Who wanted red light cameras?

Eight Democrats and 22 Republicans voted against Gary Elkins HB 259, which disallowed cities from giving tickets to red light runners via cameras. Those thirty include some of the most liberal (Lon Burnam, Scott Hochberg) and some of the most conservative (Phil King, Beverly Woolley) members of the Texas House.

Grits has argued previously in support of HB 259 that proliferating government surveillance cameras in public spaces diminish personal privacy, plus increase injury accidents instead of reduce them. ACLU of Texas worked the vote in committee (I testified on their behalf) and our legislative committee volunteers handed out flyers to House members yesterday as they passed through "the well" onto the House floor. That last effort was probably overkill. In the end, the bill passed 109-30, bettering the 103-34 margin by which the House opposed cameras in 2003.

(Congrats to Rep. Elkins and his staff, by the way -- they're really working hard to fix this loophole in Texas law.)

With all the talk about increasing the number of record votes, it's worth noting that most controversial items get record votes already. E.g., here is the list of Texas legislators who supported giving red light tickets with cameras (i.e., who opposed Elkins' bill):

Allen, Alma(D); Allen, Ray(R); Berman, (R); Burnam(D); Castro(D); Dawson(R); Driver(R); Farabee(D); Goolsby(R); Griggs(R); Harper-Brown(R); Hill(R); Hochberg(D); Jackson, Jim(R); Jones, Delwin(R); Keffer, Bill(R); King, Phil(R); Laubenberg(R); Luna(D); Madden(R); McCall(R); Menendez(D); Morrison(R); Mowery(R); Paxton(R); Smith, Todd(R); Vo(D); West, Buddy(R); Wong(R); Woolley(R) [See House member pages here.]

A final aside -- I reported after the committee vote that Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, flip flopped on the issue from 2003. He voted against red light cameras in the 78th Legislature, but surprisingly, FOR cameras in committee last week. Well, he flipped back yesterday, voting for HB 259 with the majority. It's not that I'm ungrateful, just ... curious.

Neighborhood Association Strike Forces?

The Texas Observer has a good piece on Texas state Rep. Tony Goolsby's HB 246, allowing neighborhood associations to establish their own police agencies with full law enforcement powers:

Imagine a Texas where the affluent are so fearful that they retreat from the public commons to gated communities protected by exclusive police forces, who, weapons at the ready, are only accountable to the neighborhood association. It appears Rep. Tony Goolsby already has. His HB 246 will allow neighborhoods and apartment complexes to privately hire their own special police force, to be awarded all the same powers as the gun-slinging, handcuff-toting city and state police.

The bill is typical of the proliferation of special police forces in Texas over the last couple of decades, which Grits has discussed previously. The Observer laid out that context:

The burgeoning industry of special police in Texas includes a force for the Board of Medical Examiners and one to enforce water code. Last session, the Lege authorized a special peace force for the State Board of Dental Examiners. (You can just imagine the television series potential with that one.) The dental cops conduct investigations and then, as certified peace officers, write search warrants and make arrests, for example, of a renegade dentist operating without a license in a garage. These certified peace officers are also required to use their powers to prevent offenses from being committed at any time, in any place, whether by a dentist or some other menace to society, like say, an optometrist. Fortunately, they can be armed 24 hours a day. Special police officers not busy rounding up crooked dentists or any of the other “special” targets often seek outside employment. As certified peace officers they enjoy full-blown police power—all the time. One popular side gig is as a bouncer at a club.

The numerous special police forces scattered around the state have less accountability than state and city police departments. No single state agency oversees the special police forces nor does there exist a standard set of guidelines for them. And while Goolsby’s bill does establish limited oversight and some standards of training for his new force, public interest groups like the ACLU are not pleased. “It’s not the same as a department with a chain of command and policies,” said Scott Henson of the Texas ACLU. “Some of these smaller agencies are very underdeveloped in infrastructure and supervisory techniques.” He said the officers receive less rigorous training than state and city police departments. Henson also warned that some neighborhoods may be surprised by the potential cost of having their own police force, especially if the neighborhood association finds itself on the defendant side of a lawsuit.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee, in its interim report last December, recommended that the Legislature “cease and resist” creating special police forces and consider creating one category to include all specialized police forces in order to clarify their functions.

Fritz Reinig, chief of staff for Rep. Goolsby’s office, said he was unaware of the report.

And yes, that's Grits' author quoted in the story. (Aren't blogs supposed to be self-referential?) The article said that T.J. D’Aquino, CEO of Crime Strike, a private security company operating in Goolsby’s district, brought him the legislation. I guess Crime Strike neglected to tell the Representative about the Senate committee report calling for the OPPOSITE of his bill.

Rep. Goolsby is conservative, but not an especially unreasonable fellow; he just doesn't work on these issues in the Higher Ed or Licensing and Administrative Procedures committees. In 2003, he joint-authored a bill to get rid of the worst of the specialized police forces -- Texas' Byrne-grant-funded drug task forces. Plus the Senate Committee report (pdf) makes a strong case that special police forces are not only unaccountable, but their proliferation has"discombobulated the meaning of the title peace officer." I wonder if he would have filed this piece of junk if the folks who brought it to him had told him about it?

House backs red light camera ban

I noted yesterday that the Texas House this morning would consider Gary Elkins' HB 259, which would disallow cities from using cameras to give tickets to red light runners.

Not surprisingly, they voted 109-30 in favor of Elkins' bill. The Houston Chronicle quoted Lt. Governor David Dewhurst opining that the Senate was likely to "look favorably" on the ban.

First racial profiling report coverage

I mentioned that Texas civil rights groups today released a study analyzing statewide racial profiling data collected by law enforcement at traffic stops. AP's coverage of the press conference is now online; they quoted me, along with Sen. Royce West and Rep. Senfronia Thompson.

This is a fun report because, since data for hundreds of agencies around the state is available, a lot of regional media outlets do local stories. That was true last year, and I'm sure it will be the case this time, too.

Go here to access the report and regional profiles.

2-25 UPDATE: See additional coverage from the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Austin Statesman, San Antonio Express-News (+ 2 sidebars), El Paso Times, and a few local TV news stories. The UK Guardian picked up the AP story.

Don't Mind If I Take a Look, Do Ya?

When a cop utters those words at a traffic stop, do you feel like you can say "No"?

Most people don't realize they can refuse consent to search at a traffic stop, and that lack of public education allows law enforcement to misuse so-called "consent searches." A new study to be released today finds that consent searches -- where officers have no probable cause to search, but request permission to do so at their own discretion -- account for a significant portion of racial disparities in who is searched at Texas traffic stops.

In other words, officers are choosing to search minorities at higher rates when there is no policy or law enforcement reason to do so.

I'll be at a press conference at the Texas capitol later this morning for the official release of the second-ever statewide analysis of racial profiling data gathered by Texas law enforcement agencies. Entitled, "Don't Mind If I Take A Look, Do Ya?," the study focuses especially on searches, consent searches and when contraband is found at traffic stops. (I'm listed as a "Primary Editor" in the acknowledgements, and have been working on the issues surrounding racial profiling data analysis for nearly four years on behalf of ACLU.)

