RUBBISH!

[Eugen Leitl]

Happy new year, everybody. Sousveillance/reverse panopticon.

http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News3485.lasso

RUBBISH!
Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so we grabbed 
theirs.

by CHRIS LYDGATE AND NICK BUDNICK
clydgate at wweek.com
nbudnick at wweek.com

Web-only content:
Vera Katz's press release
Stories that have appeared in other media
KATU
The Oregonian

It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the 
fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a 
battered white van, double-checking our toolkit: flashlight, binoculars, 
duct tape, scissors, watch caps, rawhide gloves, vinyl gloves, latex 
gloves, trash bags, 30-gallon can, tarpaulins, Sharpie, 
notebook--notebook?

Well, yes. Technically, this is a journalistic exercise--at least, that's 
what we keep telling ourselves. We're upholding our sacred trust as 
representatives of the Fourth Estate. Comforting the afflicted, afflicting 
the comfortable. Pushing the reportorial envelope--by liberating the trash 
of Portland's top brass.

We didn't dream up this idea on our own. We got our inspiration from the 
Portland police.

Back in March, the police swiped the trash of fellow officer Gina Hoesly. 
They didn't ask permission. They didn't ask for a search warrant. They 
just grabbed it. Their sordid haul, which included a bloody tampon, became 
the basis for drug charges against her (see "Gross Violation," below).

The news left a lot of Portlanders--including us--scratching our heads. 
Aren't there rules about this sort of thing? Aren't citizens protected 
from unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment?

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. 
Prosecutor Mark McDonnell says that once you set your garbage out on the 
curb, it becomes public property.

"She placed her garbage can out in the open, open to public view, in the 
public right of way," McDonnell told Judge Jean Kerr Maurer earlier this 
month. "There were no signs on the garbage, 'Do not open. Do not 
trespass.' There was every indication...she had relinquished her privacy, 
possessory interest."

Police Chief Mark Kroeker echoed this reasoning. "Most judges have the 
opinion that [once] trash is put out...it's trash, and abandoned in terms 
of privacy," he told WW.


In fact, it turns out that police officers throughout Oregon have been 
rummaging through people's trash for more than three decades. Portland 
drug cops conduct "garbage pulls" once or twice per month, says narcotics 
Sgt. Eric Schober.

On Dec. 10, Maurer rubbished this practice. Scrutinizing garbage, she 
declared, is an invasion of privacy: The police must obtain a search 
warrant before they swipe someone's trash.

"Personal and business correspondence, photographs, personal financial 
information, political mail, items related to health concerns and sexual 
practices are all routinely found in garbage receptacles," Maurer wrote. 
The fact that a person has put these items out for pick-up, she said, 
"does not suggest an invitation to others to examine them."

But local law enforcement officials pooh-poohed the judge's decision.

"This particular very unique and very by-herself judge took a position not 
in concert with the other judges who had given us instruction by their 
decisions across the years," said Kroeker.

The District Attorney's Office agreed and vowed to challenge the ruling.

The question of whether your trash is private might seem academic. It's 
not. Your garbage can is like a trap door that opens on to your most 
intimate secrets; what you toss away is, in many ways, just as revealing 
as what you keep.

And your garbage can is just one of the many places where your privacy is 
being pilfered. In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government has granted 
itself far-reaching new powers to spy on you, from email to bank 
statements to video cameras (see "Big Brother's in Your Trash Can," 
below).

After much debate, we resolved to turn the tables on three of our esteemed 
public officials. We embarked on an unauthorized sightseeing tour of their 
garbage, to make a point about how invasive a "garbage pull" really 
is--and to highlight the government's ongoing erosion of people's privacy.

We chose District Attorney Mike Schrunk because his office is the most 
vocal defender of the proposition that your garbage is up for grabs. We 
chose Police Chief Mark Kroeker because he runs the bureau. And we chose 
Mayor Vera Katz because, as police commissioner, she gives the chief his 
marching orders.

