maine – Techdirt (original) (raw)

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

Maine residents have made it very clear: the overwhelming majority of Americans want to be able to easily and affordably repair the stuff they own. 83 percent of Maine voters last week responded yes to “Question 4,” asking whether automakers should be required to provide car owners (and independent repair shops) access to on-board diagnostic systems:

“Do you want to require vehicle manufacturers to standardize on-board diagnostic systems and provide remote access to those systems and mechanical data to owners and independent repair facilities?”

The new law sets up a system of procedures to facilitate access to those systems, including the creation of a new portal that car owners and independent mechanics can use to reset car security systems. Automakers must also create a “motor vehicle telematics system notice” system informing new car owners how access to these systems will work.

Maine is the fourth state behind Colorado, New York, and Minnesota to pass right to repair protections in the last year, much to the chagrin of the auto industry. While lobbyists did manage to weaken many of the laws (particularly in New York), several of the new laws (notably Minnesota) offer significant improvements to state law, making it cheaper and easier to repair consumer technology.

Carmakers spent upwards of $30 million dollars to try and scuttle a similar proposal in Massachusetts, using a long list of misleading arguments (like the claim the reforms would be a boon to sexual predators) to try and undermine the proposal. While that law remains stuck in limbo due to an industry lawsuit, lobbyists have generally been unable to stem the tide of public support.

Tommy Hickey, director of the Maine Automotive Right to Repair Coalition, told 404 Media that automakers didn’t try as hard in Maine after their defeat at the ballot box in Massachusetts:

“Maine residents have won the right to control their destiny when it comes to car repairs. There’s a new technology in cars, they’ve become computers on wheels, and with this law owners in Maine will be the gatekeepers of that information.”

Corporations have gotten the message from voters, so they’ve tried other tactics to try and undermine the laws, including getting legislatures to carve out the most problematic industries (like medical hardware, agricultural gear, or even game consoles).

Companies like John Deere are also striking non-binding, meaningless agreements with trade groups promising them they’ll behave on right to repair if said trade groups don’t support state or federal legislation. Those efforts clearly aren’t having the intended effect.

While U.S. consumer protection is generally a feckless mess, right to repair reform has been a notable exception. Companies like Microsoft and Apple have realized this is a fight on the state level that they probably can’t win, and have been adjusting their opposition accordingly.

I suspect many of those companies, including Apple and Microsoft, have pivoted away from fighting state level right to repair laws, and toward using their political influence to co-write a weaker federal law that pre-empts tougher state restrictions.

Filed Under: auto mechanics, consumer protection, independent repair, maine, reform, right to repair, state law

Court Tells Cop They Need More Than ‘It’s A Vehicle’ And ‘Guy Looked Nervous’ To Engage In Warrantless Searches

from the cruising-the-perimeter-of-the-4th-is-not-the-same-as-being-inside-it dept

Adding to the case law of small, but significant, Fourth Amendment law is this decision [PDF] handed down by a Maine federal court. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)

The Fourth Amendment makes things pretty clear: to perform invasive searches, cops need warrants. But over the years since the erection of that standard, we’ve seen it loosened. A host of exceptions exists. If it’s a “Third Party record,” the Fourth (in most cases) won’t cover it. If it’s a car on a public road, the Fourth rarely covers it. If things seem to be going bad in a hurry (“exigent circumstances“), the Fourth won’t cover it. If reasonable suspicion develops (but not actual probable cause), the Fourth (sometimes) won’t cover it. If it’s in “plain view,” the Fourth often won’t cover it. If an officer’s nose (“odor of marijuana“) or an officer’s dog (“probable cause on four legs“) says it’s cool to perform a warrantless search, the Fourth won’t cover it. And, if all else fails, the Fourth might be violated, but the violators will be granted preemptive forgiveness with the application of qualified immunity.

Do you see that? That’s a pretty long paragraph. And that doesn’t even cover other things like border security, national security, transportation security, or any other rationale that might allow the government to pretty much pretend (with courts’ blessings!) the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist.

Given this wealth of options, it’s always strange (but never a surprise) when law enforcement officers still choose (repeatedly!) to violate the Fourth Amendment when they could have achieved the same results lawfully with extremely minimal effort. And why wouldn’t they just do the bad thing and roll the dice? Case law also shows ignoring this plethora of options rarely results in any direct harm to cops or the agencies that employ them.

So, that’s why small-ish decisions like these count. It establishes — or at least reiterates — the confines of the Fourth Amendment, ensuring future violations won’t be considered mere mistakes of law by law enforcement officers.

In this one, we start with someone already convicted of a crime, which means the Constitutional deck is stacked against them. Randolph Bourgoin had served his prison time. But he was still serving his “free” time: three years of supervised release. He was, more or less, treated no differently that someone riding out their sentence on parole.

As a convicted felon, he was forbidden to possess firearms or ammunition. (Or vote, etc.) All of this began with what was basically a traffic stop, even though said “traffic” had already been “stopped” by something other than a Maine state trooper.

