Harrasment of photographers
From Bwtm
Harrasment of photographers for taking photos in plublic places is becoming more common.
This article has grown to include harrasment of protesters and others.
Contents |
Photographers
White Plains, Westchester County, NY
March 21, 2006 As a freelance photographer, Ben Hider carries his camera with him just about everywhere, and so it was on Friday, as he was heading to the train station in White Plains he stopped to snap some beauty shots on the flags in front of the court house. That's when his trouble began.
Ben Hider, Photographer: "Three police officers ran at me, immediately, telling me to stop where I was."
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4012289
Torance CA
Judge calls Torrance police actions 'disturbing' in detention of photographer
Jan 24,2006 A federal judge on Monday urged better training for Torrance police after calling the conduct of officers involved in the April detention and search of a man who was taking photographs of a refinery "disturbing."
U.S. District Judge George King made his comment at the end of a hearing in a lawsuit filed by Redondo Beach resident Jim McKinniss, who contends that police patted him down, took pictures of him, took his thumbprint, and asked if he was a "terrorist" after he was taking photographs of the Exxon-Mobil refinery from a sidewalk along Prairie Avenue. He was not arrested.
NYCLU sues city over right to shoot video, pictures in public
The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city on Tuesday, challenging restrictions on people's right to photograph public places after an award-winning filmmaker from India was blocked from videotaping near the MetLife building.
In its lawsuit, the civil rights group highlighted the plight of Rakesh Sharma, who said he was left feeling ashamed and humiliated when he was detained in May 2005 after police saw him use a hand-held video camera on a public street in midtown Manhattan.
NYCLU sues city over right to shoot video, pictures in public
Portsmouth VA
In December of 2003 I was in Portsmouth Virginia. From the Jordan Bridge, Elm Ave. across the middle reach, you could see into the shipyard where the Enterprise had a huge lighted sign on it’s bow: “SEASONS GREETINGS”. By the bridge, there is a public park, on the east side of the reach; I went there during the day and from the sidewalk took some pictures of the carrier and the bridges. A gentleman accosted me for taking the pictures; when this happens to you it is a real shock; someone is accusing you of being a terrorist. He demanded my identification while he was just in street clothes, no uniform or id showing. I gave him one of my business cards and walked away, he was angry that I still had the photos.
Manchester, N.H. January 2006
There's a shiny new airport in Manchester, and I'm there to take pictures as part of an article I'm working on for that mouthpiece of liberal fascism, the Boston Globe. I've shot about six digital pictures, and I'm working on the seventh -- a nicely framed view of the terminal façade -- when I hear the stern "Excuse me." A young guy in a navy windbreaker steps toward me. It says AIRPORT SECURITY in block letters across his back. "You can't do that. You need to put the camera away."
War on Christmas
peace sign wreath
PAGOSA SPRINGS - After a firestorm of controversy, an area homeowners association is allowing a resident to hang a peace sign wreath.
Bill Trimarco told 9NEWS that late Monday night they found a letter on the front door of the home. In the letter, the homeowners association apologized for the misunderstanding and told the residents they did not have to take down the wreath.
Trimarco said he is grateful for the amount of support they have received from around the World. He told 9NEWS support has come from South America, troops in Baghdad and the Netherlands.
The homeowners association had originally said they would charge Lisa Jensen, the homeowner, $25 a day until she removed the peace sign shaped Christmas wreath after reported complaints from other residents.
Some had said the wreath is an Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.
Some residents who had complained have children serving in Iraq, Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs, told the Durango Herald. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.
"The peace sign has a lot of negativity associated with it," said Kearns. "It's also an anti-Christ sign. That's how it started."
Most researchers believe the symbol originated as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Kearns asked for the resignation of a five-member neighborhood panel that refused to cite Jensen. All five members resigned.
"Somebody could put up signs that say, 'Drop bombs on Iraq.' If you let one go up, you have to let them all go up," Kearns said.
Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. Jensen said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing."
