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Existing federal privacy laws may not cover data collected from autonomous vehicles.

Equipped with an arsenal of cameras and sensors, autonomous vehicles record the world around them everywhere they go. They keep records of their own operational data, such as GPS location, speed, steering maneuvers, and braking actions. They watch the occupants of the vehicle, tracking which seats are filled, and sometimes they even record video images of the person in the drivers seat.

All of this recording creates more than five terabytes of data per hour of autonomous driving time. It also raises concerns about who has access to this data. Federal agencies and privacy advocates agree that it is important for companies developing autonomous vehicles to ensure that sensitive information is secure and to communicate clearly about which private parties have access to this information.

Existing federal legislation, however, is not likely to apply to data stored by autonomous vehicles. One statute that could apply is the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which describes rules for law enforcement to follow when obtaining contents of wired communications. The ECPA requires a warrant for the interception of communication in transit over the internet, or for unopened messages stored on personal computers. The ECPA only applies, however, to information obtained from electronic communications services or remote computing services. As defined by the ECPA, those terms would not cover autonomous vehicles.

A separate law called the Federal Communications Act (FCA) faces a similar issue. Title II of the FCA subjects all common carriers of telecommunications services to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission and requires common carriers to protect sensitive information for their customers. In 2015, internet service providers were considered common carriers under the Act, so the FCA might have applied to autonomous vehicles that offered wi-fi connections. Under current Federal Communications Commission policy, however, internet service providers do not qualify as common carriers, so Title II of the FCA does not apply.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution also governs privacy protection when it comes to law enforcements use of data stored on autonomous vehicles or held by automobile manufacturers. The Fourth Amendment protects civilians against excessive intrusions into their privacy by prohibiting the government from performing unreasonable searches and seizures of personal property. Although no court has yet heard a case involving autonomous vehicle data privacy, the U.S. Supreme Court has defined Fourth Amendment privacy rights for several types of personal data that autonomous vehicles will likely carry.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a series of cases that law enforcement must obtain a warrant before obtaining Global Positioning System (GPS) or cell tower triangulation information that enables accurate location monitoring. These rulings may indicate that any autonomous vehicle data that would enable law enforcement agencies to determine the accurate location of a person would also require a warrant.

The Supreme Court of Georgia has held that a warrant is required before speed history information logged in a vehicles event data recorder (EDR) can be examined by police after a car crash. This ruling may indicate that the kind of information an autonomous vehicle records as it plans its movements would also require a warrant before it could be examined by law enforcement officials.

The most significant new type of data generated by an autonomous vehicle is the record of the environment that the vehicle sees using its 360-degree visible light camera footage, forward-facing LiDAR, and infrared sensors. This situation is analogous to dash cams and CCTV security cameras attached to homes and businesses.

Although warrants or subpoenas are required to force private citizens to turn over camera recordings to law enforcement, many private security companies willingly share information with law enforcement. Plus, private companies that manage surveillance cameras have established partnerships with police departments to help them find cameras and facilitate waiver of Fourth Amendment rights from consumers who own the cameras. Given this trend, it seems likely that a company that operates a fleet of autonomous vehicles would also partner with law enforcement.

Strict privacy laws in states where many autonomous vehicle development companies are located may help to raise the standard for the whole industry. For instance, more than 50 companies are developing and testing autonomous vehicles in California, which has a state privacy law. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires companies to notify consumers about sensitive personal information collection and use, data monetization, and sale to third parties.

The CCPA also requires companies to allow consumers to delete and opt out of the sale of sensitive personal information. GPS data and personal identification information that is recorded by an autonomous vehicle is protected under the CCPA, but data logged by a vehicle that are not sensitive and personal may still not be covered by the act.

Although the Fourth Amendment and California law may provide a patchwork of protection for some types of autonomous vehicle data, there are no federal laws or regulations to impose basic protections of general data security and privacy. Because autonomous vehicles are products sold to consumers, the Federal Trade Commission could bring enforcement actions against automakers for deceptive practices, but this strategy would require waiting for deceptive practices to occur.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration includes data security and privacy as part of its goals for eventual autonomous vehicle regulation, but the agency has not yet proposed a rule materializing that goal. Such regulation could require autonomous vehicle manufacturers to incorporate industry guidance standards for privacy and data security, anonymize stored or aggregated data, or incorporate notice and consent for the use or sale of data.

State legislatures could pass laws that clarify ownership of autonomous vehicle data similar to proposed federal legislation known as the Driver Privacy Act. If Congress passed the Driver Privacy Act, information collected by EDRs would belong to the owner or renter of a vehicle. If state and federal governments were to clarify privacy requirements for autonomous vehicles, consumers would be better protected, and autonomous vehicle developers would face less regulatory uncertainty as they create new products.

