without reference to a specific crime: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=10.79.035 So regardless, by demanding a warrant you would be insisting that the IT Department declare a crime had been committed in the first place. Even if you wanted to defend the legality of you holding onto ill-gotten data, why would you want to get the prosecutor involved at all? Getting a…

A warrant referencing a crime is not the same as a person being charged of a crime.

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#154

Post by singleshot_ »

legitster wrote: post #101
rootsudo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that hostile? To be aware of your rights and state they can’t do an illegal search? Demanding a warrant to be searched is not hostile it’s the equivalent of saying no thank you. Hostile is when they have a warrant and you still refuse.

You cannot get a warrant without probably cause that a crime has been committed. So asking for a warrant to search your computer is literally asking to be charged with a crime. IANAL, but demanding a prosecutor and judge be involved when dealing with an IT department is really dumb. If you can just agree with their legal team (and your lawyer) on the stipulations of the search and confirmation, you can't be charged w…

This is brutally terrible legal advice, even for you not being a lawyer.

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#155

Post by cortesoft »

jonah wrote: post #129
jawns wrote: post #22

The most interesting part of this story is the potential legal risk of holding onto the records that were improperly disclosed. Had the author not notified the city that they had royally screwed up by divulging far more sensitive information than they had realized, they likely would have never realized the error, and he would have been free to do whatever he liked with the data. But once he notified them of their err…

If a merchant mails something you didn't order, you are allowed to keep it. https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi... https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regard... Additional discussion on if they mis-ship things to you: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/17533/if-a-retailer-...

What if it is USPS who messes up, though, and delivers it to the wrong address, even though the address on the package is correct?

Even more confusing, what if the package is FROM the USPS, is addressed to someone else, but accidentally delivered to you?

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#156

Post by l33t7332273 »

legitster wrote: post #98
thsksbd wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A warrant is required for all government search, and I can just as easily waive my right for a warrant w/ the police. In fact, a workers for the municipality is the very last government level Id want snooping in my house. Next thing I know Im getting fined for having the wrong colored bathroom tiles.

> A warrant is required for all government search This is not at all true. For example, if you enter into an agreement with your state to be a foster parent, you also have to agree for the state to inspect your home regularly. It's part of the agreement - no warrant required. The state is free to make search a condition of an agreement. So if the state wants to say "Agree to a search or we will pursue criminal procee…

I think this point is needlessly pedantic because it hasn’t much to do with the topic at hand. GP’s point was that you were wrong to say that warrants are _only_ required for police searches.

The search we’re talking about here is very much the kind of search that warrants a warrant.

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#157

Post by singleshot_ »

legitster wrote: post #127
eli wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible advice based on a real misunderstanding of the law.

How so? What lawyer would insist on their client getting searched via a warrant?

I don’t speak for all of us, but I would certainly be one. The “particularity” feature of a warrant would be a primary concern, as would be the involvement of someone other than LE (I.e., the magistrate or judge signing the warrant).

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#158

Post by [deleted] »

legitster wrote: post #116
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot get a warrant without probably cause that a crime has been committed. So asking for a warrant to search your computer is literally asking to be charged with a crime. That is just completely 100% wrong. Warrants are not (or at least, shouldn't be, your mileage may vary based on your local authorities) issued like candy. Prosecutors and judges issue warrants when there is probable cause to search in the ev…

WA state says you cannot issue a warrant without reference to a specific crime: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=10.79.035 So regardless, by demanding a warrant you would be insisting that the IT Department declare a crime had been committed in the first place. Even if you wanted to defend the legality of you holding onto ill-gotten data, why would you want to get the prosecutor involved at all? Getting a…

[deleted]

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#159

Post by cortesoft »

legitster wrote: post #127
eli wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is terrible advice based on a real misunderstanding of the law.

How so? What lawyer would insist on their client getting searched via a warrant?

> If you can just agree with their legal team (and your lawyer) on the stipulations of the search and confirmation, you can't be charged with further crimes if they find anything ("fruit of the poison tree").

This part is completely wrong. “Fruit of the poison tree” only counts if the original search was illegal. If you let them search for something specific, nothing is stopping them from using anything they find, even if it wasn’t what they were searching for (as long as they found it during the normal course of searching for the thing they were supposed to be searching for)

Re: The City of Seattle accidentally gave me 32M emails for $40 (2018)

#160

Post by judge2020 »

cortesoft wrote: post #155
jonah wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a merchant mails something you didn't order, you are allowed to keep it. https://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_v04_revi... https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-Options-Do-I-Have-Regard... Additional discussion on if they mis-ship things to you: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/17533/if-a-retailer-...

What if it is USPS who messes up, though, and delivers it to the wrong address, even though the address on the package is correct? Even more confusing, what if the package is FROM the USPS, is addressed to someone else, but accidentally delivered to you?

You are not allowed to open someone else’s mail, even if it’s in your mailbox.
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