Newspaper staff jailed protecting web-readers' identities re: corrupt sheriff story

[nashville_brook]

Anyone interested in the freedom/fascism push-me-pull-you going on, might be interested in this latest affront to Constitutional liberty: a corrupt sheriff has teamed up with a butt-monkey prosecutor in an attempt to chill THE READING OF THE NEWS. Usually the chill is placed squarely on the production of journalism (rather than the CONSUMPTION). Now, we have the thought police coming after our IP addresses in the hopes of chilling our reading habits (you out there Prof Plum?). According to the article, the subpoena is an "attempt to research the identity, purchasing habits, and browsing proclivities of our online readership."

At issue is a story run by the Pheonix New Times (an alt-weekly paper...you know, the kind that actually still does "journalism"), that outed the sheriff's hidden commercial real estate investments, and providing an address for the public figure at the bottom of the article as it appeared in the online edition.



From the story:

In a breathtaking abuse of the United States Constitution, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and their increasingly unhinged cat's paw, special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, used the grand jury to subpoena "all documents related to articles and other content published by Phoenix New Times newspaper in print and on the Phoenix New Times website, regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present." Every note, tape, and record from every story written about Sheriff Arpaio by every reporter over a period of years. (snip)

More alarming still, Arpaio, Thomas, and Wilenchik subpoenaed detailed information on anyone who has looked at the New Times Web site since 2004. Every individual who looked at any story, review, listing, classified, or retail ad over a period of years.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-10-18/news/breathtaking-abuse-of-the-constitution/



here's the wording as it appears in the subpoena:

The subpoena demands: "Any and all documents containing a compilation of aggregate information about the Phoenix New Times Web site created or prepared from January 1, 2004 to the present, including but not limited to :

A) which pages visitors access or visit on the Phoenix New Times website;

B) the total number of visitors to the Phoenix New Times website;

C) information obtained from 'cookies,' including, but not limited to, authentication, tracking, and maintaining specific information about users (site preferences, contents of electronic shopping carts, etc.);

D) the Internet Protocol address of anyone that accesses the Phoenix New Times website from January 1, 2004 to the present;

E) the domain name of anyone that has accessed the Phoenix New Times website from January 1, 2004 to the present;

F) the website a user visited prior to coming to the Phoenix New Times website;

G) the date and time of a visit by a user to the Phoenix New Times website;

H) the type of browser used by each visitor (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape Navigator, Firefox, etc.) to the Phoenix New Times website; and

[nashville_brook]

1. kicking...

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Isn't the usual accusation in such cases that this is "a fishing expedition"?

i.e. give us absolutely all the information you have, relevant or not, and leave it to us to find something wrong...

The judge should know better.

[nashville_brook]

3. a fishing expedition by any other name... i think it's retribution. the paper targeted

the sheriff's pocketbook (real estate investments), so he hit back by targeting their pocketbook (their readership).

[backscatter712]

4. Joe Arpaio is a special kind of asshole.

I hope the fucker eventually ends up dying of heat stroke in his own tent jail. There's always vacancies for fuckers like that...

[nashville_brook]

5. just for kicks, tell us a little about him if you have a sec...

[backscatter712]

9. Start with Wikipedia

Wikipedia: Joe Arpaio

Arpaio has been called "America's Toughest Sheriff" for his controversial approach to operating the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, mainly in regards to his treatment of inmates. He has a large number of vocal supporters for his toughness on crime and criminals. Many civil libertarians denounce him for what they believe to be a willingness to ignore constitutional rights in favor of blind enforcement. Arpaio has stated that his goal is to have the most populated jail in the country.

...

Arpaio believes that inmates should be treated as harshly as legally possible to emphasize the punishment aspect of their incarceration. Thus, upon his initial election Arpaio began instituting the controversial changes for which he would later become noted.

Arpaio began to serve inmates surplus food (mainly outdated and oxidized green bologna)<1> and limited meals to twice daily. Meal costs would be reduced to 90 cents per day; as of 2007 Arpaio states that he has managed to reduce costs to 30 cents per day. Certain food items were banned from the county jail, mainly coffee (which also reduced 'coffee attacks' on guards), but later salt and pepper were removed from the jail (at a purported taxpayer savings of $20,000/year).

...

Shortly after taking office, Arpaio reinstituted chain gangs, the controversial form of inmate labor which had been virtually eliminated in the United States.

I'm pushing the paragraph limit for excerpting. This guy has bragged that he spends more money on the animal shelters and treats and feeds the animals better than the inmates. His jail is a big tent city in the Arizona desert, where inmates routinely die of heat stroke in the 110+ degree heat. Oh, he also humiliates inmates by forcing them to wear pink underwear.

He's probably the biggest douchebag of a sheriff in the United States. And I'm from Colorado, not Arizona, so I'm getting this from a distance, that should say something.

[nashville_brook]

12. holy crap! it didn't occur to me to Wiki him!

thank you for this!

btw -- is there a copyright restriction on Wikipedia?

[ArbustoBuster]

17. Wikipedia basically has few copyright restrictions.

Wikipedia's articles are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Their policy, from their website, is: "The license Wikipedia uses grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. This principle is known as copyleft. That is to say, Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom."

Their information on how their articles can be used is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Reusers.27_rights_and_obligations

[midnight]

6. Sounds like Joe is a bit worried about something or someone,

and has to find out who knows what about him. Or in other words-he is paranoid.