The evening of May 19, 2022, a complainant reported that a tractor trailer hit a tree on Springy Pond Road in Otis, Maine. According to the complainant, a tractor trailer hit a tree and blew a tire. Trooper Travis Chapman began driving to Springy Pong Road, a narrow dirt road, to respond to the complaint. He found it unusual for a tractor trailer to be on a narrow dirt road, especially at nighttime.

The list of things officers “find unusual” encompasses pretty much any conceivable activity engaged in by human beings. That assertion means nothing more than the trooper wanted to go off task with a fishing expedition. Tractor trailers, especially in rural areas or farming communities, are on “narrow dirt roads” frequently.

From that point of not-all-that-unusual activity, things got a whole lot weirder… at least according to the trooper’s report and testimony.

Upon arriving at Springy Pong Road around 10:30 p.m., Trooper Chapman saw a tractor trailer along the road about fifty or sixty yards from a mobile home with its interior and exterior lights on. From inside his cruiser, Trooper Chapman looked for identifying information about the tractor trailer. He first ran the license plate, which he could only partially read, and there was no match. Next, Trooper Chapman drove around the tractor trailer and saw the blown tire. As he reached for his PA to identify himself and request the tractor’s operator to speak with him, Trooper Chapman heard a gunshot from the direction of the residence. Trooper Chapman retreated from the scene and informed others about the incident.

A tractor trailer with a blown tire. A residence located in a completely non-suspicious place (literally anywhere). An alleged gunshot from said trailer. None of these things could be considered parts of cohesive, suspicious whole. And yet, that’s exactly where this went.

If there was a shot from the trailer home (not the tractor trailer), the most immediate problem was the residence, not the “suspicious” vehicle on a dirt road.

And, at first, the Maine state police focused their attention on the residence, albeit for extremely specious reasons, (alleged) gunshot notwithstanding.

_While Trooper Chapman waited nearby for more officers to assemble, Sergeant Gavin Endre told him that one of the occupants of 760 Springy Pond Road was Rand_y Spencer, who Trooper Chapman knew from previous encounters. The officers knew that Spencer disliked law enforcement.

You know what’s not a crime, much less reasonably suspicious? Disliking law enforcement. A mere dislike of law enforcement does not suggest a person is willing to shoot and/or kill law enforcement officers. Millions of Americans dislike law enforcement. Yet, every year, only a very small percentage of law enforcement officers are actually killed by criminal suspects.

Also note that the defendant in this case isn’t Randy Spencer, The Man Who Disliked Law Enforcement. It’s Randy Bourgoin, who was driving the tractor trailer with the flat tire when the trooper reported he heard a gunshot originating from Spencer’s residence. Bourgoin, for his part, cooperated fully. He told the troopers he was headed to Spencer’s home to fix his car. He also volunteered that Spencer once told him he had shot at a car (but apparently not a law enforcement car) and (allegedly) sold a bit of meth.

Using this information, the troopers applied for a warrant. But the warrant asked to search things that were not Spencer’s residence. The affidavit asked to search the trailer home and Bourgoin’s tractor trailer for evidence of a firearms discharge, “driving to endanger,” and “reckless conduct with a deadly weapon.”

That’s quite the mishmash of probable cause. At the point the troopers encountered Bourgoin, he was no longer driving, much less “driving to endanger.” That the tractor trailer was on a dirt road and the plate was illegible did not create probable cause to search the vehicle for evidence of [checks court ruling] “driving to endanger.”

Another warrant was obtained to search the Spencer residence and any outbuildings. That affidavit was apparently supposed to include a request to search Bourgoin’s truck, but that was (supposedly mistakenly) omitted from the second warrant request.

The searches were carried out, despite a whole lot of missing assertions and/or probable cause statements.

Sergeant Endre and two other state troopers executed the search warrant. While on the scene, Sergeant Endre learned that the tractor trailer belonged to Aggregate Solutions and that it was assigned to Bourgoin, who was on federal probation for stealing a firearm. The officers first searched Spencer’s residence, finding counterfeit money and marijuana—but no firearm. Next, the officers searched Bourgoin’s tractor trailer. They found ammunition and a methamphetamine- or cocaine-base pipe. Along with the ammunition, officers allegedly discovered two receipts from Old Town Trading Post. Eventually, law enforcement went to Old Town Trading Post with these receipts, where store personnel used the timestamp to get a picture of Bourgoin purchasing the ammunition.

So, first we have a search of a mobile home and outbuildings where a state trooper claimed he heard a gunshot originate from — one that failed to produce a firearm or ammunition. Then there’s the search of Bourgoin’s truck, which did produce contraband, but no contraband related to the alleged crime: “driving to endanger.”

But the discovery of ammunition and drug paraphernalia was enough to revoke Bourgoin’s probation, leading to this challenge.