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Too Many Eyes on the Road - The Regulatory Review

Whether you can exercise your First Amendment rights freely depends, in some cases, on where you live and what judges happen to hear your plea, should you try to seek accountability for government reprisal against your constitutional liberties.

One such case is that of Priscilla Villarreal, a journalist in Laredo, Texas, who in 2017 was arrested after publishing two stories that ruffled feathers in the community: one surrounding a U.S. Border Patrol agent who committed suicide, the other which confirmed the identity of a family who had died in a fatal car crash.

Villarreal was no stranger to breaking stories with sensitive details on her Facebook page, which currently boasts over 190,000 followers. Nor was she cozy with local law enforcement, having cultivated a reputation as a citizen journalist whofocuses on police misconduct and the justice system in videos she posts online infused with colorful commentary.She once live-streamed a video of an officer choking someone during a traffic stop, for example, and she drew the ire of a district attorney after publicly rebuking him for dropping an arrest warrant for someone accused of animal abuse.

But Villarreal found herself in a jail cell after breaking those two relatively benign stories concerning deaths in the community, charged with two third-degree felony counts of "misuse of official information" under Texas Penal Code 39.06(c). That she asked for and obtained the information in typical journalistic fashionfrom the Laredo Police Department (LPD) itselfdidn't matter to the cops, who zeroed in on Villarreal as the first person they would ever seek to prosecute under that Texas statute.

The charges were eventually dismissed as baseless and the law ruled unconstitutionally vague. But those officers were given qualified immunity for violating her First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and 14th Amendment rights when they arrested and detained her, thus preventing her from holding them accountable in civil court. The legal doctrine of qualified immunity protects public officials from facing civil suits if the precise way they went about violating your rights was not "clearly established" by the courts at the time.

Yet in a testament to the subjectivity of the decisions surrounding what should be objective liberties, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit Monday rejected the lower court's reasoning, removing qualified immunity from the cops on the bulk of Villarreal's claims and permitting her to state her case before a jury.

"This is not just an obvious constitutional infringementit's hard to imagine a more textbook violation of the First Amendment," wrote Judge James C. Ho. "If the freedom of speech secured by the First Amendment includes the right to curse at a public official, then it surely includes the right to politely ask that official a few questions as well." Villarreal asked those questions of LPD Officer Barbara Goodman, who of her own free will provided the journalist with the information she requested.

The 5th Circuit likewise sided with Villarreal on her wrongful arrest claim, as well as her allegation that the cops violated the Equal Protection Clause to selectively enforce the law against her.

Much about the decision is noteworthy. Ho, for one, is by no means known for his opposition to qualified immunity; the judge previously said that police officers must retain the protections in order "to stop mass shootings." So it's significant that Ho emphasized that the 5th Circuit need not find a nearly indistinguishable precedent in order to show that the constitutional right at issue was "clearly established"which is often the defining element of a qualified immunity case, and the reason why the doctrine has greenlit so much egregious government misconduct, like stealing, assault, and property damage.

To support his position, Ho cited the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in Taylor v. Riojas, which dealt with a group of prison guards who originally received qualified immunity after forcing a naked inmate into two deplorable cells swarming with human feces and raw sewage. The Supreme Court overturned that grant of qualified immunity and rejected the notion that the victim could not sue simply because he couldn't pinpoint a ruling that matched his experience almost identically.

That's not necessary here either, said Ho: The constitutional violation is just that absurdly apparent.

"Crucially, the decision also says that officers can't hide behind obviously unconstitutional statutes," says Jaba Tsitsuashvili, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that filed an amicus brief in support of Villarreal. "In other words'we were just enforcing the law' is not a categorical defense against a civil lawsuit for violating" a constitutional right.

Perhaps ironically, the 5th Circuit's decision Monday coincided with the Supreme Court declining to hear Frasier v. Evans, a case in which a group of Denver police officers received qualified immunity after conducting a warrantless search of a man's tablet in an attempt to delete a video he took of the officers beating a suspect during an arrest for an alleged drug deal.

Put more bluntly, the way you exercise your First Amendment rights may or may not be protected based solely on where you live and which federal circuit court you are subject to. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Circuits have all confirmed what might be obvious to most: that the government cannot exact revenge on you for filming police on duty, a lever used to hold them to account. In some places, however, they can indeed retaliate and evade accountability for that, toojust as Villarreal almost missed her opportunity to do so, had the 5th Circuit not overturned the lower court's decision.

"It creates this territorially arbitrary vindication of rights, where if you're in one state you may be able to vindicate a constitutional right," says Tsitsuashvili, "but if you happen to be in a neighboring state that sits in a different judicial circuit, you won't have any recourse for essentially the exact same behavior."