Last year's report looked at data from over 400 agencies. This year, we examined reports from 1060 total agencies, covering many millions of traffic stops, and making this the largest racial profiling dataset ever accumulated or analyzed. Go here to download the report and look at snapshots of local data. The PDF file contains tables with detail for the different departments.

In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed SB 1074 that required agencies to gather this data and report it annually to their local governing body each March. The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, ACLU, NAACP and LULAC teamed up to request those reports under the Texas open records act, then Dr. Dwight Steward, a former UT economist, crunched the numbers to produce the report. I should mention that the project could never have been completed without the indefatiguable efforts of Molly Totman at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.

The report also proposes legislative reforms that would make the data more useful to police supervisors and the public to identify and reduce racial profiling. I'll be blogging about different aspects of the study over the next few days, but wanted to put up the link this morning, at least, to the main report, since I'll be out most of the day.

Grits Jointly Wins Koufax Best Single Issue Blog

Wampum announced the 2004 Koufax Weblog Award Winners, yesterday, and Grits was honored to have been jointly named Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, along with Talk Left. I want to thank Wampum for holding this shindig -- not only is Grits proud to win, but through the process I was turned on to a lot of other great blogs I otherwise wouldn't have known about. Congratulations are in order to co-winner and two-time previous Best-Single-Issue-Blog winner Jeralyn, still the class of the field, and to the other Koufax winners.

Most of all, thanks so much to Grits readers who voted for me in either the semifinals or the finals, and to Charles Kuffner who first nominated me. In fact, Grits was so new then, I doubt I'd have been aware of Wampum's contest at all if Charles hadn't mentioned it on his blog and put Grits up for the award.

Check out all the other winners, too. There's a lot of great stuff there. Thanks again, folks!

Wampum: 2004 Koufax Award Winners:

Best Blog – Non-Sponsored Division: Daily Kos.

Best Blog – Pro Division: Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall.

Best Writing: Hullabaloo by Digby.

Best Post: If America Were Iraq, What Would it be Like by Professor Juan Cole of Informed Comment.

Best Series: The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism by David Neiwert at Orcinus and Cheers and Jeers by Bill in Portland Maine at the Daily Kos.

Best Group Blog: Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, and the many diarists at MyDD.

Most Humorous Blog: J.C. Christian’s Jesus’ General.

Most Humorous Post: the Poorman’s Poker with Dick Cheney.

Best Expert Blog: Informed Comment won the vote to become a two-time Koufax Award winner for Best Expert Blog.

Best Single Issue Blog (Tie): Talk Left and Grits for Breakfast.

Best New Blog: Amanda Marcotte of Mouse Words.

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition: Suburban Guerrilla.

Best Commenter: Meteor Blades is known for his guest blogging at Kos and for his writing at Liberal Street Fight.

Privacy bills make early appearance

The Pink Dome reports that the Texas House today passed its first bill of the session, HB 160 by McCall. P.D. doesn't think much of it, but Grits examined the bill not long ago, and I really liked it. The best part: it bans police from accessing without a court order (improved in the committee substitute from a "subpoena") any tracking information your vehicle might send to a commerical service via an OnStar-type navigation system, which comes standard in many new cars and a lot of rentals.

Up tomorrow in the House: HB 259 by Elkins, which would ban the use of cameras to give tickets to red light runners. See here, here, here, here and here for earlier Grits coverage.

So two of the first bills up in the Texas House are essentially pro-privacy, pro-bill-of-rights, anti-government surveillance bills. That's an interesting twist.

Committee: Fine counties concealing search and arrest warrants

Though I posted two items already about yesterday's House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing, I didn't mention why I was there for that six hour marathon: to testify on behalf of ACLU of Texas in support of Chairman Terry Keel's HB 47, which would allow for civil fines against counties that do not make search and arrest warrant information public. (Grits has written previously on the bill here. See also the Austin Statesman's coverage from last week.) The committee passed the bill out unanimously at the end of the night.

One's friends and opponents at the Legislature are astonishingly fluid; the last two-day-stretch for me was a great example of that. On Monday, ACLU opposed Chairman Keel's bill giving Austin PD jurisdiction on the University of Texas campus. Literally the next day I was back up there supporting this one. That's the way the legislative process goes sometimes. Most times.

Naturally, as luck would have it, mine was the very last bill called, and I was the last and only speaker on the subject. Ann was hovering in the back, but even diehards Charles and Patricia Kiker, down from Tulia, Texas to represent Tulia Friends of Justice, had already left for the evening when my name was finally called.

I didn't have a handout, but I thought I'd briefly recount the arguments made in committee on the bill's behalf from my notes.

Search and arrest warrant affidavits are lynchpin documents. They contain key information found nowhere else in the public record. Their secrecy creates many legitimate public policy concerns that are worthy of the gravity of the fines proposed HB 47. I've heard examples of counties concealing search and arrest warrant affidavits from people around the state in addition to my own experiences; this is not an isolated problem.

I had my own recent experience being denied access to these critical records. In Palestine, last fall a drug task force arrested 72 people based on the testimony of a single confidential informant, claiming they were all participating in a "crack distribution ring." The existence of 72 crack dealers in this small, rural town seemed highly unlikely, so Texas Observer reporter Dave Mann and I drove up to check out the situation. We were denied access to any of the basic documents about the cases, including these search and arrest warrant affidavits and even the indictments. The district clerk told us she couldn't release the information without permission from the District Attorney, and they said the documents were "sealed" pending the arrest of the last of the defendants. We asked to see the files for those who were already arrested, but were told we couldn't have them.

Dave Mann went back up to Palestine a couple of weeks later, and the results of his investigation were chronicled in his November article in the Observer, "The Usual Suspects." All but a handful of the 72 accused crack dealers had been captured by then, but still, he wrote, officials "wouldn't release copies of the search warrants executed in seizing the evidence." Clearly, that's exactly the situation Keel's bill is designed to affect.

I told the committee I didn't understand the fine structure in the bill. For example, in Palestine, if I asked for all 72 arrest warrant affidavits and four search warrant affidavits, was that one request that might garner a $1,000 fine, or 76 requests that would result in a $76,000 fine? Chairman Keel said that language was intentionally vague, and its interpretation would be left to the discretion of the Attorney General.

Finally, I suggested that the reason DAs want to conceal information in cases like Palestine might be that they're trying to cover up shoddy work by law enforcement or flimsy evidence that may not withstand scrutiny. In that case, a $1,000 fine may not be steep enough; the bill might establish a "price," I cautioned, rather than an "incentive." Chairman Keel replied that he didn't think too many prosecutors would flaunt the law in the face of possible fines, but promised that if this legislation did not fix the problem, in two years he'd come back to enact criminal penalties for non-compliance.

