SUTTONS BAY — A settlement agreement that ended a long-running and acrimonious lawsuit against top Leelanau County sheriff’s officials will be public in a matter of weeks, authorities said.
Leelanau County’s Board of Commissioners recently voted to settle a federal lawsuit filed against the county, Sheriff Mike Oltersdorf and Undersheriff Scott Wooters by a group of deputies in 2009. The deputies accused Oltersdorf and Wooters of eavesdropping, among other misconduct.
County officials won’t reveal settlement terms, but county Administrator Chet Janik said financial and other details will be available once attorneys file the final agreement with court.
“That document will be public,” he said. “I’m guessing it will probably be about six weeks.”
The board voted 5-1 to accept the settlement, with Melinda Lautner dissenting and David Marshall absent.
Janik said the county is happy to finally close the doors on the suit.
“Everyone is glad it’s been resolved,” Janik said. “It’s been a long process for all sides, and it’s caused tremendous stress on all sides.”
Lautner said she believed settling was a “disservice” to the county.
“My vote, I thought, was in the best interest of not only my constituents, but all of the taxpayers,” she said. “There’s just a lot of information we received in closed session that the public was not aware of that would have come to light had it gone to trial.”
Trial was scheduled to start next week, and Janik said the county’s insurance company advised the county to settle, rather than risk losing at trial.
“It was a very difficult choice for commissioners, as they have some strong feelings about it,” he said.
The suit stems from allegations that Oltersdorf and Wooters illegally listened to conversations on what employees believed to be private lines at the sheriff’s department on several occasions dating to 2006. Sheriff’s administrators then retaliated against employees who publicly criticized the practice, the suit alleged.
Oltersdorf and Wooters both declined comment. Mike Dettmer, an attorney for the deputies, also declined comment.
OTTAWA – Canada’s top judges pushed the Crown on Monday to explain why giving police the ability to eavesdrop on text messages with a general warrant wouldn’t be handing them too much power.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin asked Crown attorney Croft Michaelson how long a surveillance leash police should be allowed in asking service providers like Telus to release a customer’s future text messages to them.
McLachlin said it’s “intuitive” that allowing law enforcement to gain access to future communications is a greater infringement on privacy than giving them access to the records of past texts.
“It’s a concern for me certainly,” she said, later adding: “It does feel different to give police future powers and then to say: ‘You can go and look at what’s (already) there.'”
The panel of seven judges decided to hear arguments on the powers police have to snoop on text messages after an Ontario judge granted a general warrant that called for Telus to give law enforcement the texts of two of its customers over a future two-week period.
Telus argues that if police want to acquire the content of text messages in near real time, they should get an authorization to intercept, as they do when they want to intercept phone conversations — a wiretap.
Telus’ lawyer, Scott Hutchison, said the company has been receiving more such warrants from police since 2010.
“This is a wiretap dressed up as a general warrant,” he argued, adding the criminal code governing interceptions — written in 1974 — hasn’t kept up with the way people communicate today.
The Crown argues a general warrant should be enough because police are essentially gathering a record of communications made over a 24-hour period and not intercepting them in real time.
In April, the Supreme Court struck down a law that allows for emergency wiretaps without a warrant.
The judges’ main concern was that people whose communications are intercepted under the provision can be kept in the dark about the wiretap.
McLachlin and others raised similar concerns Monday. If police gain access to texts under a general warrant, those intercepted will never learn their communications had been tapped — which wouldn’t be the case under wiretap laws.
Have you heard? A federal court’s decision may provide the impetus to overhaul Illinois’ ridiculously restrictive eavesdropping law.
Last week, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2010. The suit sought to block Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez from prosecuting ACLU staff members for recording police officers performing their duties in public places. Such recording has been one of the ACLU’s long-standing monitoring missions.
Illinois’ eavesdropping law, which was enacted in 1961, makes it a felony for someone to produce an audio recording of a conversation unless all parties involved agree to it. The law sets a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison if a law enforcement officer is recorded. The law applies to audio recordings only.
In its opinion, the appeals court wrote, “The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests. As applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech and free-press guarantees.”
We heard that.
The biggest problem with the state’s law as it stands is that it was written in an era when technology was far less developed than it is today. In 1961, the law was meant to prevent illicit recording of conversations through the use of hidden microphones and wire-tapping devices.
But fast-forward to 2012, and it’s a whole new ballgame. Much of the citizenry is equipped with phones capable of recording video and audio. It has becoming increasingly common for everyday citizens to pull out their phones when they see something newsworthy and to record the events, often capturing conversations and other sounds.