Each, in his or her own way, has endorsed the notion that you abandon your 
privacy when you set your trash out on the curb. So we figured they 
wouldn't mind too much if we took a peek at theirs.

Boy, were we wrong.


Perched in his office on the 15th floor of the Justice Center, Chief 
Kroeker seemed perfectly comfortable with the idea of trash as public 
property.

"Things inside your house are to be guarded," he told WW. "Those that are 
in the trash are open for trash men and pickers and--and police. And so 
it's not a matter of privacy anymore."

Then we spread some highlights from our haul on the table in front of him.

"This is very cheap," he blurted out, frowning as we pointed out a receipt 
with his credit-card number, a summary of his wife's investments, an email 
prepping the mayor about his job application to be police chief of Los 
Angeles, a well-chewed cigar stub, and a handwritten note scribbled in 
pencil on a napkin, so personal it made us cringe. We also drew his 
attention to a newsletter from the conservative political advocacy group 
Focus on the Family, addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Mark Kroeker."

"Are you a member of Focus on the Family?" we asked.

"No," the chief replied.

"Is your wife?"

"You know," he said, with a Clint Eastwood gaze, "it's none of your 
business."

As we explained our thinking, the chief, who is usually polite to a fault, 
cut us off in midsentence. "OK," he said, suddenly standing up, "we're 
done."

Hours later, the chief issued a press release complaining that WW had gone 
through "my personal garbage at my home." KATU promptly took to the 
airwaves declaring, "Kroeker wants Willamette Week to stay out of his 
garbage."

If the chief got overheated, the mayor went nuclear. When we confessed 
that we had swiped her recycling, she summoned us to her chambers.


"She wants you to bring the trash--and bring the name of your attorney," 
said her press secretary, Sarah Bott.

Actually, we couldn't snatch Katz's garbage, because she keeps it right 
next to her house, well away from the sidewalk. To avoid trespassing, we 
had to settle for a bin of recycling left out front.

The day after our summons, Wednesday, Dec. 18, we trudged down to City 
Hall, stack of newsprint in hand. A gaggle of TV and radio reporters were 
waiting to greet us, tipped off by high-octane KXL motor-mouth Lars 
Larson.

We filed into the mayor's private conference room. The atmosphere, chilly 
to begin with, turned arctic when the mayor marched in. She speared us 
each with a wounded glare, then hoisted the bin of newspaper and stalked 
out of the room--all without uttering a word.

A few moments later, her office issued a prepared statement. "I consider 
Willamette Week's actions in this matter to be potentially illegal and 
absolutely unscrupulous and reprehensible," it read. "I will consider all 
my legal options in response to their actions."

In contrast, DA Mike Schrunk was almost playful when we owned up to nosing 
through his kitchen scraps. "Do I have to pay for this week's garbage 
collection?" he joked.

We told Schrunk that we intended to report that his garbage contained 
mementos of his military service. "Don't burn me on that," he implored. 
"The Marine Corps will shoot me!"

It's worth emphasizing that our junkaeological dig unearthed no whiff of 
scandal. Based on their throwaways, the chief, the DA and the mayor are 
squeaky-clean, poop-scooping folks whose private lives are beyond 
reproach. They emerge from this escapade smelling like--well, coffee 
grounds.

But if three moral, upstanding, public-spirited citizens were each chewing 
their nails about the secrets we might have stumbled on, how the hell 
should the rest of us be feeling?

HAUL OF FAME

Decked out in watch caps and rubber gloves, we are kneeling in a freezing 
garage and cradling our first major discovery--a five-pound bag of dog 
poo.

We set it down next to the rest of our haul from District Attorney Mike 
Schrunk's trash--the remains of Thanksgiving turkey, the mounting stack of 
his granddaughter's diapers, the bag of dryer lint, the tub of Skippy 
peanut butter, and the shredded bag of peanut M&Ms.