With that, I told the Chairman he had a fine bill, thanked the committee, and sat back down. Soon thereafter the members still remaining voted the bill out of committee unanimously, 6-0. I'm sure my testimony was essential to that outcome, don't you think? ;-)

Fiscal Note Fantasy World

The debate over increasing prison penalties has always had a bizarre, surreal quality in Texas because it's based entirely on obviously false financial calculations about how much punishments cost. Take the issue of penalty increases for burglarizing a vehicle, discussed at length yesterday at a House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing. The fiscal note on Vicki Truitt's HB 151, for example (which would increase penalties for vehicle burglarly from a Class A misdemeanor to a state jail felony) estimated additional costs to the state of about $9 million for the bill, based on a probably low-balled 500 new prisoners per biennium, but excluded any prison building expense.

That's typical -- as long as I've been involved in the issue, I've never seen honest fiscal notes on these penalty-increase bills that accurately anticipate incarceration costs.

The Legislative Budget Board, which compiles these fiscal notes, is living in an utter fantasy world, divorced from all economic reality. Texas prisons are completely full right now. To incarcerate another 500+ prisoners would require building an entire new prison unit (costs for which I've seen estimated at $200-$350 million). Why aren't THOSE costs included in the fiscal note? Because fiscal notes are political, not financial reports -- the legislators lobby and cajole the board to get the notes as low as possible. Then, when these lowballed estimates get into the state budget, they cause the state to consistently underestimate its real resource needs.

The politicization of the fiscal note process is a real disservice to the state. It's certainly had a corrosive effect on criminal justice policy, leading Texas down a garden path toward the current crisis.

Punishment increase crowd rides emotion, downplays budgets

If you want to understand the pressure on legislators to increase prison punishments in order to "solve" crime, go listen to the first few hours of yesterday's Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, where dozens of speaker testified on behalf of legislation to increase the penalty for burglary of a vehicle from a Class A misdemeanor to a state jail felony. (That's burglary of items in a vehicle, not auto theft.) Chairman Terry Keel, who expressed concern that legislators were proposing penalty increases without admitting to the financial consequences, predicted some version of the idea would pass this session.

One can learn many things about Texas' criminal justice system from critically observing that hearing, not the least of which is that the urge to increase penalties in response to crime is a bi-partisan pastime. Republicans and Democrats filed similar bills increasing penalties on the first or second offense. From the testimony, the real problem is a small number of career thieves who may be caught several times. Democrat Aaron Pena filed a somewhat more reasonable bill targeting them that would increase the penalty only on a third offense.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the hearing was as a case study of how unintended consequences can arise from well-intentioned acts. That's because the tough-on-crime crowd takes a purely atomic view. There were basically two classes of pro-penalty-increase messages delivered to the committee. From the public, business owners, theft victims, etc., legislators heard, "I'm angry, do something." And from law enforcement folks they heard over and over, "We need more tools." Neither of those groups, however, were able to explain how or if increasing the punishment for this crime -- which can be as minor as stealing a CD through an open car window, not always "smash and grab" episodes -- would prevent what is essentially a crime of youth and opportunity.

Testimony revealed that three theft convictions can already be enhanced (i.e., prosecutors may increase the charges) to a felony for career car burglars, but the law is seldom applied. The current penalty for Class A misdemeanors allows for up to a year in county jail, but witnesses said local courts aren't sentencing convicted vehicle burglars to those max sentences right now. Rep. Terri Hodge kept wondering, and nobody had a good answer, why law enforcement thought making the crime a felony would solve anything, when they weren't fully utilizing the "tools" currently authorized?

Over the course of the hearing, though, the reason became clear. Bottom line: county jails are full, just like state prisons. Counties can't afford to incarcerate low-level burglars. But neither can the state of Texas. So the locals basically want to pass the buck. Counties aren't willing to raise local taxes to build more jail space, so they want prisoners sent to state jails so they won't have to pay for them. That's the same problem with taking an atomic view, though -- it's all the same taxpayers..

Nor did any speakers who favor penalty increases tell the committee which prisoners should be taken out of the system -- i.e., the types of crimes for which they should LOWER penalties -- in order to incarcerate more vehicle burglars in state jails. Certainly nobody proposed letting out any current prisoners to make room. Indeed, the state's overincarceration crisis was mentioned mainly by proponents in the context of asking that it be ignored. This wasn't a hearing about big picture policy issues.

We live in a narcissistic society, and one of the truisms blogging teaches us is that everybody thinks their story important (in this case, dozens of folks thought so, repetitively, for several hours). These anecdotes don't tell the whole story, though. For every professional burglar who targets apartment complexes, there are probably three young stupid kids who made mistakes, and labeling all of them "felon" without distinction just doesn't make sense. Texas already has labeled 1,941 separate acts as "felonies" -- this would make 1,942 -- and a whopping one in 11 Texans today already has a felony conviction that limits their employment, housing and even volunteer opportunities. Do we really want to expand that population by the number of kids who steal a CD out of a car?

ACLU: Keep Austin PD Off UT Campus

The Austin PD doesn't patrol the UT-Austin campus, for good reason; UT has its own police force for that. So if APD began providing security for the UT campus, why would taxpayers want to pay for a separate university police department at all?

That's one of the questions Jim Spangler will be asking this afternoon when he testifies on behalf of the Students for ACLU of UT Austin at the House Higher Education Committee, in opposition to HB 479 by Terry Keel, R-Austin. That bill would give the Austin PD "concurrent jurisdiction" with the UT Police Department over the UT Austin campus. Based on student concerns and some additional problems identified by the Police Accountability Project, we outlined several problems with the bill in a fact sheet Jim is distributing to members. Thought I'd post it in case anybody is interested, with a couple of hyperlinks added.

UPDATE: Here's the Daily Texan coverage of the hearing.

Apparently Rep. Keel's purpose for filing this bill stems from some incident where UT officers weren't allowed to carry their handguns into a UT football game. If that's the case, I sure wish he'd write a bill about cops carrying handguns into football games, which I suppose, at bottom, I don't particularly care about, instead of creating all the problems (see below) associated with "concurrent" jurisdiction.

Oppose HB 479: APD Jurisdiction on UT Campus
Issues and Concerns

Current law gives UTPD policing authority over the UT-Austin campus. HB 479 would give the Austin PD “concurrent” or simultaneous jurisdiction.