Especially as this trend applies to law enforcement officers, these recordings sometimes have captured police doing illegal or objectionable things, such as beating, Tasing or pepper-spraying people. Just as the framers of the Constitution provided for a free press to expose such abuses, so-called “I” reporters often have provided critical evidence of wrongdoing on the part of those charged with fighting crimes, not committing them.
Police often say that if citizens are not doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t object to searches and other law enforcement techniques. We believe the same is true in reverse: If law enforcement officers are not doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t object to audio recordings of their actions and words.
We believe there are enough laws on the books already that protect police officers in the case of citizens overstepping their boundaries and interfering with cops trying to do their lawful duty. And any rewrite of Illinois’ eavesdropping law should make that distinction clear and include it in the statute.
But we also believe it’s time for the General Assembly to overhaul this outdated and overly restrictive law to reflect new technologies, as well as the longstanding constitutional rights of citizens and the press. And we hope lawmakers get that message loud and clear.
New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis Thursday denied eavesdropping on opposing coaches during NFL games or even knowing that he could have done so.
Loomis reacted to an ESPN report last week that said wiring in Loomis’s suite at the Superdome, the Saints‘ home stadium, allowed him to listen to opposing coaches, which would be a violation of federal law as well as NFL rules.
“I’m angry about it,” Loomis said. “It’s not true. I have a clear conscience.”
Loomis said he has not been contacted by the FBI or state officials about the eavesdrop report but would welcome such a probe to prove the claims were unfounded.
“In my 29 years in the NFL, I have never listened to an opposing team’s communications,” Loomis said. “I have never asked for the capability to listen to an opposing team’s communications.
“I have never inquired as to the possibility of listening in on an opposing team’s communications. And I have never been aware of any capability to listen in on an opposing team’s communications at the Superdome or any NFL stadium.”
The Saints, whose home stadium will host next year’s Super Bowl, have already been hit hard with sanctions for a bounty scheme that rewarded players for knocking opponents out of games.
NFL officials are still deciding upon punishments for players who were involved in the pay-for-injury system, but Saints coach Sean Payton was banned for the entire upcoming NFL season.
Loomis was suspended for eight games and assistant coach Joe Vitt for six games. Vitt will serve as Payton’s replacement once his suspension is completed.
“We will be a better league and the Saints will be a better team for having faced this,” Loomis said.
For now, Loomis said, the Saints’ top priority is signing a new contract with star quarterback Drew Brees, who last year had the greatest passing season in NFL history.
“It’s the most important contract we have to do,” Loomis said. “It will get resolved.”
Have you heard? A federal court’s decision may provide the impetus to overhaul Illinois’ ridiculously restrictive eavesdropping law.
Last week, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2010. The suit sought to block Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez from prosecuting ACLU staff members for recording police officers performing their duties in public places. Such recording has been one of the ACLU’s long-standing monitoring missions.
Illinois’ eavesdropping law, which was enacted in 1961, makes it a felony for someone to produce an audio recording of a conversation unless all parties involved agree to it. The law sets a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison if a law enforcement officer is recorded. The law applies to audio recordings only.
In its opinion, the appeals court wrote, “The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests. As applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech and free-press guarantees.”
We heard that.
The biggest problem with the state’s law as it stands is that it was written in an era when technology was far less developed than it is today. In 1961, the law was meant to prevent illicit recording of conversations through the use of hidden microphones and wire-tapping devices.
But fast-forward to 2012, and it’s a whole new ballgame. Much of the citizenry is equipped with phones capable of recording video and audio. It has becoming increasingly common for everyday citizens to pull out their phones when they see something newsworthy and to record the events, often capturing conversations and other sounds.
Especially as this trend applies to law enforcement officers, these recordings sometimes have captured police doing illegal or objectionable things, such as beating, Tasing or pepper-spraying people. Just as the framers of the Constitution provided for a free press to expose such abuses, so-called “I” reporters often have provided critical evidence of wrongdoing on the part of those charged with fighting crimes, not committing them.
Police often say that if citizens are not doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t object to searches and other law enforcement techniques. We believe the same is true in reverse: If law enforcement officers are not doing anything wrong, they shouldn’t object to audio recordings of their actions and words.
We believe there are enough laws on the books already that protect police officers in the case of citizens overstepping their boundaries and interfering with cops trying to do their lawful duty. And any rewrite of Illinois’ eavesdropping law should make that distinction clear and include it in the statute.
But we also believe it’s time for the General Assembly to overhaul this outdated and overly restrictive law to reflect new technologies, as well as the longstanding constitutional rights of citizens and the press. And we hope lawmakers get that message loud and clear.