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Cops Arrested Her for Exercising Her First Amendment Rights. They Got Qualified Immunitybut the Appeals Court Wasn't Having It. - Reason

A former Minneapolis police officer has been convicted of stealing drugs he seized during searchesand traffic stops.

Ty Jindra, 29, was found guilty in federal court of three counts of acquiring a controlled substance by deception and two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Tuesday.

Ty Jindra failed to uphold his oath as a peace officer, he failed the community he was sworn to serve, and he failed his fellow officers, Acting United States Attorney W. Anders Folk said in a statement.

From September 2017-October 2019, while he was an officer with Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), Jindra obtained methamphetamine, oxycodone, fentanyl, tramadol and other drugs by conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures, and then didn't report, log or put the drugs into evidence, the release said.

Jindra, on some occasions, would search a person, vehicle or home so he could secretively recover drugs without his partner seeing him, the release said. And at times, he conducted searches that were beyond what was warranted in an attempt to recover drugs.

According to the Star Tribune, in one instance he stole Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, during a traffic stop for his own use and did not mention he discovered the drugs when he filed his report. In another instance, he separated some oxycodone pills for himself during a traffic stop, hiding the pills in a latex glove. He then submitted a false report claiming all the pills were in evidence.

He was also convicted of illegally searching vehicles during traffic stops in violation of the Fourth Amendment that prohibits unreasonable searches.

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The U.S. Attorney's Office says Jindra faces a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison for each of the three counts of acquiring a controlled substance and a maximum of one year in prison for each of the two civil rights counts.

A sentencing date hasn't yet been scheduled.

Jindra was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department in 2013 and was fired in July 2020 after he violated department policies related to searches and seizures, charges said.

He was charged with an 11-count indictment in November 2020. His trial lasted nine days, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.He was found not guilty on six other counts he faced.

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Ex-Minneapolis cop convicted of stealing drugs during searches - Bring Me The News

Petitions of the week ByAndrew Hamm on Oct 30, 2021 at 3:07 pm

This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to consider, among other things, whether federal prosecutors or defendants have the burden of proving their status as a Native American or not for purposes of criminal jurisdiction, and three conditional cross-petitions over Texas abortion ban.

Federal law generally provides that tribal courts, not federal or state courts, have jurisdiction to prosecute minor crimes committed by one Indian against the person or property of another Indian on tribal land. In Haggerty v. United States, federal authorities charged Justin Haggerty with committing malicious destruction of tribal property on the Tigua Indian Reservation in Texas. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Haggerty maintained that the prosecution had failed in its burden of proof because it never introduced any evidence that he was not Native American. The 5th Circuit rejected Haggertys contention, ruling that the burden was Haggertys to have raised a defense that he is Native American. Arguing that the circuits are split on this question, Haggerty asks the justices for review.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two cases arising out of Texas ban on nearly all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, Whole Womans Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas. The cases address the laws private-enforcement structure, which deputizes private individuals to bring lawsuits to enforce the ban, and whether the federal government has the right to sue in federal court to block the laws enforcement. As Amy Howe reported for SCOTUSblog, the justices orders on oral arguments suggest that they will not use these cases to directly weigh in on whether the law violates the constitutional right to abortion. Nonetheless, three conditional cross-petitions in Whole Womans Health ask the justices to address directly the prevailing abortion precedents, Roe v. Wade,Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and 2016s Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt. The cross-petitions are Dickson v. Whole Womans Health, Carlton v. Whole Womans Health, and Clarkston v. Whole Womans Health.

These and otherpetitions of the weekare below:

Shoop v. Twyford21-511Issues: (1) Whether federal courts may use the All Writs Act to order the transportation of state prisoners for reasons not enumerated in28 U.S.C. 2241(c); and (2) whether, before a court grants an order allowing a habeas petitioner to develop new evidence, it must determine whether the evidence could aid the petitioner in proving his entitlement to habeas relief, and whether the evidence may permissibly be considered by a habeas court.

Haggerty v. United States21-516Issues: (1) Whether the interracial nature of a minor offense in Indian Country is an element of18 U.S.C. 1152, rather than an affirmative defense, and thus must be both pled and proved by the prosecution; and (2) whether the government must plead and prove the interracial nature of a minor offense in Indian Country to establish federal subject matter jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. 1152.

Simko v. United States Steel Corporation21-522Issue: Whether, or under what circumstances, a claim that an employer unlawfully retaliated against an employee for filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the remedial structure of Title VII may be addressed in an ensuing civil action, if the employee did not file a second formal administrative charge specifically alleging the retaliation.