1. Law is unnecessary: Chapter 14.03(d) and (g) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure allow officers to enforce essentially all laws but traffic enforcement outside their jurisdiction, so APD officers have full authority to supply needed police power in an emergency. In a non-emergency, UTPD is equipped to handle the situation.
2. Could create functional problems: Concurrent jurisdictions create confusion among law enforcement and emergency services personnel as to who is in charge. Right now, the lines of authority are clear and no one is confused, even if APD doesn’t like it. HB 479 risks confusion and muddying the chain of command during a time of crisis. Accommodating bruised egos inside APD is not reason enough to risk creating confusion at some critical moment.
3. Fear APD will subject students to increased Taser attacks. APD officers are overusing Taser weapons. Tasers are often deadly weapons, but APD use of force policies do not treat them as such. More than 80 people have died nationally from police use of Tasers. We don’t want a UT student to be the next one. If APD officers are allowed to operate on campus, HB 479 should require those officers to comply with UTPD’s use of force policy. Austin allows its officers to escalate to violence, especially using Tasers, too quickly and with little accountability.
4. Disallow undercover monitoring of activists: APD officers have infiltrated peaceful activist groups without probable cause to think anyone was planning any crime. UTPD has done it, too, but APD has said it uses its undercover narcotics unit to target anti-war activists for undercover surveillance on an ongoing basis, whenever events are being planned. This bill could encourage APD to undertake more aggressive, if inappropriate, surveillance of student activists. Would the sponsor be willing to change the bill to disallow APD undercover surveillance of student meetings and activist groups when there is no probable cause to believe a crime is being committed or planned?
5. Students have more rights with UTPD: At UTPD, students who complain can better hold UTPD accountable because they can access more information about their case and the university’s ombudsman provides more extensive services and support to students who complain about UTPD than Austin’s Police Monitor does for Austin PD. Information about a citizen complaint against an Austin PD officer are entirely closed records unless an officer is actually suspended from the force. Complainants can only find out the eventual outcome of their complaint, but not information about the investigation. Plus, APD officers who engage in misconduct receive special protections compared to UT officers, who are more accountable for their behavior because they are not covered under the state civil service law.

Prison break

The Austin Statesman yesterday editorialized that Texas should break from its traditional lock-em-up approach.

Also, Ann has posted excerpts from testimony from last week's House Corrections Committee meeting by UTMB's prison health services, a union leader from the prison guards (who are represented by AFSCME), and the Texas Catholic Correctional Ministers, all of whom support diverting low-level offenders from prison to probation. She also points to this article from the Austin Business Journal last month about the lack of treatment center funding that could hamper Texas' shift of more offenders to probation if not addressed.

Red light cameras go down in Virginia House

Virginia presently uses red light cameras in seven cities, but the Virginia House of Representatives this week declined to allow their use to continue beyond July 1, reported the Washington Post on its front page this morning:

Republican delegates who control the [House Militia, Police and Public Safety] committee, many of whom come from rural parts of Virginia that have not used the cameras, said they had a duty to uphold basic rights for all Virginians.

"We have a responsibility to balance public safety against liberty," said Del. William R. Janis (R-Goochland). "Our job is to figure out where the lines cross for reasonableness between the compelling need and the absolute requirement to defend individual liberty." ...

"My concern with photo red has always been that we're starting to get into the area with our technology when we start to abridge fundamental rights . . . the right to be left alone," said Del. C. L. "Clay" Athey Jr. (R-Warren).

A recent study of all cities using red light cameras in Virginia found that injury accidents increased overall at intersections with cameras.

Others pointed to studies that show that rear-end crashes increase at monitored intersections. They also said there were better ways of cutting down on red-light runners, such as extending the time of yellow lights.

"These cameras cause more accidents than they prevent . . . their own reports show that," said Jim Kadison, a member of the National Motorist Association, which has long fought the use of the technology.

The vote echoes similar sentiments expressed last week in Texas. The Texas House Urban Affairs Committee passed HB 259 (Elkins) out of committee on Tuesday, which would ban giving tickets based on red light cameras statewide.

Thanks to Nick for the tip.

Whither Loyalty?

Take amphetamines to fly a multi-million dollar airplane for the military, and it's okay even if you're so hyped up you bomb your allies. Take them to stay up late preparing lesson plans for elementary school children in Wichita Falls, though, and you do a perp walk and get your mug shot in the morning paper (reg. required), despite 27 years on the job.

That's what I don't get about the drug war -- how in the world can this level of hypocrisy not be obvious to those engaged in it? Here's a teacher who has devoted her life to the children of Wichita Falls. She apparently has developed a drug abuse problem. Are her troubles met with sympathy or compassion? Was she immediately offered drug treatment or counseling? Does anyone appreciate her years of service despite her poor personal decisions that weren't "associated with the school"? Of course not. They're hanging her out to dry. Here's how the school district's PR officer tried to spin the situation:

[Wichita Falls ISD Public Information Officer Renae] Murphy stressed the search warrant involved a home and not a school district facility.

"It wasn't at school or associated with school," she said.

She said any time an employee is arrested, that employee is placed on administrative leave while the investigation is conducted.

"These kinds of charges and actions are taken very seriously," Murphy said, "and termination is an option," depending on the outcome. She said a teacher who's convicted of a crime stands to lose his or her certification.

Murphy said she's never seen a case involving a charge like this in her six years as public information officer for the district.

She said the schools - and the community - expect teachers and all employees to be role models for the children.

"When one person fails to be that role model, that casts a shadow on everyone else," she said. "That's unfortunate because we have employees throughout our district who are exemplary leaders."

Students at Sam Houston for the most part didn't have a lot of questions about the incident Friday, Murphy said.

"The teachers have spoken very professionally about the incident," using information they'd been provided, Murphy said. She said the school wanted to reassure students and parents.

"School goes on and nothing has changed for them and their school life there at Sam Houston."

One wonders: Whither loyalty?

After 27 years, the Wichita Falls ISD is ready to throw this woman out like yesterday's garbage. Where's the statement about how her recent struggle with drug abuse doesn't diminish nearly three decades of service to the town's children, at crap wages and uncertain retirement benefits, or that many people at the school love her and support her and wish her the best? Not one kind word was cast in her direction.

In these comments, and indeed apparently in the school district's administration and local media coverage, we find no mercy, no compassion. "Nothing has changed" is sure right -- Wichita Falls is in a the throes of a drug abuse problem that its media and public officials are pretending is a result of personal moral failings. It's not; addiction is a medical problem that afflicts a certain portion of the population pretty much regardless.

Certainly if any other teachers do have a drug problem, they sure as hell know now they'd better not reach out to ask for help. Their employer has made it very clear that they're more concerned about "reassuring" the parents than supporting a teacher wading through through troubled personal waters. (And can there really only be one non-exemplary teacher in Wichita Falls? Isn't that like the kids in Minnesota who are all above average?)

There's a lot of harsh, ugly, punitive drug warrior talk coming out of Wichita Falls these days, all with an annoyingly judgmental tone. Wichita Falls state Sen. Craig Estes thinks he can incarcerate his way out of the drug abuse problem. He's wrong.

This isn't the first Texas teacher caught with drugs off campus recently; a Tarrant County teacher was found with marijuana growing in his garage after an illegal search (apparently he couldn't afford to buy it on a teacher's salary). Drug abuse has now famously reached all the way into the prosecutor's offices of one of the most outspoken tough-on-crime-DA's in the state.

