fired for not ringing the door bells for Thomas Suozzi, Teresa Butler sues and collects and buries the...under a protective order in. OTB employees and the citizens of NY deserve better?
unseal this Owsley?
Butler v. Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting ... - Justia
dockets.justia.com › ... › New York › New York Eastern District Court
Apr 9, 2007 - Plaintiff: Teresa Butler. Defendant: Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation, Board of Trustees of Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting .Long-Term Secrecy Surrounds Electronic Monitoring
Recent Unsealing Shows How Applications Are Kept Hidden Long After Cases Are Closed
Updated Sept. 30, 2014 7:17 p.m. ET
As more people use cellphones and email, prosecutors
increasingly are using tools for monitoring those communications in
criminal investigations.
Associated Press
A federal judge's recent unsealing of
a secret government request for electronic monitoring shines a light on
how such applications are kept hidden from the public long after
criminal cases that result from them are closed.
The Sept. 2 order, by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, came after Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, filed motions
in a Texas federal court to unseal 14 cases as part of an investigation
into the confidentiality of such surveillance applications.
The
unsealed request for monitoring, involving a drug-trafficking case, was
filed on Oct. 30, 2007. It sought approval for a "pen register," a
common surveillance tool that records dialed phone numbers and Internet
addresses. The subject named in the application pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to engage in money laundering and was sentenced in 2012 to
two years, nine months in prison.
As
more people use cellphones and email, prosecutors increasingly are using
tools for monitoring those communications in criminal investigations.
Federal courts allowed a pen register 18,760 times in 2012, more than
triple that in 2003, Justice Department data show.
The
government also routinely asks that the applications for such matters
be sealed, a move that ends up keeping documents permanently secret in
courts across America. Though judges have long kept matters from the
public in national-security cases and continuing probes, the spreading
move to permanent secrecy of more commonplace criminal cases contradicts
a long U.S. tradition of open courts, according to some legal
specialists.
"The broader message here
is that the government is keeping stuff sealed too long even if it had a
basis for sealing stuff initially," said Brian Owsley, a former
magistrate judge who initially sealed the Texas case at issue and now is
an assistant law professor at Indiana Tech Law School.
The
U.S. maintains that long-term secrecy surrounding
electronic-surveillance matters is paramount, even if the criminal cases
that stem from it are resolved or closed. Without explanation, the
government didn't oppose the application recently unsealed. A Justice
Department spokesman declined to comment on the case but said as a
general matter that sealing requests is "an individualized process."
A June page-one article in the Journal detailed Mr. Owsley's unsuccessful efforts to unseal 146 of his own orders that had approved government requests for secret electronic surveillance in criminal probes.
Dow Jones continues to seek to unseal 13 other electronic-surveillance orders handled by Mr. Owsley in the same court, an effort the government is fighting.
"This
pervasive secrecy is particularly troubling given the widespread public
interest in issues relating to government surveillance and the privacy
of electronic communications," Dow Jones said in a legal filing.
In
legal papers objecting to the Dow Jones effort, the government said
such electronic surveillance orders "should be kept secret because they
reveal targets of the investigation, identify potential witnesses and
victims, and could allow subjects of the investigation to frustrate the
aims of the order by destroying evidence."
The
U.S. argued that secrecy is important even after any subsequent
criminal investigations are closed. "These matters are reviewed on a
case by case basis and decisions are made individually based on a
variety of factors," a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office for
the southern district of Texas said in a statement.
Another
Texas federal judge, Hayden Head, had blocked Judge Owsley's initial
attempt to unseal his orders. Judge Head, since retired, didn't return
calls seeking comment. Earlier this year, he told the Journal that the
only proper way to unseal the orders would be after careful review on a
"case-by-case basis."
Write to Michael Siconolfi at michael.siconolfi@wsj.com
After leaving Columbia University, he clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and for the Honorable Janis Graham Jack of the Southern District of Texas. He served as the Leonard H. Sandler Fellow at Human Rights Watch where he worked on matters involving the Middle East, particularly Iraq. He also served as a Law Fellow for the Southern Poverty Law Center. He drafted appellate briefs and argued appeals on behalf of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in United States Courts of Appeals around the country.
He also served as a civil trial lawyer for the United States Department of Justice defending the Government in complex commercial litigation. As lead counsel in Columbia First Bank, FSB v. United States, he argued and was granted the first directed verdict in favor of the Government in a Winstar-related litigation case saving the taxpayers millions of dollars. While at the Department of Justice, he earned a Special Commendation for Outstanding Service awarded by the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division.
Most recently, he served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Texas where he presided over numerous civil and criminal bench and jury trials. He took pleas and sentenced criminal defendants in misdemeanor cases and issue countless opinions as well memoranda and recommendations on various dispositive motions. At the conclusion of his term, the Senate of the State of Texas issued a Commendation in a Senate Resolution recognizing his service as a magistrate judge.
He has published several law review articles on a range of topics. His article entitled The Fourth Amendment Implications of the Government’s Use of Cell Tower Dumps in Its Electronic Surveillance, was published last year in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, addressing novel issues about electronic surveillance using cell tower dumps. Moreover, his article entitled The Supreme Court Goes to the Dogs: Reconciling Florida v. Harris and Florida v. Jardines, which was published this year in the Albany Law Review, analyzes two recent Supreme Court decisions regarding drug-detection dogs. He has also recently published essays in the California Law Review Circuit and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online. He has forthcoming articles on electronic surveillance issues in the Hastings Law Journal and the Akron Law Review.
Brian Owsley
Assistant Professor of Law
Brian Owsley graduated from the University of Notre Dame with Honors. He attended Columbia University where he received a joint degree in law and a master in international affairs. While at Columbia Law School, he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and earned a Certificate with Honors from the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law. He served as the Executive Editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and was also a staff member of the Columbia Journal of Gender and the Law. He was a member of the Black Law Students Association and the Columbia Society of International Law.After leaving Columbia University, he clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and for the Honorable Janis Graham Jack of the Southern District of Texas. He served as the Leonard H. Sandler Fellow at Human Rights Watch where he worked on matters involving the Middle East, particularly Iraq. He also served as a Law Fellow for the Southern Poverty Law Center. He drafted appellate briefs and argued appeals on behalf of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in United States Courts of Appeals around the country.
He also served as a civil trial lawyer for the United States Department of Justice defending the Government in complex commercial litigation. As lead counsel in Columbia First Bank, FSB v. United States, he argued and was granted the first directed verdict in favor of the Government in a Winstar-related litigation case saving the taxpayers millions of dollars. While at the Department of Justice, he earned a Special Commendation for Outstanding Service awarded by the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division.
Most recently, he served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Texas where he presided over numerous civil and criminal bench and jury trials. He took pleas and sentenced criminal defendants in misdemeanor cases and issue countless opinions as well memoranda and recommendations on various dispositive motions. At the conclusion of his term, the Senate of the State of Texas issued a Commendation in a Senate Resolution recognizing his service as a magistrate judge.
He has published several law review articles on a range of topics. His article entitled The Fourth Amendment Implications of the Government’s Use of Cell Tower Dumps in Its Electronic Surveillance, was published last year in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, addressing novel issues about electronic surveillance using cell tower dumps. Moreover, his article entitled The Supreme Court Goes to the Dogs: Reconciling Florida v. Harris and Florida v. Jardines, which was published this year in the Albany Law Review, analyzes two recent Supreme Court decisions regarding drug-detection dogs. He has also recently published essays in the California Law Review Circuit and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online. He has forthcoming articles on electronic surveillance issues in the Hastings Law Journal and the Akron Law Review.
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