The government argued against Bourgoin’s suppression motion, despite admitting it did not have probable cause to search his truck. It instead argued case law allowed it perform a warrantless search. It cited the automobile exception, which lowers the bar to reasonable suspicion, and the good faith exception, which says officers too stupid to understand the law can’t be sued as long as they rely on a warrant obtained by another officer too stupid to understand the law and that has been signed by a judge who can only work with what’s been handed to them by officers too stupid to understand the law and, in too many cases, can’t even be bothered to challenge the boiler plate assertions that tend to make up the bulk of search warrant affidavits.

Wrong on both counts, says the federal court. If you want to pull crimes out of the air to justify searches, then your affidavit better make it clear that evidence of the supposed crime will be found in the place you intend to search.

[T]he officers lacked probable cause to believe that evidence concerning driving to endanger would be found inside the tractor trailer. Maine law criminalizes driving with criminal negligence4 and “endanger[ing] the property of another or a person, including the operator or passenger in the motor vehicle being driven.” 29-A M.R.S. § 2413(1). While the officers knew that the tractor trailer had recently hit a tree, they had no reason to think that evidence concerning this offense would be found inside the tractor trailer. The most probative evidence of this crime was the blown tire—which was, naturally, on the outside of the vehicle.

And from there, the assertions of the troopers gets even worse.

Second, the officers did not have probable cause to believe that evidence of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, 17-A M.R.S. § 211, would be found in the tractor trailer. While near the tractor trailer, Trooper Chapman heard shots from the direction of the residence.

Banging the point home:

Third, and for the same reasons, the officers did not have probable cause to conclude that evidence regarding the discharge of a firearm near a dwelling, 12 M.R.S. § 11209, would be found in the tractor trailer.

Adding it all up, these assertions cannot be given credence by any court of law in the United States. It’s bullshit. And it’s dangerous bullshit if courts decide it’s okay for cops to cite literally any crime to support search warrant requests.

The upshot of all this is that warrantless searches of automobiles do not survive constitutional rigor on the close-enough-is-good-enough model. That the suspected criminal activity occurred in the neighborhood of an automobile does not, standing alone, supply the connective tissue necessary to dispense with the warrant requirement to search all the automobiles in the neighborhood.

If “close enough” isn’t “good enough,” then it’s too far away from any law enforcement notions of “faith” to be considered “good faith:”

The Government appears to argue that close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and warrantless searches so long as the police work was not hallmarked by nefarious intent. I do not believe the state troopers’ conduct was based on anything other than a mistaken belief, albeit unjustified, that the particulars of the warrant included the tractor trailer, just as the application materials had. However, that reflection of reality fails to get at the heart of the Leon rule and it does nothing to ameliorate the search of property that was not included at all, much less with particularity, in the warrant.

Sure, the troopers here weren’t necessarily intending to violate rights. But they were either too quick or too careless to avoid doing that. Either way, it’s the same thing: violated rights and… the loss of their evidence. The court says the evidence is suppressed. Bourgoin is free to go, or at least as free to go as anyone on probation is.

It’s a small win but it has larger repercussions. The automobile exception has its limits clearly defined. Officers are put on notice (yet again) that particularity matters when it comes to requesting search warrants. And, on top of everything else, it makes it clear the government can’t get away with rights violations simply because it wasn’t being deliberately evil. Even the more, shall we say, “innocent” violations are just as likely to empty the government’s evidentiary pockets as the more nefarious ones. And that’s something the government would be well-served to remember.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, maine, probable cause, randy bourgoin, warrant, warrentless searches

Man Loses Maine Vanity Plates Describing His Love For Bean Mush

from the cool-beans dept

It’s absolutely stupid just how often we’ve had to write about issues surrounding license plates. For convoluted reasons that involve how plates, which are mandated on all cars by states, are government property, that means that a state disallowing a vanity plate therefore does not violate the First Amendment. There are caveats to that that have been explored by federal courts, while other plate-holders have won in the lower courts. And, yet, the disputes over what constitutes a “vulgar” vanity plate continue unabated.

For instance, here is a gentleman with his lovely children posing in front of the vanity plate that the state of Maine approved for him.

That man is Peter Starostecki. Now, what came to mind when you saw his license plate? If your answer is that the plate is vulgar because it reads “Love To F. U.” the, first, get your damned mind out of the gutter and, second, you are a candidate for employment at the Maine BMV.

Starostecki says he got a letter in January from the BMV saying he had to get rid of his “LUVTOFU” plates. “I’m just a vegan. No ill intentions,” Starostecki said.

Like the title of the post says, this dude just likes him some tofu. You can tell as much by some of the vegan-related bumper stickers plastered on either side of the plate itself. When Starostecki responded to the BMV by attending an online hearing to appeal the decision, he encountered government bureaucrats doing their thing.

“From the beginning it felt like they sort of had their minds made up,” Starostecki said.

His appeal was rejected because the plates have to be looked at without context.

Except the gutter-mind context of those reviewing the plates, which were initially approved, it seems.

All of this is very silly. And, frankly, the puritanical viewpoint of the BMV certainly could be resulting in a First Amendment violation.