"It was just a Christmas message for peace on Earth," she told 9NEWS Monday. "We didn't put it up as any kind of statement against the war at all."
Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines would have cost her about $1,000 and doubted she will be forced to pay them. Nevertheless, Jensen had said she would not take it down until after Christmas.
"Now that it has come to this, I feel I can't get bullied," she said. "What if they don't like my Santa Claus?"
"This (wreath) is such a small little thing. We weren't out to fight a battle or anything, but they're (HOA) not going to take that away just at somebody's whim," she said.
The association in this 200-home subdivision 270 miles southwest of Denver had sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and that the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive."
On Monday, the KYGO morning show told 9NEWS it got several calls from people who would be willing to pay the fine for Jensen.
She also said she had gotten many calls directly from people willing to pay any fines her.
"It's really overwhelming. I'm just so moved by people who reach out like that," said Jensen.
Kearns did not comment on the story directly to 9NEWS.
Political Sign Causes Flap In N.W. Albuquerque
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A political sign in an Albuquerque neighborhood is drawing criticism from neighbors.
The sign in Northwest Albuquerque shows President George W. Bush's name with a circle around it and a slash running through it. Some neighbors want it taken down, but the homeowner thinks it's a freedom of speech issue.
The homeowners association in the area said it doesn't agree with the sign but has not fined the homeowner.
Both sides said they are willing to go to court to resolve the matter.
http://www.koat.com/news/10472148/detail.html
Protesters
Reichert bragged about getting finger-waving bus driver fired
November 03, 2006 SEATTLE -- U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert bragged at a Republican Party picnic last summer that the day after a school bus driver flipped off President Bush, he called the district's superintendent, leaving picnic-goers with the impression that he was responsible for getting the driver fired.
That differs from a version of the story told by school district officials and Reichert's staff this week: that Reichert didn't speak to the superintendent for weeks, and that by the time he did, the bus driver had already been fired.
The 43-year-old single mother, whose name has not been released by the Issaquah School District or her union, was bringing a busload of middle-school children back from the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on June 16 when the president and Reichert drove slowly by in a motorcade on their way to a fundraiser. From the bus, stopped on an onramp to Interstate 5, the children waved; with the windows down in their car, Bush and Reichert waved back.
According to an audio recording of the event released by the state Democratic Party on Friday, Reichert gave the following account in a speech at the King County Republican Picnic on Aug. 12:
"And as the motorcade went by, the president and I drove by on I-5, the president was having a great time. He was waving at everybody, he waved at the kids. He got the biggest kick out of the kids leaning out the window to say hello to the president of the United States.
"The sad part of it is though, we got to the last bus - and I won't tell you which school district this was - the bus driver flipped the president off."
advertising The audience groaned.
"So the very next day, you know what I did? I called the superintendent of that school district and that bus driver no longer works for that school," Reichert, a former King County sheriff, said to applause. "That's the old sheriff part of me still around."
Michael Young, chairman of the King County GOP, said he could not confirm the authenticity of the recording. But he said if it is authentic, it is a "protected communication."
"I'm surprised. If they have a purloined copy, they need to surrender it right away," Young said.
Reichert, a freshman congressman who is in a tight re-election campaign against Democrat Darcy Burner, has used the anecdote on the campaign trail to illustrate there's a proper way and an improper way to disagree with the president. One can disagree with president while still showing respect to the office, he says.
In speaking with reporters this week for stories about the bus driver, who has filed a union grievance to get her job back, Reichert press secretary Kimberly Cadena said that Reichert didn't see the obscene gesture, but was told about it by Bush. Reichert mulled the incident over for a week before calling and leaving a message for Issaquah School District Superintendent Janet Barry.
Reichert and Barry then played "phone tag" for some time - a few weeks - and when they finally connected to discuss the matter, the bus driver had already been fired, Cadena said. The school district learned of the incident because the driver had bragged about it to her colleagues, not because Reichert reported it, she said.