Martin v. Castro21-533Issues: (1) Whether, when a law enforcement officer reasonably deploys a police K9 to restrain a fleeing suspect known to have a history of violent crime and believed to be in possession of a deadly weapon and under the influence of an illegal stimulant, the Fourth Amendment is violated when the K9s handler commands the K9 to release the suspect within seconds after the suspect is handcuffed and ceases resisting arrest; (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred when it failed to consider the totality of the circumstances in assessing the reasonableness of force used to restrain a suspect with a known history of violent crime who is actively resisting arrest and is believed to be in possession of a deadly weapon and under the influence of an illegal stimulant; and (3) whether the 9th Circuit violatedCity and County of San Francisco v. Sheehanand other binding precedent when it denied a police officer qualified immunity by defining clearly established law at too high a level of generality.

Reagle v. Lewis21-538Issue: Whether, after Roderick Lewiss counsel failed at sentencing to say anything more than that Lewis would speak on his own behalf, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit misapplied28 U.S.C. 2254in holding that the failure to applyUnited States v. Cronic in which the Supreme Court suggested that, thoughStrickland v. Washingtonrequires an ineffective-assistance claimant to prove both deficient performance and prejudice, some circumstances. . . are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified violated clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Dickson v. Whole Womans Health21-582Issues: (1) Whether the Supreme Court should overruleRoe v. WadeandPlanned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey; and (2) whether the Supreme Court should overruleWhole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, which refused to enforce an explicit severability requirement in a state abortion statute.

Carlton v. Whole Womans Health21-583Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overruleRoe v. WadeandPlanned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.

Clarkston v. Whole Womans Health21-587Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should overruleRoe v. WadeandPlanned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.

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Defendants' Native American status and more abortion petitions - SCOTUSblog

Jaleel Stallings, a man found not guilty on all charges of shooting at Minneapolis police during the unrest that followed George Floyd's murder last year, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the city and several of its officers, alleging the use of excessive force and several constitutional rights violations.

Stallings' attorney, Eric Rice, released extensive body camera footage earlier this month that showed Stallings, who had a permit to carry a firearm in public, returning fire at police in self-defense after they fired a marking round at him without warning from an unmarked van on May 30, 2020. Stallings immediately surrendered upon learning they were police officers but was assaulted while on the ground, the video showed. In the footage released by Rice, Lt. Johnny Mercil can be heard saying he believed a group of protesters were white "because there's not looting and fires," while Cmdr. Bruce Folkens referenced "hunting people" during the unrest. Both have since left the department.

Filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, the lawsuit alleges that 19 Minneapolis officers violated Stallings' Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force and his First Amendment rights by using force to intimidate and deter him from protesting police brutality and racism. The suit alleges that officers also violated his 14th Amendment right to due process by conducting a "recklessly-flawed" investigation after the incident, and, lastly, his 14th Amendment right to equal protection by targeting Black civilians with force and false accusations of felonious conduct.

"These violations are part of a pattern of constitutional violations by the MPD," the complaint said. "Customs causing constitutional violations were long-known by the MPD and the community at-large before this incident. In fact, it was this historical pattern of constitutional violations and lack of accountability or deterrence that led the community to protest with such intensity after the murder of George Floyd."

The complaint names 14 officers as defendants. An additional five are also listed but referred to as John Does because they have yet to be identified, according to the complaint.

"During Jaleel's criminal matter, we did not receive any information that those officers were being investigated or held accountable," Rice said. "We hope that this civil lawsuit is one way in which there can be oversight and accountability for anything that the officers did improperly."

Following the May 30 incident, Stallings was charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault and second-degree riot, among other counts. He rejected a plea deal that included a nearly 13-year prison term and instead took the case to trial in June. He was fully acquitted, which was first reported by the Minnesota Reformer.

Now, according to the lawsuit, Stallings seeks redress, including compensation and punitive damages to prevent future violations.

The Police Department declined to comment, citing the active litigation.

"The City Attorney's Office is still reviewing the lawsuit and has no comment at this time," city spokeswoman Sarah McKenzie said.

The beating left Stallings with several injuries, the lawsuit said: a fractured eye socket, bruising, trauma, paranoia and anxiety. He had also been shot in the chest with a marking round, which resulted in labored breathing, the suit said.

When he was transported to the hospital, "Stallings was not permitted to privately discuss the incident or his injuries with medical personnel," the complaint said. "Officers stood nearby and listened to everything."

The lawsuit alleges that the involved officers provided false, misleading statements to justify their use of force and concealed evidence to implicate Stallings.

Those false statements and the narrative that Stallings "attempted to kill officers has continued even after his acquittal," the lawsuit said.

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Man cleared of unknowingly firing at Minneapolis officers in self-defense files lawsuit alleging force and constitutional rights violations -...