Drug abuse isn't just happening to those "other people" anymore. It's happening to our teachers, our prosecutors, our cops, our politicians, people in every walk of life. Treating it as a criminal instead of a medical problem makes things worse and doesn't solve any of the associated problems. The teacher in question is 51 and was functioning on the job; a leave of absence to attend a drug abuse program, plus a lot of support from her peers and community, and it's easily conceivable that in a year's time she could be back teaching, drug free, and able to contribute for quite a while longer during a time when Texas has a shortage of experienced teachers. Instead, she'll be criminally charged with possession of 1-4 grams of meth, which is a third degree felony that will get her 2-10 years.

What a waste. And the waste isn't a result of her poor decisions, it's a result of bad public policy.

Have we become so heartless, so absorbed with "gotcha" strategies and the phony high-ground of moralizing about zero tolerance that, even when we're talking about a school teacher with 27 years in the same distict, no public sympathy may be mustered at all on this woman's behalf? Recently, juries in that county have been routinely doling out max sentences for low-level drug users, and I wouldn't be surprised if the locals decide to make her an example.

I wonder, if Jesus Christ himself walked into the Wichita Falls school district offices and announced, "Let those among you who are without sin cast the first stone," if every SOB in the room wouldn't pick up a rock and fling it with all their might? Or for that matter, the offices of the Times Record News?

Friday roundup

The Texans for Medical Marijuana lobby day got good coverage in the Dallas News, and the Houston Chronicle ran the AP story.

The Statesman ran a piece on HB 47 filed by House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee Chairman Terry Keel, R-Austin, to fine counties that don't make arrest and search warrant affidavits public. Grits covered the bill here.

A sex crimes case involving a police supervisor who oversaw the sex crimes unit has been forwarded to a Bexar County grand jury in San Antonio, reports the Express News, which also reports that the Senate Criminal Justice Committee doesn't see much cost savings from deporting foreigners in Texas prisons.

El Paso generates $22+ million in traffic revenue, reports the Times, and the city has put all its traffic ticket information online, searchable, including who has outstanding warrants, etc. You need a date of birth to search by name.

Dead Messenger Talking

Texas may have shot the messenger regarding reform of its chock-full prison system, as Texas Observer editor Jake Bernstein asserts in the title of his interview with former Criminal Justice Policy Council director Tony Fabelo in the February 18 edition. But they've adopted his message: reform the probation system and quit incarcerating so many non-violent offenders.

The article is not online yet. (UPDATE: Up now, here.) It just came in yesterday's mail.

Tony Fabelo has been considered the premier expert on Texas' prison system as long as I've been engaged in the subject. He'd studied the topic literally since his doctoral thesis, then joined the Criminal Justice Policy Council immediately out of college. He worked closely and well with then-Governor George Bush, but Gov. Rick Perry unceremoniously fired him with a line item veto after he'd (correctly) predicted Texas' current prison overincarceration crisis. (See a good Austin Chronicle piece on the subject here.) In retrospect, Perry probably did Fabelo a financial mitzvah: he's now a consultant to many different states and to Puerto Rico, he told me once.

Fabelo may not be studying Texas professionally anymore, but he still has a learned opinion, and he thinks Texas won't be any safer by incarcerating more people, especially non-violent drug offenders. New York, he noted, has reduced crime more significantly than Texas while their incarceration rates aren't nearly as steep. "If we build more prisons and build 8,000 more prison beds, and that would cost a lot of money nowadays, probably over $1 billion, are you going to get dramatic increases in crime? The answer is no. [We] won't."

Fabelo said Texas' overincarceration solution is obvious (BTW, the fix he describes is embodied in HB 575 by Haggerty, R-El Paso), but "It hasn't been applied because you will need funding to replace all those [probation] fees that you're not going to have when you cut probation terms." That's why the state must pony up more money to make it work, he said.

But the solution is very clear: First you need to cut probation terms. We're talking non-violent offenders. We're not talking about sex offenders. Most of the probationers are non-violent offenders. So you cut the terms, have very strong supervision for the first year. Strong supervision means not only the guy knocking on your door, but making sure you go to the counseling that you need and all that jazz. If you survive that first year, we're going to put you in another year with lower supervision and see if you survive the second year, and if you do, you're off the hook. You've done good. Studies have shown -- I'm doing some work in Virginia -- 79 percent of the violations that lead to revocation occur in the first eight months. So most of the stuff happens in the first year, and you can do another year just ot make sure that now they can follow the rules. If you do that, you'll cut probation substantially.

High caseloads and overly long probation terms have made Texas probation system inefficient, Fabelo said, describing a system apparently designed to maximize fees from probationers instead of provide them incentives not to re-offend.

So we have a system that -- if you're a probationer and you get in trouble, you don't get a lot of services, you don't get a lot of attention that can help you get out of trouble. In particular, attention with employment problems, substance abuse problems, and so forth. On the other hand, if you're doing well on probation, you stay on probation forever because you're paying fees and they generate money for they system. Half of the funding for the system comes from fees paid by probationers.

Fabelo said he thought private prisons could play a transitional role in Texas, but in the long run Texas needed to own the facilities, because privates cost "less now and more later." (That's the kind of talk that gets your agency line-item vetoed.)

There's a lot more, though no new info about why the agency was terminated. The mild-mannered Fabelo brushes off an opportunity to take a shot at Perry for firing him, accepting on face value the Governor's assertion that Fabelo had done such a great job, the prison system was fixed and there was no need for his services any longer.

Tony, you're a class act.

ALSO: Rev. Alan Bean has a piece in the same issue of the Observer on the Tom Coleman perjury trial, which he guest blogged for Grits in January.

Left unconsidered about drug task forces

National Public Radio's All Things Considered failed to consider one side of the story in their piece today on President Bush's proposed cuts to the federal Byrne grant program. They gave voice to complaints by Democrats and law-enforcement pork recipients decrying the cuts to Tulia-style drug task forces as devastating to the drug war, but didn't quote civil rights activists and drug policy reformers who want the unaccountable pseudo-entities gone.

Also left unconsidered was the notion that, given these task forces' egregious record, the President's proposed budget cut to this law enforcment "entitlement" program might actually be a good thing. Grits has considered that possibility, and embraced it. (For all you liberals who can't stomach the idea President Bush might have proposed a good budget cut: Get over it. Even a stopped clock is right twice per day.)

We've seen dozens of scandals here in Texas involving drug task forces, starting with the case in Tulia, though they're not just a Texas problem. It turns out they aren't very effective. The Texas Department of Safety was told to rein them in back in 2002, but they were never given the needed authority, and DPS management of the task force system has been a mess from the start. As the public became aware of their accountability and liability problems, support for drug task forces generally has been dwindling in Texas.

It's not just President Bush, though, who wants drug task forces de-funded. The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee wants to abolish the drug task force system, according to the unanimous recommendation in its December report. Texas has identified a variety of critical needs that the same grant money could be spent on.

I hope they do just that.