Unfortunately that is a question that will go unanswered for now. Starostecki has dropped the matter at this point and no longer has a vanity plate at all.

Filed Under: free speech, license plate, luvtofu, maine, maine bmv, peter starostecki, tofu, vanity license plate, vanity plates

Moving Company That Threatened People With 1,000ADayFeesForNegativeReviewsToPay1,000 A Day Fees For Negative Reviews To Pay 1,000ADayFeesForNegativeReviewsToPay125,000 Settlement

from the something-only-a-terrible-company-would-do dept

If you’re a good company, you try to make customers happy and deal honestly with their complaints. If you’re Liberty Bell Moving and Storage, Inc., you threaten unhappy customers with lawsuits and steadily escalating fees for expressing their displeasure with your service.

It seems only the worst entities insist on tucking non-disparagement clauses into their fine print. We’ve covered several of those, including Roca Labs, KlearGear, and a handful of real estate firms offering both vacation rentals and fine print thuggery. This list also includes political campaigns and entire cities.

This attempt to extort people into silence is now going to cost the Maine-based moving company, as Hannah Laclaire reports for the Portland Press Herald.

The state has settled a lawsuit with a Windham-based moving company that illegally prevented some customers from posting negative reviews online and threatened others into removing existing negative reviews.

An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General found that Liberty Bell Moving and Storage Inc. and its owner, Kevin Finkenaur, violated the federal Consumer Review Fairness Act, the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act and regulations for businesses that engage in interstate moving operations.

As part of the settlement, Finkenaur must pay $125,000 and “refrain from engaging in a number of illegal business practices,” including no longer using a misleading email address posing as Liberty Bell’s attorney.

There was some truly wild stuff going on at Liberty Bell, all apparently ordained, if not directly carried out by the company’s owner. The complaint [PDF] filed last summer provides more details on Liberty Bell’s hellish interpretation of customer service.

The company’s cheapest moving coverage plan (which is no coverage at all as the “No Valuation Protection” name makes clear) forced customers to agree to be punished in multiple ways should they be less than impressed with the moving company’s least expensive package.

Any bad reviews posted against Liberty Bell on any social media platform or other review sites due to alleged damage, or lost items will be deemed false and defamatory. Any such false and defamatory remarks are [sic] made against Liberty Bell Moving & Storage will make the signer of this document liable in court for punitive damages for making these false allegations.

There are numerous reasons a clause like this can’t be enforced. Certainly the company knew it couldn’t actually declare something defamatory without a court weighing in on it. But that would force users to defend themselves against a clearly bogus lawsuit. And while they shelled out for legal help, Liberty Bell would apparently just keep running the credit card it had on file to inflict even more financial pain.

Any bad reviews posted against Liberty Bell Moving & Storage on any social media platform or review sites will be deemed false and defamatory thus making the signer of this document liable in court for punitive damages. Also, a $1000 defamation management fee will be added to the cost of the move if negative reviews are not removed after 3 days from being posted. You will be notified of this from attorney@libertybellmoving.com.

Obviously no actual attorney wrote this. Not only is it riddled with legal errors, it’s riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. The addition of an email address hinting that an attorney was handling Liberty Bell’s (illegal) work undoubtedly made this look a lot scarier. But I have to believe at least a few potential customers found themselves laughing at the horrendously written legal threats contained in the moving company’s contracts.

Liberty Bell is not responsible in ANY WAY for items left behind, not put in proper location or any other issues that arise from not having somebody there to instruct the movers or to do a final walkthru [sic] when they get done. Any bad reviews left on line [sic] when this situation arises, will make the customer or agent of the customer liable defamtion [sic], and for punitive damages in court as the result of the defamation.

If a customer did leave a negative review, an email from the “attorney@libertybellmoving.com” address would arrive, loaded with sloppily written fauxlerplate from a nonexistent member of Liberty Bell’s nonexistent “attorneys office,” threatening to enforce the unenforceable “non-disparagement provision” and charge an obscene amount while doing so. [Emphasis in the inadvertently hilarious original.]

We will seek $2500 per day the review(s) are left up, and will also seek to be reimbursed for lawyer fees upwards of $9500, which you also agreed to pay by digitally signing the OFS. If the review (s ) are not down by 12:00pm on [date], we will file this lawsuit. Once the lawsuit is started, we WILL NOT remove the lawsuit even if the reviews are taken down after the [date] deadline.

Pretty much all of this violated Maine consumer laws in one way or another. (It also violates federal law.) Hence the settlement, which not only takes $125,000 out of Liberty Bell’s pockets, but forces it to play by the state’s rules. The settlement may seem a bit light, but it seems unlikely these poorly written threats ever resulted in substantial payouts from unhappy customers.

Oh, and here’s a fun postscript: this may not be the full extent of the company’s CEO’s legal problems. Here’s earlier reporting from the Portland Press Herald about the founder of Liberty Bell Moving:

His name is Kevin Finkenaur. He runs a local moving and storage company.

He’s also a self-identified insurrectionist.

