{"id":2677,"date":"2010-04-26T12:22:37","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T11:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:37:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:37:36","slug":"seattle-computer-security-expert-turns-tables-on-the-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2010\/04\/seattle-computer-security-expert-turns-tables-on-the-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Computer Security Expert Turns Tables On The Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honestly there’s been nothing much going on for the past few days or over the weekend, Microsoft retracted some patches<\/a> citing ‘quality issues’ and there was announcement about Metasploit Express<\/a> version.<\/p>\n

But well that was about it! This was the only story I found vaguely interesting, because well we all love to flip the bird to ‘The Man<\/em>‘ don’t we? That’s why we do what we do.<\/p>\n

A ‘cyber PI’ in Seattle turned the tables on the police when they tried to give him the run around when he was arrested after refusing to identify himself.<\/p>\n

A computer security expert used his elite skills to turn the tables on Seattle Police who arrested him for doing nothing more than refusing to identify himself during a drunken street golf game in 2008.<\/p>\n

Eric Rachner, identified by The Seattle PI as a cyber security expert, fought the charges for obstructing a police officer, and as part of his defense, he demanded access to the video and audio recordings of his arrest. The recordings are automatically made using cameras mounted to squad car dashboards and microphones on police uniforms.<\/p>\n

Seattle Police refused and prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, but that wasn’t good enough for Rachner. He filed a request under a Washington state public disclosure law demanding access to the recordings and was again turned down.<\/p>\n

“These recordings are both past our retention period and can no longer be obtained,” Seattle Police Department officials responded in writing. “Please note that the majority of 911 calls and videos are retained for a period of ninety (90) days.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The whole story is quite laughable and extremely indicative to how government organizations generally act – trying to brush people off. It’s good to see a citizen standing up for his rights and calling them out when actually he’s done nothing wrong and he was punished for non-compliance.<\/p>\n

It turns out he wasn’t even the one that prompted the 911 call in the first place, one of the street golfers accidentally sliced the foam ball and hit a passerby in the face. He wasn’t injured but after being heckled by the golfers he called the police.<\/p>\n