Watching them watching us

Somebody pointed me to this comment I hadn't seen from the Texas Prosecutors' Association website describing ACLU's and LULAC's criminal justice reform agenda. Except for his unfounded "decriminalization" slap, they're not far off on the wish list.

ACLU & Company. Those of you who’ve been watching the Lege for awhile might have noticed that the criminal defense bar (as a group) has become less active over the past few sessions. That void is increasingly being filled by the Texas chapters of the ACLU, LULAC, and others. Since they’re usually kind enough to publicize their legislative agenda, I thought I’d give you a taste of their “wish list” this session, which includes:

• State seizure of prosecutors’ discretionary funds to pay for counseling and treatment programs in local communities
• De-criminalization or reduction of the penalties for drug offenses
• Shorten probation terms (3-5 years max.) and end revocations for technical violations
• Prohibit consent searches and arrests for Class C offenses
• Eliminate regional drug task forces and prohibit officers from making arrests outside their geographic jurisdictions
• And more …

[last updated: January 7, 2005]

Grits Truth

Final-conflict-alert-for-a-while-because-I'm-tired-of-writing-"conflict alert": As the legislative session kicks into high gear, let me reiterate that most Texas legislation I write about are all bills supported, opposed, or monitored by ACLU of Texas, with whom I am employed as a consultant part time. That employment affiliation has always been permanently affixed in the right-hand column of this blog, but it is about to change, which is the other reason perhaps it's a good time for an overarching "conflict alert." Legislation and issues I'm writing about are mostly stuff ACLU is working on, and many are bills on which I'm lobbying or even up at the Lege testifying about. In other cases the people working them at the capitol are folks I work with through ACLU's legislative committee.

Here's the bottom line skinny on my employment and non-employment relations with ACLU: This is the third legislative session that I've volunteered to lobby on behalf of the group at the Texas Legislature, along with 15-20 others on the ACLU legislative commitee. I've volunteered for ACLU for five years, and on criminal justice stuff as my primary focus for my volunteer time 11 years total. But for the first time since 2003 I began to receive income from ACLU through grants and as a part-time consultant, focused narrowly on specific projects. I'm not paid to lobby. I don't office there and maintained other clients through the election season. But starting later this year, according to a state board vote last weekend, I'll actually join the ACLU more formally as half-time staff working on police accountability. I'll let you know when the i's are dotted. I plan to still take on a few, but fewer, election clients, performing opposition and defensive research. And I suppose I'll have to check the state lobby regs to see if I need to register as a lobbyist -- you don't have to when you're going up there on your own time.

Nobody pays me to blog (though I may try to convince ACLU of Texas to start one if they ever get the web site together), but I'm certainly often blogging about ACLU's issues. That's what I care about. It's why I volunteer virtually every spare moment to the group, and to the cause of Texas criminal justice reform. This ain't the MSM and I ain't fair and balanced, striving instead for the lower bar of merely reasonable and coherent. But I work on police accountability for ACLU and I have a point of view. Let a prosecutor blog the same topics and you'd get a different perspective. Then, I thought that's the point of blogs, which is why the conflict of interest charge for bloggers, to use Alberto Gonzalez' famous phrase regarding the Geneva Conventions, seems a tad "quaint" regarding the genre.

Anyway, re-reading the post about harm reduction legislation, I thought I ought to restate that "conflict" in general terms, if indeed it's a conflict for someone working on political issues to write down what they see and think on a web site with full disclosure. This blog is essentially an extended op-ed, a "working manifesto," as my friend Tom put it. I doubt that too many readers have been confused, and certainly hope not. I try to source my stuff and admit my errors. Like so many of us, I'm out there looking for Truth with a capital T, combing through the endless barrage of facts we're exposed to, looking for meaning, and on those rare, happy occasions when I find some, I try to let you, gentle readers immediately know. But most Grits' posts document the search, not the discovery. The sands of Truth too often shift beneath us precariously and, at bottom, you'll rarely find here absolute Truth, mostly just Grits Truth.

Last chance to vote

UPDATE: Voting is over. We were among the top vote getters and are awaiting results. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Wampum's Best of the Left Awards close on Friday, and Grits has been nominated as Best Single Issue Blog. Their website went down for a day or so this week after I'd posted an earlier notice, so I thought I'd remind readers who might have tried to vote and couldn't. Their site is back up.

To vote, click here and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to the comments section. You'll have to enter a name and valid email address then just write "Grits for Breakfast" in the comments box and press the button labeled "Post."

I really appreciated everybody who voted for Grits in the semi-finals. This is the homestretch push, so if you think Grits is the Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, give us some love.

Today: Texans for Medical Marijuana Lobby Day

Texans for Medcial Marijuana is having their lobby day today in Austin at the state capitol to support HB 658, a bill providing an affirmative defense to marijuana charges for patients whose doctors recommended its use. The bill has bipartisan joint-authorship (Naishtat/Keel) and support from 75% of Texans. Check out TMM's fact sheet (pdf) in support of the bill, and if you happen to find yourself in the Texas capitol building, check out their great display set up in the hallways of (I think it's) the first underground extension.

The Dallas News rightly thinks the bill doesn't go far enough, but it's a good first step for Texas. To keep on top with what's happening in Texas to support passage medical marijuana legislation, sign up for TMM's excellent, low-volume, high-impact email alerts. TMM's Noelle and Karen and doing a first-rate job educating the Legislature (the public is already there) about the the irrationality of forbidding medical use of something doctors want to prescribe.

Whispers in the halls: Texas' other big harm reduction bill, Sen. Lindsay's (R-Houston) SB 127 that would allow a local option for needle exchange, may have a companion bill filed in the House soon. Stay tuned for more on that as things progress.

Are you man enough to be a Texan?

I've been writing recently about proposed bills, but here's a little gem I'd never seen before from Chapter 18 on Search Warrants (or in this case, the lack thereof) in the current Texas Code of Criminal Procedure:

Art. 18.16. [325] [376] [364] Preventing consequences of theft       

Any person has a right to prevent the consequences of theft
by seizing any personal property that has been stolen and
bringing it, with the person suspected of committing the theft,
if that person can be taken, before a magistrate for
examination,or delivering the property and the person
suspected of committing the theft to a peace officer for
that purpose.  To justify a seizure under this article,
there must be reasonable ground to believe the property
is stolen, and the seizure must be openly made and the
proceedings had without delay.

I'm not an attorney, and nothing in this blog, especially, heaven forbid, not this, should be taken as legal advice. But the way I read that, if somebody steals your stuff, "any person," really it doesn't even have to be their property, has the right to go "seize" the property, before notifying law enforcement, so long as you personally drag the stolen stuff, and preferably the perpetrator, "if that person can be taken" (read: "if you're man enough"), before a magistrate or to a cop so that "proceedings" can be held "without delay."

You gotta love this state, even if you need pretty big cojones to fully exercise your civic rights and responsibilities.