“Saw first hand today how close the citizens of the US came to overthrowing a corrupt government,” said a Facebook post under Finkenauer’s name following Wednesday’s invasion of the U.S. Capitol by thousands of Donald Trump die-hards.

“I was there…you weren’t,” said another post under Finkenaur’s name. “On the upper level, there was thousand of US citizens (versus) 40 or so riot police.”

Well, Finkenauer’s boy is also a fan of non-disparagement clauses. And, just like Trump, Finkenauer’s post-2020 losing streak doesn’t appear it will end anytime soon.

Filed Under: crfa, kevin fineknaur, maine, negative reviews, non-disparagement clause, reviews, threats, unfair trade practices
Companies: liberty bell moving

from the you-can't-win-'em-all dept

Tue, Sep 20th 2022 05:41am - Karl Bode

When it comes to manhandling US regulators and gutting telecom industry oversight, the nation’s biggest telecom monopolies have had an impressive five year run.

Under Trump, they managed to lobotomize FCC consumer protection authority, dismantle federal net neutrality rules, dismantle media consolidation rules and get all of their planned megamergers approved, kill off broadband privacy protections, and get paid while doing it in the form of a giant tax cut in exchange for doing absolutely nothing.

Under Biden, they’ve managed to derail the nomination of a popular and qualified FCC Commissioner in Gigi Sohn, ensuring that the agency remains in partisan gridlock for at least two years. They’ve also very much enjoyed (and routinely encouraged) the myopic US policy focus on “Big Tech.”

One space they haven’t had as much luck is in bullying the handful of states that actually want to engage in consumer protection in the wake of federal dysfunction and apathy.

Like in Maine, where ISPs have been forced to drop their lawsuit against the state after it passed one of the toughest privacy laws in the country in 2019 (requiring that consumers opt in to data collection and monetization). Courts continually shot down the telecom industry’s arguments, forcing the industry to give up the fight:

The groups, which include the country’s biggest telecommunications providers, filed to dismiss the lawsuit on Sept. 2, said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey. Frey said the state’s privacy law held up despite the efforts of an “army of industry lawyers organized against us,” and now other states can follow Maine’s lead.

Big ISPs like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast had argued that the Maine privacy rules violated their First Amendment rights, but even a Trump-appointed judge laughed the argument out of court, claiming the industry was trying to utilize a “shoot the moon” (throw any random argument at the wall and hope something sticks) strategy.

US telecom giants also lost their lawsuit against California to stop the state from embracing net neutrality rules, after courts repeatedly noted the industry had no ground to stand on.

The industry had convinced the Trump FCC to include language in its net neutrality repeal trying to ban states from protecting consumers, but courts found the federal government couldn’t abdicate its authority over consumer protection, then turn around and dictate what others could or couldn’t do.

Granted for every California and Maine that occasionally attempts to protect broadband consumers from privacy and net neutrality violations, there are three or four states where lawmakers couldn’t care less. In most states, telecom giants literally control every last policy initiative that enters and exits state legislatures, and it’s usually pretty clearly reflected in state broadband statistics.

Filed Under: broadband, california, consumer protection, high speed internet, maine, net neutrality, privacy, telecom

Because No One's Making Them Do It, Maine Law Enforcment Agencies Aren't Accurately Tracking Complaints Against Officers

from the perhaps-wisely-deciding-to-avoid-taking-notes-on-a-criminal-fucking-conspiracy dept

For three decades, the DOJ and FBI have barely tried (and always failed) to collect information about use of force by the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies. Despite occasional promises to be more thorough and do better, the FBI has, for the most part, done nothing with this opportunity — one thrust upon it by a crime bill passed in 1994.

The biggest problem is that submission of use of force data has always been voluntary. The Department of Justice only directly oversees the FBI. Neither entity can force local agencies to provide this data. These multiple levels of failure have led to the Government Accountability Office suggesting the national use of force database be put out of its useless misery as early as this year, rather than just be another thing tax dollars are wasted on.

Local lawmakers could at least compel uniform collection and reporting of this data. They may not be able to mandate the release of this data to federal agencies, but they could at least ensure proper reporting occurs at the local level.

Mandates like this are needed. But few localities have them. This sort of accountability must be forced on local agencies. Collecting information on use of force incidents and any attendant complaints or allegations of excessive force does nothing for law enforcement agencies. So, the data collections must be compelled because there’s nothing innately compelling about collecting data that may show officers and agencies have unaddressed problems.

The lack of accountability means any collections are hit and miss. And that data set is mostly misses. Unsurprisingly, when journalists go looking for this data in hopes of quantifying local law enforcement’s generation of (and response to) citizen complaints, they come away with incomplete depictions of patterns and practices. That’s the best case scenario. The worst case is journalists discovering agencies aren’t compiling this data at all.

What’s been uncovered in Maine could likely be said about almost any other state in the Union.

A nearly year-long investigation into how Maine law enforcement agencies handle complaints against officers has uncovered widespread inconsistencies in record keeping and the public’s ability to access the information.