[Spazito]

7. This is the same sheriff Jeff Faris on Nova M has talked about....

a real scumbag it seems. I am sure I have visited the Phoenix New Times website within the year, I guess I will be on the list as well.

Geez, it seems like so long ago when the courts addressed the law and not the political wishes of corrupt politicians. Like so much else, this too is the "new" reality.

[High Plains]

8. Please, Lord, let that fucking pig Arpaio go down hard!

The worst pig in America, and that's saying a lot.

Sorry, Mr. Timoney, you only get second place.

[leveymg]

10. This is the same guy who webcams his prisoners, feeds them nothing but baloney, and painted

the inside of his jail pink, and sent the overflow into tents in the desert.

Now he wants to warrantless surveillance records of an on-line newspaper and its readers. Who does he think he is, Gen. Michael Hayden?

[backscatter712]

11. He feeds them spoiled green bologna.

The prick should serve time in his own jail for being a public health menace. See how he feels to eat green bologna, wear pink underwear and sweat in tents in 110 degree heat. Then when it looks like he's about to collapse, throw him in one of his chain gangs!

[nashville_brook]

13. terrifying, isn't it?

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Well the only way Arpaio can get away wiht this

is that this is yet another new normal

He has been testing boundaries for literally YEARS

But yes, this is another marker

[nashville_brook]

15. the new authoritarianism.

[OzarkDem]

18. Reminds me of the days of the KKK

these were the same techniques they used to intimidate citizens and take control of entire towns back during their heyday.

[robinlynne]

16. what did the jury do?

[fishwax]

19. k/r

:kick:

[tesla78]

20. Simple Solution:

Don't keep logs of ip addresses. They can't request records that do not exist. Many ISPs work this way when it comes to sensitive user browsing information.

[mvccd1000]

21. ALL CHARGES DROPPED! (See link below)

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1020newtimes1020.html

<snip>

A criminal case against Phoenix New Times fell apart Friday amid a crush of public outrage and admissions that a special county prosecutor made serious mistakes.

<snip>

Thomas' announcement came just hours after the State Bar Association confirmed that it had received multiple complaints and had launched an internal investigation into Thomas and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik for their actions in the New Times case and an unrelated one.

<snip>

"There have been serious missteps in this matter," he said. "I am announcing that Mr. Wilenchik will no longer serve as special prosecutor."

[dmr]

23. Thank you for posting the update

and welcome to DU!

:)

[NorthernSpy]

22. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a pathological liar: made up war stories, claims of arresting Elvis...

Ready to know the truth about "Sheriff Joe"?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: He arrested Elvis Presley.

Truth: Actually, Sheriff Joe Arpaio sometimes claims to have arrested Elvis and other times he claims to have stopped him for a traffic violation. No police records nor Presley family records have ever surfaced to show any contact between Elvis and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

:shrug:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: He was a Korean War veteran.

Truth: This one is tricky. He was in the Army during the Korean War but he never set foot there. His overseas assignment was in France.

:eyes:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: He is the "Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the County" and has authority over all police departments and the DPS.

Truth: Another meaningless title. He has no authority over other police agencies.

:dunce:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: He broke the famous "French Connection."

Truth: The people really involved in this case never heard of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

:argh:



Plenty more where those came from...

[dmr]

24. He sounds like he hangs out with Guiliani

though, I'm sure the competition for the lying, egotistical asshole award would be fierce.

[Swamp Rat]

25. kick

[dmr]

26. Didn't Arpaio hire a con man as a deputy who ended up

fondling a female prisoner? I saw it on one of the TV magazine shows like Dateline, but forget the specifics.

[mvccd1000]

27. Not sure you can lay that one on him...

... much as I don't like the guy, I believe he does run the largest sheriff's office in the nation. I don't think anyone could keep ALL the bad apples out of the barrel when you have that many employees (~4,000, I believe).

[dmr]

28. No, he personally deputized him. Found a CBS link:

It was a CBS 48 Hour episode on a con man named David Pecard. I should've looked it up when I first posted instead of just running with an old memory of a TV show. From this program, I remembered Arpaio more than the con because of what was said and shown about the sheriff and how he runs his department.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/11/10/48hours/printable55788.shtml

- snip -

"He has to probably be one of the biggest conmen in the United States of America," says Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who in 1996 was conned into deputizing Pecard. "How could he pose as military police; agent, U.S. marshall, FBI, you name it? And he got by with it!"

"Doors can be opened if you know how to open them," Pecard says. "I am a chameleon. I adapt. It's what I've been my whole life."

As a high-profile sheriff known for being tough on crime, Arpaio doesn't seem like a likely mark. But in 1996 Arpaio met Pecard, then an Army sergeant, doing military investigations in the Phoenix area. Pecard came to Arpaio's office with a lieutenant colonel.

He told Arpaio that he could help the sheriff with getting military equipment. "I just believed him, and I'm always looking for free equipment," Arpaio says. The sheriff personally deputized Pecard, and told his executive officer, Tom Bearup, to set him up with an office and whatever he needed.

"To my knowledge we never did a background investigation or anything," Bearup says. "Joe walked him through."

Pecard basically worked without supervision, Arpaio admits.

- snip -

Pecard's odyssey came to a crashing halt in November 1996, when Pecard allegedly checked two female inmates out of the county jail and sexually abused them. Three days after being accused, he was arrested.

Much more at link ...

[mvccd1000]

29. OK, I guess you CAN lay that one on him. :)

I remember that case now that you bring it up. Sounds like Sheriff Joe wasn't the only one that guy scammed (although he certainly should have known better)!