There is something about poking through someone else's garbage that makes 
you feel dirty, and it's not just the stench and the flies. Scrap by 
scrap, we are reverse-engineering a grimy portrait of another human being, 
reconstituting an identity from his discards, probing into stuff that is 
absolutely, positively none of our damn business.

It's one thing to revel in the hallowed tradition of muckraking. It's 
another to get down on your hands and knees and nose through wads of 
someone else's Kleenex. Is this why our parents sent us to college? So we 
could paw through orange peels and ice-cream tubs and half-eaten loaves of 
bread?

And yet, there is also something seductive, almost intoxicating, about 
being a Dumpster detective. For example, we spot a clothing tag marked 
"44/Regular." Then we find half of a torn receipt from Meier & Frank for 
$262.99. Then we find the other half, which reads: "MENS SU 3BTN." String 
it together, and we deduce that Schrunk plunked down $262.99 for a size-44 
three-button suit at Meier & Frank on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 9:35 am.

We are getting to know Portland's top prosecutor from the inside out. 
Here's an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. There's a pile of 
castoff duds from his days as a Marine. Is he going "soft" on terrorism!?

Chinese takeout boxes and junk-food wrappers testify to a busy lifestyle 
with little time to cook. A Post-it note even lays bare someone's 
arithmetic skills (the addition is solid, but the long division needs 
work).

Our haul from Mayor Vera Katz is limited to a stack of newsprint from her 
recycling bin--her garbage can was well out of reach--but we assemble 
several clues to her intellectual leanings. We find overwhelming evidence 
that the Mayor reads The Oregonian, The Washington Post National Weekly 
Edition, U.S. Mayor and the Portland Tribune.

We also stumble across a copy of TV Click in which certain programs have 
been circled in municipal red. If we're not mistaken, the mayor has a 
special fondness for dog shows, figure skating and The West Wing.

Our inspection of Chief Kroeker's refuse reveals that he is a scrupulous 
recycler. He is also a health nut. We find a staggering profusion of 
health-food containers: fat-free milk cartons, fat-free cereal boxes, cans 
of milk chocolate weight-loss shakes, cans of Swanson chicken broth ("99% 
fat free!"), water bottles, a cardboard box of protein bars, tubs of 
low-fat cottage cheese, a paper packet of oatmeal, and an article on "How 
to Live a Long Healthy Life."

At the same time, we find evidence of rust in the chief's iron 
self-discipline: wrappers from See's chocolate bars, an unopened bag of 
Doritos, a dozen perfectly edible fun-size Nestle Crunch bars, three empty 
Coke cans.

We unearth a crate that once contained 12 bottles of Cook's California 
sparkling wine, but find no trace of the bottles themselves. Is the chief 
building a pyramid of them on the mantelpiece? We stack the crate beside a 
pair of white children's socks, a broken pen, the stub of an Excalibur 
1066 cigar, burnt toast, a freezer bag of date bars, orange peel, coffee 
grounds, a cork, an empty film canister (no weed--we checked), eggshells, 
Q tips, tissue paper and copious quantities of goo.

We uncrumple a holiday flier from the Hinson Memorial Baptist Church, 
which contains a handwritten note: "Mark. Just want you to know one Latin 
from Manhattan Loves You."

Invasion of privacy? This is a frontal assault, a D-Day, a Norman Conquest 
of privacy. We know the chief's credit-card number; we know where he buys 
his groceries; we know how much toilet tissue he goes through. We know 
whose Christmas cards he has pitched, whose wedding he skipped, whose 
photo he threw away. We know what newsletters he gets and how much he's 
socked away in the stock market. We even know he's thinking about a new 
car--and which models he's considering.