WMTW’s 8 Investigates team partnered with the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition to review hundreds of documents and data that were obtained.

The coalition contacted 135 Maine law enforcement agencies as part of the investigation. They were asked to provide the number of citizen complaints against officers from 2016 until now and details on any disciplinary action.

The data and documents produced, or lack thereof, made clear that although it is public information, Maine has no uniform system for tracking and maintaining the records.

Why doesn’t the state have this? Possibly because no one with any power ever thought it was necessary. Police departments — until very recently — often had the full support of elected officials. Those questioning officers’ actions were considered outliers, fringe representatives that were sure to be ejected during the next election cycle.

Law enforcement agencies also have powerful lobbyists who are capable of gutting legislation demanding more accountability and capable of tying agencies into restrictive contracts that forbid retention of information about misconduct or excessive force deployment. Police unions are one of the greatest contributors to decades of opacity and abusive behavior by law enforcement officers.

At least the head of one of Maine’s police unions seems to recognize the current state of affairs is, at the very least, problematic.

“Is that acceptable? I think we’ve got some work to do to be able to make sure that we’re a little more uniform,” said Augusta Police Chief Jared Mills.

Mills is also the president of the Maine Chiefs of Police Association. He offered no excuses for department heads not responding but explained how strained resources might make data requests complicated.

“They don’t all have that same data system. They don’t have that stuff at their fingertips,” Mills said.

That excuse doesn’t hold up, though. Why don’t they have this stuff at their fingertips? It would seem to be essential law enforcement data — something that can help supervisors and police officials head off problems before they become too big to handle. Data like this would show if more training is needed or if some officers should be forced to seek employment elsewhere.

It’s not there because law enforcement agencies have comforted themselves by assuming everything is ok because there’s no data that contradicts this assumption. And the assumption remains intact because agencies avoid collecting any data that might undermine it.

Now, the guy quoted in this article? The police chief who also heads the police union? He could institute these changes. He runs a union that has the power to persuade state lawmakers to mandate uniform reporting and alter union contracts that may forbid the tracking and retention of these complaints. But somehow I think he won’t. It’s one thing to recognize a problem when approached for comment. It’s quite another to actually go to war with the people you represent.

Filed Under: bad cops, complaints, maine, police, transparency, use of force

Charter Spectrum Funds Front Group To Try And Kill Small Maine Town's Plan For Better Broadband

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

Fri, Dec 3rd 2021 06:27am - Karl Bode

For decades regional U.S. telecom monopolies have often refused to deploy broadband into low ROI areas, despite billions in subsidization. At the same time, they’ve fought tooth and nail against towns and cities that attempt to improve their own regional broadband infrastructure. Often by using a bunch of sleazy and disingenuous arguments, or, in some cases, literally buying and writing state laws that block locals from deciding what they can and can’t do with their own local infrastructure. The only real goal: protect giant regional monopolies from disruption and competition.

In Maine, Charter (which sells broadband and TV under the Spectrum brand) has been waging a not so subtle war against the town of Leeds, which is contemplating a community broadband network. Charter took the time to help create a phony grass roots group dubbed Maine Civil Action, which bombarded locals with pamphlets telling them such a project would be an inevitable taxpayer boondoggle resulting in worse service (that’s false, if you were unaware, not only do plenty of community broadband operations operate in the green, data suggests they routinely provide significantly cheaper, better broadband):

“McLean says town officials suspected that the pamphlets were linked to the broadband provider Spectrum, owned by Charter Communications, which has 31 million customers in 41 states, with revenues of nearly $50 billion last year. “There’s little precedent for this on any other town issue. Very small town. And so to have the expense of a color, double-sided pamphlet being hand-delivered to people’s homes was surprising for a lot of people,” McLean said.”

Creating bogus grass roots opposition to improving local infrastructure has long been a favored pastime of regional telecom monopolies. They hide their identity when running such marketing and disinformation campaigns, because if they pushed the pamphlets as themselves, nobody would (quite justly) believe that they have the best interests of the community at heart. Such local town initiatives are often being run on a shoestring budget, so a company with $50 billion in annual revenues can have a meaningful impact on the discourse.

In Maine, as is usually the case, when some local reporter presses the telecom giant about their involvement, they often lie:

“McLean said he confronted Spectrum’s government affairs liaison Melinda Kinney about the pamphlets and that she denied that the company had any involvement. Maine Public attempted to contact Kinney, but instead received a statement from Charter’s regional spokeswoman Lara Pritchard acknowledging that the company had provided funding to the Maine Policy Institute, the Portland-based conservative advocacy group that created Maine Civic Action.”

As we’ve long illustrated, there are two reasons U.S. broadband is expensive, spotty, and slow: regional monopolies and the state and federal corruption that protects them. As we’ve also noted, community broadband is an organic response to decades of obvious market failure. If ISPs truly wanted to thwart community broadband, they could offer better, faster, more widely available service. Instead, they resort to dodgy games and scare mongering through bogus proxy organizations, all in a bid to protect the broken status quo. And, thanks to their massive budgets, it often works.

