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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)

#171

Post by lazyasciiart »

db48x wrote: post #139
froh wrote: post #4

wow! in Europe, this request 1. From address 2. To address 3. bcc addresses 4. cc addresses 5. Time 6. Date correlates person-related information (who was in contact with whom at which date and time). storing it, let alone processing it is only admissible on a need to know basis. even if you jump through the hoop of an officer acting on behalf of Seattle is not a person any more, which is a stretch already, even then…

That’s true, but remember that these are government employees. All business that they conduct is a matter of public record by definition. They are required by our laws to maintain a record of all actions and communications, which anyone is allowed to consult. Technically they’re not supposed to use government resources for private communication, and legally they are not allowed to use _private_ communication resource…

No, they aren't. 'They', being the people whose email addresses are being released, includes everyone who emails or receives an email from a government official. Thought you'd like to receive updates on the construction outside your house by email? Now it includes you.

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

#172

Post by legitster »

cortesoft wrote: post #159
legitster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ev…

If you get to define the terms of the search with a lawyer, wouldn't that make the terms of any additional snooping illegal?

Again, I get that a warrant is a great bar to them searching your stuff. But if they already know you have what they are looking for, a warrant seems bad!

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

#173

Post by zippergz »

The "single line of powershell" thing really undermines this person's credibility. Without knowing how and where this information is stored, how can he possibly know what the level of effort in retrieving it is? I agree that the initial cost estimate was absurd, but you don't win any points by claiming extreme simplicity of a task you don't have full visibility into.

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

#174

Post by chaps »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #169
chaps wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spoken to many people inside government who work on the open data side. To be blunt: the signal to noise ratio isn't very good in terms of whether someone actually knows what they're talking about. So please consider my reluctance to take much of what is said as a product of being lied to for years, both intentionally and unintentionally. Yes, FOI processes are getting slower and yes we're going to keep suing. W…

One thing to consider is that 'government' literally constantly advertises the opportunity for you to get credentials to their system and prepare documents themselves. They will pay you to do this. > So yours (and many others in your position)'s clear desire to think of us as adversaries rather than simply people who want to know what the fuck is going on is blinding your vision. Yea, I don't work in his position or…

Maybe. But again, please try to view it as an expression of years and years of frustration. The stakes are high with this shit. When we are denied access to records, the implications are often as serious as literal deaths, sexual violence, and systemic abuse of millions of people.

I highly recommend you read this (shameless plug), which shows just a sliver of the nonsense that we have to deal with: https://southsideweekly.com/cpd-routinely-denies-foia-reques...

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

#175

Post by legitster »

singleshot_ wrote: post #157
legitster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Again, in this particular circumstance, where OP has already admitted to being in possession of the files, would there be any difficulty in obtaining a warrant for all of his computers?

I'm honestly curious as to what there would be to gain on insisting on a warrant rather than just agree to some deal and avoid criminal proceedings.

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

#176

Post by actuallyalys »

arbuge wrote: post #130

> This isn't something I'm even remotely cool with, so we ended the call a couple minutes later, and agreed to have our lawyers speak going forward. ... After that call, I asked my lawyer to reach out to their lawyer and was pretty much told that Seattle was approaching the problem as if they were pursuing Computer Fraud And Abuse (CFAA) charges. For information that they sent. Jiminey Cricket.. Not addressing the ma…

I don’t think it’s necessarily common in general. But it’s not surprising to me that someone who files a lot of public records requests has one, as a lawsuit is your main recourse if they refuse your request or demand fees you think are unreasonable, at least in the jurisdictions I’m familiar with.

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

#177

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

legitster wrote: post #165
rootsudo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, all of them really. Sure, no warrant you can make an attempt to drop evidence because of overzealous police/executive power if there was no consent but the idea is to require documentation and to make sure the state (in this case) crosses their T's and does their I's before they can engage in this sort of conversation. Many times, if the case is weak, or not enforceable, a judge will not sign to execute the war…

> Many times, if the case is weak, or not enforceable, a judge will not sign to execute the warrant or said people that want to search will not try to get one (either knowing it wont be granted or it would be denied.) Absolutely. Demanding a warrant is your protection against a weak case. But in this particular case, OP has already told authorities that they possessed contraband. The authorities already have everythi…

I bet the lawyer was even more adamant that their client would not surrender their property/submit to a search without a warrant.

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

#178

Post by chaps »

zippergz wrote: post #173

The "single line of powershell" thing really undermines this person's credibility. Without knowing how and where this information is stored, how can he possibly know what the level of effort in retrieving it is? I agree that the initial cost estimate was absurd, but you don't win any points by claiming extreme simplicity of a task you don't have full visibility into.

Easy. If I receive an email from them that contains an outlook 365 email header, then they use Outlook 365. So then just send them the command that works with outlook 365. It's literally that simple. I have a good idea of what the amount of work because I've sent the same request about 100 times and have learned quite a lot, both through conversations, email, litigation and other's litigation. If experience isn't helpful then I ask for a small slice and use that to calibrate their estimate. Estimates are usually very wrong, like it was with Seattle.

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

#179

Post by iAMkenough »

ta1243 wrote: post #60
kelnos wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like the company made the lowest bid, and their bid was intentionally lower than the actual cost of building what the agency wanted built, so they did the least work possible to get it to vaguely work, and moved on.

...and internal rules will mean that the lowest bid will have to be taken. Probably a bit of both. I'd be very nervous about jumping through the hoops that come with supplying to government -- hoops the people working in the government don't want, but ones that have been put in by politicians for various reasons.

External rules too. In the US, some state legislatures like to take away local control from counties and municipalities for political reasons. An IT manager for your city might know what the best solution would be, but depending on the State's bidding requirements they may be forced to take the lowest bidder even if they know there will be issues, but they meet the basic requirements of the ask. They need to teach government RFP/RFB writing in grade school.

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

#180

Post by zoky »

legitster wrote: post #80
eli wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I give the uranium back and they want to search my house anyway they better have a warrant

Okay, but if you demand a warrant to confirm you don't have uranium, you can't be surprised if they are going to treat you as hostile.

So the feds can just ship anyone uranium, then insist on searching their house “to confirm it’s all gone”, and you think they’d be able to get a warrant to do so if you refused to consent?

Bypass anyone’s Fourth Amendment rights with this one weird trick discovered by some guy on HN (civil rights attorneys HATE him!)

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