By the time we tag the last item (a lonesome Christmas tree angel), our 
noses are running and our gloves are black with gunk. We scrub our hands 
when we get home. But we still feel dirty. --CL

WHAT WE FOUND

POLICE CHIEF MARK KROEKER

* Empty containers and wrappers: Kodiak Washington pears, Washington 
"extra fancy" fancy lady peaches, Oasis Floral Foam bricks ("Worth 
Insisting Upon") (2), Kashi Go Lean! cereal, Sunshine fat-free milk, 
Kirkland Signature weight-loss shake, fat-free Swanson Chicken Broth, 
mandarin oranges, Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Arrowhead water bottle, Cook's 
California sparkling-wine box, fried apples, cheese rolls, Bounty paper 
towels 15-roll pack, Kirkland facial tissue, 12-pack Dove soap, Quaker 
oatmeal, See's candy bars, lady's razors, Dentyne Ice chewing gum, Vivant 
zesty vegetable crackers.

* Hershey's Cookies n Crhme mini-bars, uneaten (3).

* Several Oregonian issues, still folded.

* Email correspondence between chief and Mayor Katz's staff in which he 
preps them on what to tell Los Angeles officials regarding his application 
to be chief there.

* Rough draft, internal police memo.

* Various cash-register receipts.

* Half-full bag of fun-size Nestle Crunch bars.

* Slice of burnt toast.

* Photocopy of WW Nov. 13 "Murmurs" item on chief, hand-dated in blue pen, 
reporting scuttlebutt that Katz has "taken over the day-to-day running of 
the Police Bureau."

* Half-smoked stub of an Excalibur 1066 cigar.

* Paper cups from Starbucks and Torrefazione.

* Pears, lettuce, grapes, bread, eggshells, goo, potato salad, wire 
hangers, a 75 watt light bulb, orange peels, coffee grounds, wine cork, 
dish rag, film canister, used Q-Tips.

* Half-eaten protein bar, still in wrapper.

* Newsletter from Focus on the Family, a conservative political group. 
Insert, addressed to "Mr. & Mrs. Mark Kroeker." Insert asks for "one last 
year-end contribution."

* Photos of chief and a bare-chested man moving a large appliance.

* Creased wedding photo of a prominent Portlander.

* Broken pen.

* Three envelopes from California, hand-addressed, sent on consecutive 
days.

* Notice from mortgage company for payment.

* Internet printout of "How to Live a Long Healthy Life."

* Postcard from friend vacationing in Arizona.

* Post-it with notes about a new car.

* Extremely personal note on dinner napkin, handwritten in pencil.

* Account summary from Fidelity Investments for the chief's wife.

MAYOR VERA KATZ

* Trader Joe's "Happy Holidays" paper bag.

* Several issues of The Oregonian.

* Several issues of The Washington Post National Weekly Edition.

* A copy of U.S. Mayor (a monthly magazine devoted to mayors).

* A copy of TV Click. Someone has marked several programs in red, 
including Wargame: Iraq, Simulated National Security Council meetings, 
MSNBC; Everwood: Ephram tries to revive his mother's Thanksgiving 
traditions, KWBP; CSI Miami: A dead man is found hanging from a tree, 
KOIN; Life with Bonnie on KATU; The West Wing on KGW; The National Dog 
Show on KGW; Figure skating: ISU Cup of Russia, ESPN; Biography: "Audrey 
Hepburn, the Fairest Lady," A&E: Figure skating: ICE WARS: USA vs. The 
World, KOIN.

* Several issues of the Portland Tribune.

* Daily Journal of Commerce from Dec. 3, 2002.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY MIKE SCHRUNK

* Empty containers and wrappers: Cozy Fleece Baby Blanket, Bee Cleaners, 
Nibblets Corn and Butter, Johnnie Walker Black Label, Fred Meyer 
unflavored gelatin, Burger King beverage cup and straw, possible Chinese 
takeout (lots), Dreyer's Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream, Skippy peanut 
butter (creamy), Land's End, Fred Meyer green beans, Campbell's Chunky New 
England Clam Chowder with 100-watt bulb inside, Meier & Frank, Jelly Belly 
jelly beans, Foster Farms boneless and skinless Oregon chicken thighs.

* Coffee grounds.

* Used pekoe tea bags, many.