Red light camera ban moves despite Rodriguez flip

As Grits reported yesterday, the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee approved HB 259 by Rep. Gary Elkins banning the use of cameras to ticket red light runners. See coverage from the Dallas News and the Houston Chronicle, the latter of which quoted my testimony that the cameras should be referred to as the "government eye," and that city officials were "too cowardly" to raise taxes and so wanted the cameras to generate revenue.

As further evidence that tea-leaf reading is ill-advised in the Texas Legislature, three committee members switched their votes from when the bill came up in 2003. Reps Martha Wong, R-Houston, and Kevin Bailey, D-Houston, voted in favor of red light cameras in 2003, but voted against them yesterday, along with Chairman Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, and freshman Roy Blake, R-Nacogdoches. Austin Rep. Eddie Rodriguez's vote, quite disappointingly, flipped the OTHER direction. He joined freshman Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, in opposing Elkins' bill.

Bad vote, Eddie. Bad show.

The bill next must be approved by the House Calendars committee before going before the full Texas House, which in 2003 disapproved of the cameras on a 103-34 vote.

Probation proposals could stave off crisis

The Statesman's Mike Ward reports further on proposals to stave off Texas' overincarceration crisis by better utilizing the probation system, recounting testimony from Tuesday's meeting of the criminal justice subcommittee of House Appropriations. Also see extensive Grits coverage of the subject here.

Ending task force boosts drug enforcement in Lubbock

Since the demise of Lubbock's South Plains Narcotics Task Force, the number of drug arrests in that city has increased significantly, reports a local TV station. Mostly that's because police can focus on their own communities:

Monitoring narcotic activity takes manpower, and police say that's one way they've benefited from the break up of the South Plains Regional Narcotics Task Force.

The Lubbock Police Department was the largest entity involved in the Task Force before it ended in August. Agents were responsible for drug activity in 18 total counties, which they say can be hard to monitor. Now the police department is concentrating on the area they know best. ...

"We can get a whole lot more done right here, we can make several cases a day, where we were making several cases a week before.

So even for those who think the strategy of pursuing low-level users is an appropriate law enforcement tactic -- and their number does not include the author of this blog -- the drug task force system is drastically limiting the efficiency of Texas law enforcement.

Apparently busting drug users in Lubbock is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It's so easy, they aren't even trying to flip snitches anymore:

Lubbock narcotics officers are changing their tactics. In the past, if a person was arrested for narcotics, they were sometimes given the option of giving up information or going to jail. Now, (Lubbock PD Lt.) Shavers wants everyone to go to jail.

They also have several more cases pending., [sic] many are a result of being able to spend more time in Lubbock.

The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee in December recommended abolishing Texas' drug task force system, a move civil rights groups have advocated for several years. Now, it turns out that when a drug task force goes away, drug enforcement isn't diminished. Instead, the number of drug arrests actually increases. Plus the state has identified serious needs on which it could better spend the grant money that pays for these unaccountable pseudo-agencies.

So why does anybody want to keep these things around again?

Can I see your papers, comrade? No, not THOSE papers

Today's candidate for worst-legislation-I've-seen-yet has to be HB 516 by Betty Brown, R-Kaufman, which will be heard in the House Elections Committee today at 2 p.m.

Rep. Brown's legislation would add a new layer of paperwork and bureaucracy to the voter registration process for no other reason than to discourage people from registering.

HB 516 would require county clerks to gather copies of citizenship documentation from everyone who registers to vote. A Texas driver's license or ID card isn't good enough: If you're a Texan, take your driver's license out and look at it -- it doesn't say if you're a citizen.

That makes the proposed law unworkable for most voters. The most common forms of identification would no longer be adequate to register to vote. The bill says drivers licenses or ID cards issued by the Department of Public Safety could only be used for proof of voter eligibility if they stated whether or not the person had supplied proof of citizenship. Since Texas DPS' drivers licenses and ID cards do not include that information, they could not be used for that purpose. The only documents Texans could use to register to vote would be passports (which most people don't have), birth certificates (photocopies of which are easily forged), or naturalization papers.

I had to locate my own birth certificate recently. It took about 45 minutes of digging around in my files to locate a document I may not have laid eyes on in 15 years. I wonder how many people really have their birth certificate so easy to hand that this bill would cause them no inconvenience?

Voters already are required to supply the pertinent information about citizenship; if they must give a "copy" of records, that requires increased bureaucracy, increased labor, increased taxpayer cost, plus creates the need for long-term storage of what will soon become immense stacks of paper.

Here's the part that turns this into a most-ridiculous-bill candidate: HB 516 would require re-engineering every voter registration form in the state to include an envelope that allows people to send in documentation along with their voter registration card. That's a huge expense, yet the bill carries no fiscal note. That means the costs will be borne by the counties if it is enacted.

Plus there's no records retention policy in the bill. How long must these documents be maintained, who may access them, and for what purpose? The bill is silent on all these questions. County courthouses across the state are already leasing extra space to store records. Even in small towns, one frequently must now go to a separate annex -- many of them seem to be in old Safeway storefronts, curiously -- in order to view real property records and other holdings of the county clerk. This bill gives them more paper to store, paper for which there is no stated use.

Who will ever look at this material, and why? Other means using matching databases are easier for checking citizenship than combing through paper documentation for each individual voter, the same way aggregated lists are matched to purge felons and deceased voters. All the bill really seems to accomplish is to make it more difficult to register to vote.

Finally, another huge oversight: As written, the documents given for proving citizenship would all be open records. This bill is an identity theft nightmare waiting to happen.

It used to be that Republicans were for small government, less bureaucracy, fiscal conservatism and government efficiency. HB 516, though, is further evidence that today, it's Big Government Conservatism that's in vogue.

Rick Roach: A bigger fool or hypocrite?

"If I'm ever a prosecutor again, which will never happen, I would be much less Rambo-ish and more compassionate in the way I handle an offense, particularly for users," meth-head Panhandle prosecutor Rick Roach told the New York Times in an extensive article.

It's hard to know if Roach is a bigger fool or a bigger hypocrite. You be the judge.

As evidence of foolishness, Roach told the Times he had contemplated a patent for mixing meth and "performance enhancing" prescription drugs to boost his libido, which he said had declined due to taking medicine cabinet full of drugs for depression he'd bought without prescriptions over the Internet.

"They were all debilitating on my libido, which created problems with my wife," he said. Viagra, he said, left him with a splitting headache. He said that in Breckenridge he had started injecting methamphetamine, finding eventually that, mixed with the sexual enhancer Levitra, it had the desired effect.

"I was going to patent it," he said with a hollow laugh. "I'm definitely a mixed-up person."

Still, though foolishness has made a strong case, I think hypocrisy might still win out. Check out the lead to the Times' story:

No one prosecuted the war on drugs in the Texas Panhandle more zealously than Richard James Roach. As the blustery and hot-tempered Republican district attorney for five counties overrun with methamphetamines, he had eked out an election victory in 2000 vowing a crackdown and was soon gleefully reeling off the harsh sentences he had wrung from juries: 36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said.

