Australian Police Officials Smacked Around By Judge For Support Of Illegal Surveillance Of A 'Closed' Facebook Account
from the too-much-power-for-tiny-men-with-easily-bruised-egos dept
A New South Wales cop is finally facing punishment for illegally accessing a Facebook account to perform illegal surveillance, but it took a trip to court to make it happen.
A private Facebook account belonging to Rhys Liam Halvey (under the name “Rhys Brown”) was surveilled by NSW Police Senior Constable Daniel Moss after it came to his attention that it contained “derogatory” posts. Moss used someone else’s login information to access the closed account (likely one of Brown’s “friends”) and see what was being posted. This began in late 2013 and continued until March of 2014 when a “string” of “derogatory” posts appeared.
The content of the supposedly derogatory posts is laughable and far from what anyone but the most small-minded police force would view as “criminal.”
They featured a NSW Police infringement notice together with photographs of several serving officers, taken in a Sydney street setting.
One image carried a large sum of cash and words to the effect of: “Here’s my $25,000 for your $101 fine.” Another image depicted Miley Cyrus “twerking” in front of an officer.
Nevertheless, the posts did result in charges against Halvey, who has never admitted ownership of the surveilled “Rhys Brown” account.
Rhys Liam Halvey was arrested and charged with three counts of using a carriage service to offend police and a further three counts of publishing an indecent article.
Despite having no legal authority to perform this surveillance, the NSW police force supported Moss’s actions. Statements were entered by one of the “highest ranking police officers in the state,” and when cautioned by a judge for their illegal activity, police supervisors doubled down on protecting Moss from the consequences of his actions.
Not only did they offer two sworn affidavits in support of his actions, they also claimed that any further public discussion of the methods used by Moss to perform his illegal surveillance would be “injurious” to the “public interest.”
The judge was not impressed.
In ordering costs against police, Magistrate Brown described the conduct as “reprehensible” and the charges as “trivial.”
“There is no difference to the police trespassing on a Facebook page for four months and my steaming open my neighbour’s mail in the hope of one day finding something, anything, to report to police.”
The state’s rights advocacy agency also questioned the tactics used and the apparent willingness of senior law enforcement officials to support abusive behavior by constables under their supervision.
NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks said public confidence in the police was being “undermined” by an inability to acknowledge the occasions when “it does the wrong thing.”
“How deep in police culture is this willingness to break the law?” he asked. “Even after they have been caught out, it would appear no adverse consequences are going to be suffered by those responsible because the illegal actions are supported by police at the most senior level.”
Still, the NSW Police managed to have the last word… by preventing anything further from being said. When the judge refused to indulge their request to keep discussions of Moss’s surveillance methods from entering the public record, the law enforcement agency withdrew the case and handed over $14,429 in costs to Halvey… and then walked away from the mess promising to investigate actions it had known about since November of 2013.
Filed Under: australia, daniel moss, police, rhys liam halvey, social media, surveillance
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Comments on “Australian Police Officials Smacked Around By Judge For Support Of Illegal Surveillance Of A 'Closed' Facebook Account”
#1 problem for public relations
NSW Council of Civil Liberties president Stephen Blanks said public confidence in the police was being “undermined” by an inability to acknowledge the occasions when “it does the wrong thing.”
“How deep in police culture is this willingness to break the law?” he asked. “Even after they have been caught out, it would appear no adverse consequences are going to be suffered by those responsible because the illegal actions are supported by police at the most senior level.”
No matter what the country, it seems the problem with the police remains the same. They care more about protecting their own, no matter how bad the actions are, than protecting their reputations and relationship with the public.
So long as they continue to prioritize protecting their own over protecting the public from their own, people will continue to be fully justified in not trusting them and wanting to have as little to do with them as possible.
Re: #1 problem for public relations
It is such an unfortunate thing that I have to say this.
Hear, Hear
Re: "How deep in police culture is this willingness to break the law?"
In the US that willingness extends to murder, torture, perjury, theft, rape, drug distribution, and apparently every other criminal law on the books.
It is a crime to intentionally try and offend police? When did that get passed
Re: Re:
I imagine it’s a variant of ‘contempt of cop’, one of those ‘laws’ that the police don’t want to bother the lawmakers with actually adding to the books, so they just ‘enforce’ it at their own discretion.
However, if you’re looking for a more literal answer, widen the scope of the question a bit and in Spain at least the answer would be July 1st, 2015.
No matter what the country, it seems the problem with the police remains the same. They care more about protecting their own, no matter how bad the actions are, than protecting their reputations and relationship with the public.
The root of the problem lies in “confirmation bias”. Police recruitment procedures tend to prefentially attract and select individuals who are particularly prone to this problem – when in fact they should reject such people.
To be fair there are many senior officers who are aware of this and are taking steps to counter it (and many related failings) see for example this article:
It does seem strange to me that when excellent articles like the one I linked are circulating within the senior law enforcement community we still have cases like that described by Tim here.
let’s hear it for magistrate brown. .isn’t it a delight to know that some somewhere don’t turn a blind eye to wanton and, in this case, silly misuse of office.
the law enforcement agency withdrew the case and handed over $14,429 in costs to Halvey… and then walked away from the mess promising to investigate actions it had known about since November of 2013
You know, if you and I commit any crime I have some serious doubts we’d be able to settle and walk away like that. Am I the only one that thinks this is a complete travesty and that both the cop and the PD should be prosecuted to the bitter end EVEN if the victim decides to withdraw?
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Yes and no.
Yes I’d love for them to be told, “Yeah, you don’t get to duck out of this that easy by just dropping the case, we’re dragging you through the coals for this so you learn what not to do the next time it comes up.”
No in the sense that it would need to be done without the presence of the victim, who may just want to get past the ugly incident, as it would be unfair to punish them as well. Dragging someone through a trial that they just want to forget about would be adding salt to the wound.
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You got me wrong. The victim may choose to withdraw. The case should move on without them in this case and the involved parties should be punished because this will be the only way to really benefit the citizenry as a whole. The Government itself should carry on with the prosecution.
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If it could be managed such that the case can go on without the victim being involved, with the focus shifting entirely towards trying the cops involved, then sure, I’d love to see that.
The NSW cops can show the USA cops how to corruptly operate.
Such as booking interstate drivers for speeding whilst sandwiched between locally registered vehicles that aren’t speeding simply because they know that when you reside thousands of KM’s away and are on holiday you aren’t going to bother contesting the fine in court a few weeks later. Ka-Ching goes the state coffers, never mind about giving visitors a bad taste of local hospitality.
Unfortunately the NSW cops have had a very long history of corrupt behaviour & only beat their northern colleagues in Queensland by a whisker, & those banana-bender cops have been dragged through the courts in a few very public cases, including going right up to the top cop of the day.
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And then there’s the crap that happens in Vic where the cops don’t give a shit about if the car speedo says “90km/h”, as long as the radar unit says “91km/h” or higher they’ll try and book you without taking into account the variances between car speedos (which the driver has to rely on) & their “oh-so-precise” tech toy.
I had to drive down to a convention in Melbourne (living in Riverina NSW) back in Feb ’14, and the traffic both in-city and rural was often sitting ~10km/h UNDER the damn speed limit (so crawling at 40km/h in a 50km/h zone or 90km/h on a 100km/h highway) just so people wouldn’t get pinged by chance of faulty radar going the legal limit.
Just think of all of the prosecutions & fines they can levy now that the public will be discussing exactly how corrupt their officers are.
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