A non-disclosure agreement that police departments around the country
have been signing for years with the maker of a cell-phone spy tool
explicitly prohibits the law enforcement agencies from telling anyone,
including other government bodies, about their use of the secretive
equipment, according to one of the agreements obtained by an Arizona
journalist.
The NDA includes an exception for “judicially mandated disclosures,”
but no mechanisms for judges to learn that the equipment was used. In at
least one case in Florida, a police department revealed that it had
decided not to seek a warrant to use the technology explicitly to avoid
telling a judge about the equipment. It subsequently kept the
information hidden from the defendant as well.
A copy of the contract was obtained from a police department in
Tucson, Arizona, which signed the agreement in 2010 with the Harris
Corporation, a Florida-based maker of the equipment used by the
department. The police department cited the agreement as one of the
reasons it withheld information from a journalist who filed a public
records request seeking information about the department’s use of the
equipment.
“[The Tucson Police Department] and the City of Tucson have allowed
Harris Corporation to dictate the City of Tucson’s and TPD’s compliance
with Arizona public records law in regards to products and services
purchased from Harris Corporation,” notes the ACLU of Arizona in a lawsuit demanding that the police department comply (.pdf) with the journalist’s records request.
The non-disclosure agreement signed by the Tucson Police Department,
which went into effect June 7, 2010, not only bars the police department
from discussing their use of the surveillance tool with any government
entity, it requires the law enforcement agency to notify Harris any time
journalists or anyone else files a public records request to obtain
information about their use of the tools and also states that the police
department will “assist” Harris in deciding what information to
release.
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- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014
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