Inconvenient Laws?
I stumbled across an article today that makes me wonder what kind of world some people really want. In this article, a librarian refused to divulge confidential records to the police without a subpoena. As a result, she is facing disciplinary action for “a blatant diregard for the Police Department”.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that a subpoena was a requirement for requesting that sort of information (and the article confirms my impression). The whole purpose of the subpoena process is to ensure that the police do indeed have probable cause to request the information, and that the determination is made by a judge who presumably has a firm knowledge of all the legal ramifications involved. I might see the police standpoint if someone was in imminent danger, and their ability to prevent harm depended on receiving information immediately, but such was not the case here. Even then, I’m not sure that I would agree that it’s okay to circumvent the law.
I’ve actually been in the librarian’s position - while working for Trib.com (an ISP in Casper, WY), I received a call from the Worland police department. They wanted to access our connection logs to determine if any of our subscribers were using a particular IP address so that they could track down a case of identity theft. At first they wanted a raw dump the entirety of our logs, which I immediately refused, and countered with an offer that if they gave us the IP address and presented a subpoena for the information, we would be able to search the logs and confirm (or deny) their suspicions. Presented with this option, the sheriff told me he’d be in contact, and we never heard from them again.
Having watched my fair share of Law and Order episodes, I can understand the police frustration when presented with these legal road-blocks. The fact that the laws protect the guilty can at times be inconvenient. I’ll admit that I have no idea how often the laws actually protect the innocent. I can’t imagine that most police officers typically pursue those who are innocent, thus they probably see a very different picture, where the laws almost always protect the bad-actors. Presumably, if a law only protects bad-actors and never results in the exoneration or protection of the good-actors it should be rescinded, but that should be a decision made by those who have properly considered all the ramifications of the change, rather than those on the ground in the midst of an emotionally-charged specific incident.