Cadena did not immediately return a phone call or an e-mail seeking comment Friday.
School district spokeswoman Sara Niegowski said Friday that the bus driver was fired in early September - after Reichert's speech on Aug. 12 - but that the process of terminating her began the day of the incident.
Niegowski also said the firing was not about who the driver flipped off, but because she made the gesture in front of students.
Bill Dugovich, president of Council 2 of the Washington State Council of County and City Employees, disputed that Friday. No children saw the driver's gesture because she held her hand high out the window while the children were all looking at the president, he said. He added that when the district fired the woman in September, officials cited "a presidential aide" as the source of the complaint.
"She did this in a manner in which the kids clearly would not see it," Dugovich said. "She also apologized immediately to the school district. In 25 years I can't recall an instance where that type of incident would warrant that type of penalty."
Contrary to the superintendent's assertion that the incident was "part of a pattern of behavior with this particular bus driver," Dugovich said, "There is nothing in this lady's employment record would lead anybody to believe this was part of a pattern."
The only reprimands the woman had received related to her status as a single working mother, he said - "being late to work, that sort of thing."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Bush_Finger.html?source=mypi
Arrested Bush dissenters eye courts
When school was canceled to accommodate a campaign visit by President Bush, the two 55-year-old teachers reckoned the time was ripe to voice their simmering discontent with the administration's policies.
Christine Nelson showed up at the Cedar Rapids rally with a Kerry-Edwards button pinned on her T-shirt; Alice McCabe clutched a small, paper sign stating "No More War." What could be more American, they thought, than mixing a little dissent with the bunting and buzz of a get-out-the-vote rally headlined by the president?
Their reward: a pair of handcuffs and a strip search at the county jail.
Authorities say they were arrested because they refused to obey reasonable security restrictions, but the women disagree: "Because I had a dissenting opinion, they did what they needed to do to get me out of the way," said Nelson, who teaches history and government at one of this city's middle schools.
"I tell my students all the time about how people came to this country for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, that those rights and others are sacred. And all along I've been thinking to myself, 'not at least during this administration.'"
Their experience is hardly unique.
Similar things have happened at official, taxpayer-funded, presidential visits, before and after the election. Some targeted by security have been escorted from events, while others have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors that were later dropped by local prosecutors.
Now, in federal courthouses from Charleston, W.Va., to Denver, federal officials and state and local authorities are being forced to defend themselves against lawsuits challenging the arrests and security policies. While the circumstances differ, the cases share the same fundamental themes. Generally, they accuse federal officials of developing security measures to identify, segregate, deny entry or expel dissenters.
Jeff Rank and his wife, Nicole, filed a lawsuit after being handcuffed and booted from a July 4, 2004, appearance by the president at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston. The Ranks, who now live in Corpus Christi, Texas, had free tickets to see the president speak, but contend they were arrested and charged with trespassing for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts.
"It's nothing more than an attempt by the president and his staff to suppress free speech," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia, which is providing legal services for the Ranks.
"What happened to the Ranks, and so many others across the country, was clearly an incident of viewpoint discrimination. And the lawsuit is an attempt to make the administration accountable for what we believe were illegal actions," Schneider said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Bush_Protesters.html
Ferndale Cops Say: Don't Honk if You Want Bush Out.
Protesters might seek right to honk
War opponents call drivers' beeps form of free speech
Antiwar protesters demonstrate at 9 Mile and Woodward in Ferndale in August. The group stands on the corner every Monday, which led to two of the members being charged with threatening public safety. (WILLIAM ARCHIE/Detroit Free Press)
October 10, 2006 Two antiwar protesters arrested for disorderly conduct after waving signs encouraging drivers to honk in support of their cause said Monday that they now hope to challenge laws that prohibit drivers from honking as an expression of free speech.
The protesters plan to meet this week with Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, to decide whether to file a lawsuit that would ask a federal court judge to decide whether protesters encouraging drivers to honk is a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment.