* Used Christmas napkins, used Kleenex, used Q-Tips.

* Remains of Thanksgiving turkey carcass, drumstick intact.

* Remnants of roast beef.

* Soiled baby diapers.

* Plastic bags containing dog poo, very clean, with some blades of grass 
(2).

* Bag of dryer lint.

* Christmas wrapping paper.

* Orange peels, empty Millstone coffee bag, containing two very ripe but 
uneaten bananas, two half-eaten loaves of wheat bread.

* Disposable razors.

* Remnants of peanut M&Ms bag.

* Energizer AA batteries (2), wrapped in plastic bag.

* Shopping lists.

* Baseball cap with crustacean emblem: "DON'T BOTHER ME. I'm CRABBY."

* Baseball cap for Outward Bound.

* Baseball cap with embroidered green fish.

* Military khaki shirts with "SCHRUNK" embroidered on pocket and collar 
(4).

* Jacket, olive drab, with fading stencils of "USMC" and "Schrunk."

* Yellow Post-it note with sample of someone's arithmetic: The addition is 
successful (54 + 32 = 86), but the long division of 32 divided by 6 comes 
up a little bit wide, at 5.4.

Gross Violation
Officer Gina Hoesly has long had less privacy than the average cop, thanks 
to the Portland Police Bureau's rumor mill.

Hoesly (below), 34, has dated rock musicians, other cops and Portland 
Trail Blazers. She's had breast implants and once posed for a photo on a 
website selling motorcycle gear--badpig.com--showing plenty of skin. In 
1996, she won a $20,000 settlement from the bureau in a sexual-harassment 
claim based on behavior by her co-workers. But none of that comes close to 
the scrutiny she received in March, when fellow officers rifled through 
her garbage. The evidence they found led to her indictment on charges of 
possessing ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Hoesly, a 13-year police officer who occasionally was an undercover decoy 
in police prostitution stings, became the subject of an investigation 
early this year, when she told police she'd been assaulted by her 
ex-boyfriend, Joshua David Rodriguez. Rodriguez has a history of drug 
arrests and convictions, and when officers booked him on assault charges, 
they found meth in his pocket.

Subsequently police began investigating Hoesly, hearing rumors from police 
informants that she had used drugs. On March 13 at 2:07 am, narcotics 
officers Jay Bates and Michael Krantz took her garbage. The order to do so 
came from Assistant Chief Andrew Kirkland, who dated Hoesly in the early 
'90s.

Searching through her trash back at Central Precinct, they found traces of 
cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as drug paraphernalia. They also 
found a bloody tampon. They sent a piece of the tampon to the state crime 
lab, where forensics experts tested it for drugs, DNA and, for reasons 
that remain unclear, semen. The results of those tests have not been 
released.

The police didn't seek a search warrant to take Hoesly's trash because, as 
the Multnomah County District Attorney's office conceded, officers didn't 
at the time have sufficient evidence to convince a judge to issue a 
warrant. But once they had drug residue from Hoesly's trash, officers were 
able to persuade Judge Dorothy Baker to issue a search warrant for 
Hoesly's house. Inside, they found more paraphernalia and a diary that 
described apparent drug use. An indictment was issued in June.

Hoesly, who is currently on medical leave and at the time of her arrest 
was in the process of medically retiring, pleaded not guilty and hired 
criminal-defense lawyer Stephen Houze. Like a Labrador smelling leftover 
turkey, Houze promptly zeroed in on the grabbing of her garbage. He argued 
that under Oregon's Constitution, privacy rights extend to someone's 
trash--at least until it's picked up by trash haulers. The used tampon 
"goes to the heart of just what an outrageous violation of privacy rights 
this police search was," Houze said. "If the police will do this to a 
police officer, who won't they do it to?"

Not only that, he said, but if garbage is up for grabs, "There will be 
identity thieves lining up out there on every garbage day, knowing they 
can [take trash] with impunity."