He had barely missed riding the issue to victory in an earlier race. "My campaign is centered around doing something with the dope dealers," he told a local newspaper in 1996, complaining that "it's kind of hard to fight drugs when you've got dirty law enforcement."

Hmmmm. Dirty law enforcement? Yeah, that'd be terrible.

Roach was one of the most aggressive pursuants of drug-related asset forfeiture cases among all District Attorneys in the state. Now, investigators want to know what happened to the money, reported the Times:

Officials also were looking into his handling of millions of dollars in cash confiscated from drug traffickers along the Interstate 40 corridor that skirts the sparsely populated counties of Gray, Wheeler, Roberts, Hemphill and Lipscomb, where only 33,500 people live, fewer than 8 per square mile.

Rick Roach isn't a typical prosecutor, but among officialdom he was a tolerated one. His employees knew he was taking drugs, the voters and his political opponents suspected it, but he was just re-elected in November. He'd still be prosecuting today if it hadn't turned out his secretary was a snitch for the DEA and the FBI.

For more see the links here. Via Talk Left

CLARIFICATION: A police officer friend emails to correct my usage of the word "snitch" regarding Roach's secretary: "A snitch is someone who provides information for a profit - either being for money, leniency, or favorable treatment. All other people are simply witnesses who have come forward for no personal gain." Point well taken.

Opposing red-light cameras

This morning at 8 a.m., I'll be at the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee to testify in support of Rep. Gary Elkins HB 259, which disallows the use of surveillance cameras at Texas intersections for traffic enforcement. See here for earlier Grits coverage of the upcoming hearing. I thought folks might want to see the text of the ACLU of Texas fact sheet I walked around to committee members yesterday, with a few hyperlinks added where I had them to hand.

UPDATE: HB 259 was voted favorably out of committee this afternoon.

Support HB 259 (Elkins) Banning Red Light Cameras

Red light cameras are unfair, they increase injury accidents,
soak the taxpayers, and pave the way for privacy abuses.

Red Light Cameras Increase Injury Accidents

A study released in January of all seven red light camera systems in Virginia found that the number of injury accidents has increased since they were installed.

The New York Times reported last month that "rear-end accidents have shot up at intersections with cameras."

Revenue Generation is Real Motive
Houston officials say they would accept more cash from the Legislature in lieu of red light cameras. The New York Times reported last month: "there has been criticism of the cameras' use to generate revenue from fines … and of revenue sharing arrangements with providers of the technology. Those arrangements, critics contend, have led to the placement of cameras not necessarily where they would promote safety, but where they will rack up the most violations."

Picture Snapped Doesn't Mean Guilt
Red light cameras give the ticket to the wrong person unless the owner of the car is driving. If someone driving a rental car runs a red light, will the rental company pay? If not, why not?

Even if a picture is taken, camera systems may target the wrong people. Houston's EZ-Pass system last year was capturing snapshots of vehicles that failed to pay their tolls, but the Houston Press reported they sometimes sent tickets to the wrong people.

Surveillance Cameras Are Prone To Abuse
Many camera systems zoom in and out and can rotate to view sidewalks or even inside neighboring buildings. Traffic cameras are designed to take high-definition photographs of license plates from a moving vehicle. That means they can photograph inside cars, too, if the operators choose to do so.

In 2003, in response to 9/11, the Texas Legislature made all information about location, specifications and operating procedures from surveillance cameras secret. ACLU believes that bill went too far, since now no one can know what video data the government gathers about them or what is being done with it. It would be unwise to massively expand the scope of government surveillance without fixing that statute to allow greater public accountability. There have been many examples of abuses:

In China, cameras installed ostensibly for traffic enforcement were used to identify and persecute dissidents after the Tiananmen Square uprising.

1 in 10 women were targeted for voyeuristic reasons by male camera operators in a study of London's infamous surveillance camera system.

Thanks readers! You put Grits in Wampum's Koufax final!

Wow, that's cool. Grits has made the finals of Wampum's Best-of-the-Left "Koufax Award" for the category of Best Single Issue blog (the Texas Justice System). Charles Kuffner nominated me, so thanks both to him and to readers who voted. Go here to vote for Grits using the comments section at the end of the post, and check out the other fine blogs listed there, too. The finals list is filled with real heavy hitters. Having only been up and running for a little over four months, it's quite an honor to be listed on the same chart with folks I read and respect like Jeralyn and Juan Cole.

I've gotten a lot of nice compliments recently on the blawg, all of which I appreciate a lot. And I'm gratified to note that Grits had its 20,000th visitor sometime yesterday (since I added the site meter on 10-28). But perhaps the best compliment Grits received this week, after making Wampum's finals, was from Doc Berman of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, who called my coverage of Texas' sentencing issues "masterful" (even if he did alter the quote he chose to omit the honorific Grits has playfully adopted for him -- he's not really a Ph.D., he protests). I appreciate that. I'm sometimes writing about some very obscure stuff, and often wonder how many people really care about the ins and outs of the prison budget or how proposed probation legislaton would work. It's nice to know somebody with some chops on the issue thinks what I'm doing is valuable.

Anyway, blogging will be light today, so head over to Wampum to vote for Grits to be Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, then come back and check out the good stuff I put up for you over the weekend. And thanks for stopping by.

UPDATE: Wampum's site was down for a bit and the links didn't work. It's back up now, though, so if you tried to vote and couldn't, please give it another shot. Thanks, sh

McCall: Police shouldn't track vehicles without subpoena

Should law enforcement be able to get information about your car -- e.g., where your vehicle has traveled and when, where you're going right now and how fast, how well you're driving -- from a private commercial service without your consent or a judge's review?

I'm happy to report that at least one member of the Texas House of Representatives thinks the answer should be "no," and his bill to fix the situation was one of the first ones heard in committee this session. HB 160 is a good bill by Texas House member Brian McCall, R-Plano, which provides two new privacy protections for consumers. It would require formal disclosure about the details of any tracking system, like the much-touted OnStar system, to people who purchse or rent a vehicle. And it would require law enforcement agents to obtain a subpoena to retrieve information tracked about newer cars by commercial services.

Information that would be restricted from law enforcement without a subpoena includes a litany of things most people never consider that someone else might be tracking:

• Speed and direction the vehicle is going
  
• History of where the vehicle travels
• Records about steering and brake performance
• Seat belt status

The bill also covers any device that "transmits information concerning the accident to a central communications system."

There's no good reason for police to get that kind of personal information about our movements without asking a judge. And nobody should be tracked by the government or some private business without being told. I'd like it even better if the bill said the consumer had to be able to turn the tracking system entirely off. I'd also prefer that a full-blown search warrant be required instead of just a subpoena.

The bill in its current form, though, is a dramatic improvement over the status quo, which just allows police to pick up the phone and ask for the information informally.

The bill was left pending last Monday, Feb. 8, after a public hearing in the House Transportation Committee.