Disorderly conduct charges were dismissed Oct. 3 against the two antiwar activists who were waving signs that Ferndale police argued were threatening public safety.
"I'm glad the case has been thrown out," said Victor Kittila, a 55-year-old Eastpointe resident who was arrested in July for carrying a sign that said, "Ferndale Cops Say: Don't Honk If You Want Bush Out."
Nancy Goedert, 73, who also was charged for carrying a sign with a similar message a few weeks later, said she is "glad to have that over with."
For nearly four years, Kittila, Goedert and others have protested the war every Monday at the corner of 9 Mile and Woodward.
Initially, they carried signs urging drivers to "Honk For Peace."
But, this summer, Ferndale police said they were getting complaints about the honking, and warned the protesters that they might be violating a city ordinance that says drivers should use their horns only in an emergency.
So, in response to police, the protesters changed the message on their signs -- encouraging drivers not to honk if they supported the antiwar message.
In July, police arrested Kittila, and later that month, they issued Goedert a citation.
The charge is a misdemeanor and, if convicted, they could have faced up to 93 days in jail and a $500 fine. Joe Plambeck, who was cited for tooting his horn at the intersection, was ticketed and faced a $110 fine. Instead, all three had the offenses wiped from their records.
Ferndale City Attorney Dan Christ dropped the charges in 43rd District Court in Ferndale after Kittila and Goedert agreed not to carry signs that encouraged honking.
Coincidentally, Christ acknowledged that the signs the protesters were waving when they were charged -- those urging drivers not to honk -- were OK. Kittila and Goedert said they plan to keep protesting with those signs.
So, in a sense, the case is back to where it started.
"Left open is the question whether a protester may constitutionally encourage individuals to honk," Steinberg said.
Christ said the cases were never about the protests, but about public safety.
On Monday, Ferndale Police Capt. Timothy Collins said that there has been much media attention -- and confusion -- about the cases, and he said he hopes that the mess goes away.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061010/NEWS03/610100372
Ferndale settles case with protesters
October 04, 2006 Charges against local antiwar protesters were dismissed Tuesday in a settlement reached with the City of Ferndale, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the National Lawyers Guild.
The protesters have picketed against the war in Iraq on the corner of 9 Mile and Woodward for about an hour each Monday evening for the past four years. Their signs urged drivers to honk in protest.
But, in July, two of the protesters were charged in 43rd District Court with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and inciting motorists to honk. The last charge is a violation of the city's no-honking ordinance.
Protesters Nancy Goedert, 73, of Ferndale and Victor Kittila, 55, of Eastpointe were carrying signs that read: "Police Say Don't Honk for Peace."
In the settlement, city officials agreed to dismiss the charges against Goedert and Kittila. City officials also agreed to return the signs, mug shots and fingerprint samples.
Goedert and Kittila agreed not to sue the city for damages. They also agreed not to carry or display signs encouraging motorists to honk unless a court deems it legal.
Goedert said Tuesday that she and the ACLU have agreed to file a federal lawsuit declaring the no-honking law unconstitutional.
She called the charges "totally ridiculous" and vowed to continue protesting.
"We will keep up the vigil for peace," Goedert said.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061004/NEWS03/610040451/1005
Granny ticketed in Ferndale sign flap
20 July, 2006 Nancy Goedert, 73, of Ferndale became the second protester in a matter of weeks to be issued a citation for demonstrating on the corner of 9 Mile and Woodward in Ferndale.
Goedert was cited Monday as she carried a sign that read "Police Say Don't Honk for Peace," mimicking Eastpointe resident Victor Kittila's sign that led to his arrest July 3.
He had been carrying a sign urging motorists to "Honk if You Want Bush Out," but Ferndale police had asked the activist to stop encouraging drivers to honk. So Kittila, 55, changed his message to "Ferndale Cops Say: Don't Honk if You Want Bush Out."
Drivers honked anyway.