Filed Under: astroturf, broadband, competition, leeds, maine, municipal broadband
Companies: charter, charter spectrum

Maine Legislature Ends Civil Asset Forfeiture In The State

from the looks-like-law-enforcement-will-have-to-do-some-actual-work-going-forward dept

The state of Maine recently enacted the strictest facial recognition limitations in the country, prohibiting the use of the tech in most areas of the government and preventing state law enforcement from acquiring it. The tech can still be used, but all searches must be run through either the FBI or the state’s database via the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Citizens who believe they’ve been unlawfully subjected to facial recognition tech can sue state agencies for violations of the law.

Maine continues to increase protections for its residents. As C.J. Ciaramella reports for Reason, the state has just ended civil asset forfeiture.

Maine became the fourth state in the nation to abolish civil asset forfeiture, a practice where law enforcement can seize property if they suspect it is connected to criminal activity, even if the owner is not convicted of a crime.

After a bill passed by the state legislature, LD 1521, took effect without the governor’s signature yesterday, Maine officially repealed its civil forfeiture laws, joining Nebraska, New Mexico, and North Carolina.

This repeal follows years of abuse by law enforcement agencies in the state. More than three decades ago, the state attempted to rein this in by passing a law that removed some of forfeiture’s perverse incentives by directing a portion of seized assets to be deposited in the state’s general fund. Despite this mandate, a review of the program found the state had been the recipient of only a single deposit of $4,335 since 2010.

Reporting requirements imposed on the Department of Public Safety were also ignored, making it difficult to tell how much money state agencies had netted from forfeiture or how often these agencies had chosen to ignore the fund-sharing mandate.

This new law makes the only acceptable form of forfeiture in the state criminal asset forfeiture, which ties the forfeiture of seized assets to convictions. The law also forbids state and local agencies from trying to avoid these restrictions by inviting the feds along for the ride.

Unless seized property under this section includes United States currency in excess of $100,000, a law enforcement agency, prosecuting authority, state agency, county or municipality may not enter into an agreement to transfer or refer property seized under this section to a federal agency directly, indirectly, through adoption, through an intergovernmental joint task force or by other means that circumvent the provisions of this section.

It also reaffirms the Department of Public Safety’s reporting requirements, mandating the posting of forfeiture records quarterly on a publicly-accessible website. Hopefully the state legislature will take its oversight position more seriously this time around to ensure the DPS actually does the reporting it’s supposed to, rather than ignore its noncompliance for another three decades.

Filed Under: civil asset forfeiture, legalized theft, maine

Maine Legislature Enacts Strictest Facial Recognition Limitations In The Country

from the hopefully-there-are-49-competitors-seeking-to-top-this dept

From out of nowhere, the state of Maine has taken the lead in protecting its residents from the steady encroachment of facial recognition technology. A bill [PDF] recently passed by both sides of the state legislature has become law and makes Maine the standard bearer for future facial recognition tech bans.

Maine has enacted the country’s strongest statewide facial recognition law. Maine’s law prohibits the use of facial recognition technology in most areas of government, including in public schools, and for surveillance purposes. It strictly regulates how law enforcement officials may use facial recognition technology.

This law is more restrictive than anything else passed by a state legislature to date. California’s ban on facial recognition tech only prevents law enforcement from utilizing the tech in their body cameras, ensuring these tools remain more focused on police accountability, rather than just an extension of existing surveillance programs.

The state of Washington also passed its own ban recently. But that bill — which was supported by law enforcement agencies — isn’t really a ban or a moratorium. The tech is still permitted to be used. There are new restrictions in place, though. Using it to engage in real-time surveillance now requires a warrant. And if any state agency wants to start using the tech, it needs to provide public notice, hold at least three community meetings to hear objections, and perform a privacy impact assessment before deploying it.

Maine’s new regulations have none of those drawbacks or concessions. No government agency at any level is permitted to use or acquire this tech. And use of the tech is limited to a small list of exceptions, which should prevent state and local agencies from asking federal agencies or those in nearby states to launder their facial recognition searches for them.

Here is the single exception to the ban and the stipulations that accompany it.

Under Maine’s rules, law enforcement may request a facial recognition search from the FBI and the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) if they have probable cause to believe an unidentified person in an image has committed a serious crime. The BMV and the Maine State Police are required to collect data on search requests from law enforcement. The law stipulates that the results of a facial recognition search do not alone constitute probable cause for law enforcement officers to arrest or search a person. Individuals may bring a lawsuit if they believe a government agency or official has violated the law.

And this exception for serious crimes actually means serious crimes, rather than whatever cops want to declare “serious” to access the tech.