The Hoesly case is not unprecedented. In 1997, police poked in the trash 
of David Peters, a star prosecutor for Multnomah County, and found cocaine 
residue, which was used to obtain a search warrant. Unlike Hoesly, he was 
not indicted; instead, he was fined and allowed to enter court diversion 
to maintain a clean record.

In a hearing on Dec. 10, Judge Jean Kerr Maurer agreed with Houze, issuing 
a ruling that said the cops' taking of trash was illegal. Senior Deputy 
District Attorney Mark McDonnell immediately said his office would 
challenge the ruling. --NB

Big Brother's in Your Trash Can

The government is essentially going through your trash every day, says 
Evan Hendricks, publisher of Privacy Times, a Washington, D.C., 
newsletter. "They just don't have to get their hands dirty.

In the past 16 months, thanks to measures contained in the Patriot Act, 
the Homeland Security Act and the creation of the Total Information 
Awareness office, our government has turned into a bad Oliver Stone 
movie--you know, where a cabal of conservative spooks takes over and 
suddenly Big Brother is in charge.

No longer do the Feds need to meet the evidentiary standard of "probable 
cause" to initiate an investigation or start amassing information on you. 
Nor do they need to show any evidence of a link to terrorism. All they 
need to do, in short, is say they find you suspicious. They don't need to 
tell a judge why.

"This administration really represents a combination of Reaganism and 
McCarthyism--though they're not chasing Communists, they're chasing people 
that they call 'terrorists,'" says Hendricks, who grew up in Portland. 
"They're expanding their power and intimidating people to sort of go along 
or be afraid of being accused of being soft on terrorism."

The October 2001 enactment of the USA Patriot Act opened the door to 
domestic and Internet surveillance, as well as warrantless, covert "sneak 
and peek" searches. Then, on Nov. 19, 2002, Congress approved the Homeland 
Security Act, which Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) called the "most severe 
weakening of the Freedom of Information Act in its 36-year history."

The HSA also created the Total Information Awareness office, whose logo, 
taken from the back of the dollar bill, is of a pyramid with an eye on 
top, looking down at the globe. Headed by Iran-Contra co-conspirator 
Admiral John Poindexter, the agency will "mine" commercial databases, 
including magazine subscriptions and book purchases, to spy on American 
citizens. It plans to use this information to profile likely terrorist 
supporters; it also wants to deploy video camera and facial-recognition 
surveillance systems.

"The Pentagon basically wants to knock down the walls to all 
private-sector records and plug into them," says Hendricks. "And trash is 
like a microcosm of what you get: the bills people pay, what they buy at 
the store, the packages they throw out. The government is proposing more 
systematic surveillance of databases that have the same information."

How do they define who is a likely terrorist supporter? Sorry, but that's 
a secret. Attorney General John Ashcroft has given federal agencies free 
rein to reject information requests, with the assurance that his 
Department of Justice would defend the agencies no matter what.

Civil-liberties advocates point to the inherent danger in granting the 
government such sweeping power. Declassified documents have shown myriad 
abuses by law-enforcement agencies involved in domestic spying in the 
'60s, '70s and '80s, including in Portland. In 1997, a Washington, D.C., 
police official used video surveillance of people coming and going from a 
gay bar to try to blackmail married men. And studies of camera systems in 
Britain found that they were used to target minorities for increased 
police attention, while women caught on camera were often targeted for 
voyeuristic reasons, with male camera operators panning over them for 
purposes of ogling.

Small wonder that even conservatives such as Rep. Dick Armey, Sen. Charles 
Grassley and New York Times columnist William Safire are going ballistic. 
Attorney General Ashcroft is "out of control," and the federal government 
has "no credibility" on protecting individuals' privacy, said Armey, who 
has even volunteered to do consulting work for the ACLU on privacy issues 
upon his retirement.

"You Are a Suspect" was the title of Safire's Nov. 14 column on the Total 
Information Awareness program, which he called a "supersnoop's dream" and 
a "sweeping theft of privacy rights." --NB