Goedert, a member of the social justice group Raging Grannies, was cited for being disorderly because her sign incited motorists to honk, which violates a city noise ordinance.
Goedert said Kittila's arrest motivated her to carry the sign and prompted larger crowds of protesters to turn out. About 50 people showed up Monday and 300 on July 10. The gathering is usually about 12.
Police Capt. Timothy Collins said Wednesday the main concern was public safety.
"We just don't want people to entice people to honk," he said. "The reason being that we don't want to startle drivers. It took great pain to explain this to" protesters "and not to make it an anti-protesting thing."
Goedert said: "This is our First Amendment right. I think that we Americans have been in danger of losing our civil rights on the federal level all the way down."
William Wertheimer Jr., an attorney from Bingham Farms who specializes in First Amendment law, said key questions are whether honking is an expression of free speech or if it endangers people.
"People are asserting their First Amendment rights to say what they want to say, but the city has an interest in keeping noise down," he said.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060720/NEWS03/607200434/1005/NEWS
Peace activist arrested after Ferndale protest
07 July, 2006 "Ferndale Cops Say: Don't Honk if You Want Bush Out."
That message, scrawled in permanent marker on a piece of poster board, got antiwar activist Victor Kittila arrested in Ferndale -- a move some say violated his First Amendment rights. But police say he was breaking the law. Either way, he says that next Monday, he'll be back.
The Eastpointe resident is one of a handful of activists who meet for an hour weekly on Mondays at Woodward and 9 Mile to peacefully protest the war in Iraq. They had always carried signs urging motorists to "Honk for Peace."
But about three weeks ago, after receiving several complaints from motorists, Ferndale police asked the activists to stop encouraging drivers to honk their horns, which state laws say should be use only for necessary situations.
So, Kittila, 55, changed his message from "Honk if You Want Bush Out" to "Ferndale Cops Say: Don't Honk if You Want Bush Out."
"People still honked," said Kittila, who has been protesting at the site for two years. "The noise was deafening." And Monday, the Police Department took action. At about 6 p.m., after the protest, Kittila was walking to get ice cream with fellow activists, his wife and his 13-year-old daughter when an officer approached them. The officer was going to issue Kittila a ticket, but he resisted when the officer tried to take his sign, police said. Kittila, who said the officer threatened to use a stun gun, was arrested for disorderly conduct and later released on a $500 bond, police said. He has not yet been formally charged.
Ferndale Police Chief Michael Kitchen did not return calls for comment Thursday. But Sgt. Casey O'Loughlin said there has been a steady stream of complaints about the activists since they started protesting about four years ago. He said the honking sometimes confuses drivers, who might think there is an approaching emergency.
Kittila isn't sure whether he'll make a new sign for next week's protest because he now recognizes that the city has a noise ordinance, which he may have been violating by encouraging motorists to honk.
He said his protests help raise awareness about what's going on in the world. "Why have a roadside protest if someone can't honk to show support?" he said.
"It's the whole purpose of it," he said, even though Michigan's vehicle code indicates otherwise.
The code says drivers, when it is reasonably necessary to ensure safety, should give audible warning with their horns, but should not otherwise use them when upon a highway.
Kittila's attorney, Deborah Choly, likened the protest signs to "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper stickers. "It clearly is a violation of rights, and there was no crime committed," she said. "This sign was used as part of a political protest. It does not violate any norms of decency. It didn't even violate the request that the police had made of this group not to encourage drivers to honk."
Ferndale City Manager Tom Barwin said that through the years the protesters have received support and even encouragement from local elected officials. He said that two large protests earlier this year -- one related to the war, the other about national health care issues -- that were held in that intersection may have prompted the Police Department to more stringently enforce the state law to protect drivers.
Kim Redigan, 48, an activist who was with Kittila when he was arrested, said she was shocked because Ferndale police had always been supportive. She said they'd often honk or flash peace signs as they drove past.