I. “Serious crime” means:

(1) A crime under the laws of this State that:

(a) Is punishable by a term of imprisonment of one year or more; or

(b) Is a Class D or Class E crime under the laws of this State that is a violation 18 of Title 17-A, chapter 9, 11, 12, 13 or 35; Title 15, section 1092, if the violation is based on a condition under Title 15, section 1026, subsection 3, paragraph A, subparagraph (5) or (8); or Title 19-A, section 4011…

That list of crimes includes murder, assault, kidnapping, sexual assault, sexual assault of minors, and sex trafficking. Also included: violating protective orders or bail conditions. This should keep cops from pestering the FBI to find who’s been shoplifting or whatever. Anything that doesn’t comply with this law is de facto unlawful and cannot be used as evidence in prosecutions.

The law also gives residents the right to sue if they feel they’ve been illegally subjected to this tech.

It’s the strongest facial recognition ban in the nation. And it still allows law enforcement to make use of it through a couple of conduits if they’re willing to jump through the very reasonable hoops the law has erected.

Filed Under: facial recognition, government, maine, police, privacy, schools

With Terrible Federal Broadband Data, States Are Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

from the rose-colored-glasses dept

As a director of a state broadband program, one of my biggest challenges is data. I know lots of areas in my state have inadequate or no service. I get those emails every day. We have a public facing broadband map which is based on the data that the internet service providers (ISPs) provide to the FCC on what is known as the Form 477. The notorious problem with the 477 data is that gross inaccuracies are built into the reporting. ISPs report advertised speeds based on census blocks, where if one home in a census block is served, or could reasonably be served, the entire census block is considered served.

What this means, besides extreme frustration on the part of state broadband authorities and communities, is that we do not have the information needed to make decisions on where resources (money and time) should be spent. States have tried for years to get their ISPs to provide better information. I even changed the statute this year to require it. To no avail. So what should states like Maine do?

I firmly believe that it is time to pull the power from the ISPs and give it to the community. ISPs are businesses, and we have great partnerships with many of them in our state. But our interest as a State is to get people broadband. All people. And high-quality broadband that meet the use requirements that have only grown under COVID. Our mission and an ISP’s mission are sometimes at odds. And that is ok. But we must take the power of information on who is served and who is not (and at what quality service) back and put it in the hands of consumers. Or, in state government speak, taxpayers.

Luckily, others across the country have the same goal. This past year a number of states have contracted with GeoPartners to undertake a comprehensive speed testing strategy. The platform is easy for the end user to navigate and use. There are other companies doing similar work, and M-labs, a consortium of research, industry, and public-interest partners, also provides the largest collection of open Internet performance data on the planet.

In Maine, the state broadband office, ConnectMaine, is working closely with the Maine Broadband Coalition with a variety of community partners including Island Institute, Greater Portland Council of Governments, Maine Community Foundation, Maine West and others to roll out this strategy. A strong marketing strategy, and outreach to get as many people as possible to take the test is a critical factor in the success of this initiative. Maine launched the project through a community building project called the Maine West Boot Camp in mid October, and plans to expand it statewide by the end of the year.

So why are states doing this? Maine has had a community planning process in place for about four years. While we have seen some successes in expanding service to those areas, we have also discovered roadblocks. One of them is who in a community has service at what level. Prior to this citizen lead speed test initiative, that knowledge was all in the hands of the incumbent ISP.

Engaging communities in this process does a couple of really important things: it puts an important piece of the puzzle squarely in the hands of the consumer, removing a road block that can hang a community up for months waiting for answers from the ISP. It puts the power of determining the scope of the project firmly in the hands of the community. It can motivate other communities who are not connected to jump into and begin the process of improving their service.

Crowdsourced speed tests also provide state broadband offices with the information they need to justify funding, direct resources, and lay out a strategy to address the real problem in there state, not the problem defined by inaccurate FCC data.

Also, not to be understated: it gives states, in my case Maine, the power and the data to challenge the FCC data. Right now, the FCC is preparing to give out $16.4B based on data that everyone acknowledge (even the FCC) is accurate.

Yet they persist. And not for the first time. CAFII provided billions of dollars to rate of return carriers to bring 10/1 Mbps (a substandard speed when the started the program seven year ago) to more people. They just extended that program another year. Despite the evidence that some providers have not built out as required.

Many of Maine’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) areas are in what we call “unorganized territories”, which are exactly what the name implies: not towns and not that populated. In other words not one that is targeted. Areas like the RDOF-eligible area northeast of Baxter State Park with its 825 possible locations probably will likely not get served any other way (if in fact they even get served with this program.) But RDOF proposes to spend $10 million in subsidies to bring service to 825 possible locations while many, many unserved rural communities that the FCC deems as “served” with their mapping are not eligible for a dime. That is a waste of resources. And without good data, states are powerless to protest.

In response, we are going to go out and get our own data, and empower those communities to take up this gauntlet and take charge of their own future.

As executive director of ConnextMaine, Peggy Schaffer manages the Authority’s rulemaking efforts, investment decisions and policy recommendations. Peggy was the Small Business Advocate for the Secretary of State’s office, and served as the Co-chair of the Maine Broadband Coalition, a statewide group advocating for high speed broadband.

Filed Under: broadband, broadband data, competition, fcc, maine, rdof, rural digital opportunity fund, states