Last week I wrote about the ACLU in Massachusetts' attempts to get
SWAT information from a "private agency" that performs law enforcement. This week we will travel west to sunny Arizona
where Pima County Superior Court Judge Douglas Metcalf has ruled:
[I]t would not be in the “best interests of the state” for the public to be able to view training manuals and other materials from the Tucson Police Department on how the agency uses a device called the “StingRay” and the more recent “StingRay II.”
Arizona's ACLU disagrees but has yet to decide whether or not they will appeal the decision. Rullings like this one are important going forward as more and more evidence is coming out that law enforcement agencies around the United States are using "StingRay" technology—
frequently during protests.
This all came to light when a freelance journalist, Beau Hodai, sued the police department for information pertaining to their surveillance program. According to Judge Metcalf, his decision was based on the "nature" of the information being requested and not the merit of the request:
Metcalf did acknowledge that Hodai and the ACLU do have some “legitimate and important public purposes” in seeking disclosure, including whether public privacy is compromised by use of the device. But the judge said the records the city provided to him, which he reviewed in his chambers, do not answer that question.
“Rather, the records show how to use the equipment,” he said, meaning they are not subject to public release.
This is partly true and partly disingenuous since only a part of Hodai's claim on information concerned instructions on using the StingRay equipment. The door that Metcalf left open in his decision was that, in order to get a disclosure, the party or parties requesting said information must specify what they are looking for rather than just a large swath of the program. This isn't particularly heartening since, as is always the case, law enforcement agencies always throw in some bit about information being sensitive because, you know, terrorists. With the clear application of new "monitoring techniques" by law enforcement during protests and civil disobedience events, more and more "specific" examples will be tested in the courts.