"We were so dumbfounded by this," said Redigan, a Dearborn Heights resident. "We were blindsided." Barwin said officials in Ferndale -- which calls itself the city of peace -- would not violate someone's civil rights.
"People have the right of assembly," he said. "It's healthy."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060707/NEWS03/607070333&SearchID=73249977741378
At Wellesley, arrest over chalk writing leaves a mark
Wellesley College senior Hadley Smith began the night of April 12 with her hands full of rainbow-colored chalk and ended it in the town police station.
As part of the Wellesley College Peace Coalition, Smith, 22, and other students spent the early evening scrawling onto the town center's sidewalks peace signs and quotations from Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Someone followed them back to their dormitory, copied down the license plate number of the car Smith was driving, and contacted Wellesley police, according to the police report.
That led to an evening in jail for Smith and her fellow students, an experience that has led to misgivings on the campus of 2,300 students about the way police handled the incident. A spokesman for Wellesley police said the students were not mistreated.
Parker said college administrators suggested that students start up a dialogue with local police, but she has not followed up on the idea and has encouraged angry students to put their energies toward peace activism instead.
Our encounter with them demonstrated that they're not interested in dialogue," she said. I'm not giving up on them, but it was a very intimidating experience."
INTERNET
Teen questioned for online Bush threats
ACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page on MySpace.com. She posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.
It was too late.
Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.
The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.
On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.
"I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack - it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person," said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."
Her mother, Kirstie Wilson, said two agents showed up at the family's home Wednesday afternoon, questioned her and promised to return once her daughter was home from school.
After they left, Kirstie Wilson sent a text message to her daughter's cell phone, telling her to come straight home: "There are two men from the secret service that want to talk with you. Apparently you made some death threats against president bush."
"Are you serious!?!? omg. Am I in a lot of trouble?" her daughter responded. Moments later, Kirstie Wilson received another text message from her daughter saying agents had pulled her out of class.
Julia Wilson said the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.
"They yelled at me a lot," she said. "They were unnecessarily mean."
Spokesmen for the Secret Service in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., said they could not comment on the case.
Wilson and her parents said the agents were justified in questioning her over her MySpace.com posting. But they said they believe agents went too far by not waiting until she was out of school.
They also said the agents should have more quickly figured out they weren't dealing with a real danger. Ultimately, the agents told the teen they would delete her investigation file.
Assistant Principal Paul Belluomini said the agents gave him the impression the girl's mother knew they were planning to question her daughter at school. There is no legal requirement that parents be notified.
"This has been an ongoing problem," said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco.
Former Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis vetoed bills that would have required that parents give consent or be present when their children are questioned at school by law enforcement officers. A similar bill this year cleared the state Senate but died in the Assembly.
Julia Wilson plans to post a new MySpace.com page, this one devoted to organizing other students to protest the Iraq war.
"I decided today I think I will because it (the questioning) went too far," she said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_MySpace_Bush_Threat.html
Excessive Security
Beyond Fear
Over the last two years we've become obsessed with security, and put in place a whole host of policies and procedures that will do... exactly what? In his latest book, BEYOND FEAR, security expert Bruce Schneier explains how security really works. The key is to think of security not in absolutes, but in terms of sensible trade-offs, whether on a personal or global scale. Schneier's practical approach to problem-solving is a refreshing antidote to today's doomsday pessimism and anxiety. With the technical know-how and common sense that have made him one of the world's top security experts, Schneier shows how we can move beyond fear to start thinking sensibly and creatively about security.
http://www.schneier.com/book-beyondfear.html
Web site that tracks 911 calls ignites concerns about security
John Eberly wasn't looking for controversy. The 31-year-old Ballard resident just wanted a better way to track the whereabouts of fire trucks and emergency vehicles in the city, a service he said could help people avoid traffic bottlenecks, protests or dangerous situations such as gas leaks.
For the past year, Eberly has operated Seattle911.com, a Web site that until this week took real-time feeds of 911 calls from the Seattle Fire Department and plotted them on Google Maps. The site developed a cult following, with up to 200 unique visitors per day. The Seattle P-I incorporated the service into its Web site.
But on Tuesday night, Eberly, a reseller of Internet phone service who runs Seattle911.com during his spare time, noticed that something was amiss. The data feed was no longer working with his site.
Citing "security concerns," the Seattle Fire Department unexpectedly altered the way it displays 911 calls on its Web site, changing the format from text to graphics. That made it more difficult for Eberly to incorporate the public data into his Web site.
"Our intent is to enhance the safety of personnel and the public but still provide information about current emergencies in our community," the Fire Department wrote on its Web site.
Fire officials worry that visually displaying where fire crews are on an Internet map jeopardizes firefighters' safety and could make things easier if terrorists were planning an attack, Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said.
"That's where the security issue comes in because it shows where all our resources are at one time on a map," Fitzpatrick said.
That logic left Eberly and others scratching their heads. The information continues to be publicly available on the Fire Department's Web site. It is just now being displayed in a manner that is harder for people to use, they say.
Furthermore, technical experts say it is very easy to convert the feed into a text format -- thus rendering the Fire Department's fix virtually useless.
"It is kind of idiotic," said Bruce Schneier, a security guru and author of "Beyond Fear." "It comes from addressing the symptom and not the problem, which doesn't help." Eberly equates the Fire Department's reaction to placing a giant padlock on a flimsy door.
"It is an illusion of protection for them," he said. "If they are really worried about it, they should pull the whole thing off the Web entirely. I don't see any difference from this data compared to listening in on a scanner of police or fire calls." He noted that the Seattle911.com service just picked up calls from the Fire Department log.
Mike Christianson, a Seattle software engineer and frequent user of Seattle911.com, said it is relatively simple to counteract the Fire Department's measures.
"Almost any half-competent software engineer or Web geek can come up with a solution for converting the image back into text within an hour or two," Christianson said.
Eberly said it took just a few changes in the code to get around the new format, but he doesn't plan to implement it "because they're obviously trying to prevent stuff like that."
The Fire Department's dispatch log, which gets about 320,000 hits per day, functions by displaying addresses and types of emergencies as fire crews are called out. Each entry changes color when the call is closed. The screen, which used to update in seconds, now refreshes every minute.
Initially, city officials proposed mapping Fire Department 911 calls in real-time on the Internet as part of the city's "My Neighborhood" project. The Web site, launched this year, sorts crime statistics and other data by neighborhood into online maps. But Fire Department administrators opted not to include its dispatch calls for security reasons.
But during discussion about that project, fire officials discovered that an outside Web site already was using the information. That prompted the department to change the log's format so it would be harder to use for mapping purposes, Fitzpatrick said.
"We're not obligated to provide this information. It's something that we did for customer service in the first place," she said.
But in making those changes it frustrated some frequent users. Seattle resident Bruce Miller said he visits the Fire Department's Web site regularly because, "If there is a siren in the neighborhood, I like to know what is going on." But since changing to a graphic format, Miller said he has been unable to increase the text's font size. Furthermore, he said it is nearly impossible to access the information on his PDA.
"You need an atomic microscope to read it," said Miller, who would check the site before making trips to the airport. He calls the Fire Department's decision "ridiculous."
"It is a very valuable service, but it is not so valuable anymore," he said.
Fitzpatrick said the department will add accommodations for people who are sight-impaired and others who are inconvenienced by the change. It is still accessible to some PDAs, she said.
Schneier, the security expert, says the Seattle Fire Department's decision raises an interesting social question about the use of public information. He said it is the same issue as posting political donations or property records on Web sites.
"What the Fire Department is saying, which is interesting if you think about it, is that we are going to rely on the inconvenience of automating this to give you privacy," Schneier said. "The government is not saying, 'Hey, this data needs to be secret,' they are saying, 'This data needs to be inconvenient to get to.' "
