HACKERS RAISING HELL FOR WORLD’S LARGEST POLICE UNION

About a week ago, Black hat hacker Thomas White (a.k.a., Cthulhu) publicly dumped a rather enormous amount of police data from the American Fraternal Order of Police (or FOP). The FOP describes itself as “the world's largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers. (1)”  With more than 325,000 members and 2,100 lodges, there’s no doubt that White and his accomplices have definitely targeted a gigantic police union and they’re not even done with it yet. That’s right, White’s threatening to take an even bigger data-dump sometime soon.

Despite being responsible for exposing the data online, White doesn’t take credit for acquiring it. He also outright refuses to name the person actually responsible; someone he mysteriously refers to as“the source”. This must be a stick in law enforcement’s craw, no doubt made worse by White’s not-so-friendly message to any officers on his case. White writes,

“Don't bother with legal threats or trying to get UK law enforcement to seek revenge. This is me playing nice. If you want to go nuclear with me, feel free to do so, but trust me when I say you might want to think long and hard before you do. I'm not known for bluffing, and I know many more of your secrets. About 18TB all in all actually, all unpublished yet. ‘I dare you - I double dare you motherf****r’  (2, emphasis in original)” 

In a less hostile move though, he also encouraged police to email him to ask questions or set up meetings in the UK where he lives.

Really? 18TB???

Contrary to White’s massive estimation of 18TB, the FOP says that only 2.5GB of data were stolen from its servers. Without confirmation though, we’ll just have to wait and see how much else gets published. Either way, that’s a LOT of potentially incriminating data. The FOP also claims that the FBI is investigating the hack but this too could not be confirmed.

In an interview with The Guardian, FOP national president Chuck Canterbury said that none of the FOP’s members’ sensitive personal or financial information had been stolen. Still, he admits that they are concerned because “[s]ome names and addresses were taken. (3)”

Unfortunately for Canterbury and other FOP members, this may be a massive underestimation of the full extent of the damage.

Jon Swaine and George Joseph of RawStory wrote that “[t]hreads from the FOP’s members-only online forum were also leaked, including some in which officers expressed anger at Obama, supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor and‘illegals’ who were in the US without documentation. (4)”

The Guardian has since analyzed 67 contracts taken from the FOP servers and claims that more than 1/3 have clauses allowing for – and often even mandating – the destruction of members’ records. Records eligible for erasure include (but are not limited to) civilian complaints, departmental investigations, and even disciplinary actions. 

The review also found that if by some miracle these records remain in tact, the public may still be barred from accessing them. Indeed, 30% of the 67 exposed police contracts had stipulations to that effect. 

If true, the FOP is working hard to keep its members free from ever having to account for their crimes and other abuses of power.  While not exactly a surprise, it’s certainly disappointing.

But why did the hackers do this, anyway?

 According to the hack’s FAQ, the goal is peace. White explains,

“I believe the police should have corruption exposed as all other places should also have wrongdoing exposed when they are in a public office. However,the information should not be used to attack the police; it should be used to help them address their problems and correct them. A society cannot be at peace when the citizens and the enforcers of the law are at war. Instead, it is the duty of every citizen to support their democratic society, even if in the short term it may seem like you are attacking them. (5)” 

Peace is certainly an admirable goal and I share in their hope that police will become less violent and more accountable to the public. The public definitely deserves to know how police justify putting communities at risk by erasing parts of police disciplinary records.

However, Samuel Walker, a criminology professor at the University of Nebraska, Omaha told The Guardian that there really is "no justification" for scrubbing an officer’s records clean of their wrongdoings. If true, this arrangement shamefully puts police interests above the needs of the citizens who pay them for their services. Especially given that these records could hold vital information for current cases of police violence, like a long history of violence and other abuses of power.

In fact, Walker said that “[t]he public has a right to know”about records of police disciplinary action, which he says should be made publicly available. “If there was a controversial beating,” he said, “we ought to know what[disciplinary] action was actually taken. Was it [a] reprimand? A suspension? (6)” Not to mention, was the officer found guilty or innocent and what factors were considered in making that decision?

In other words, can we have less police violence/abuse of power and more police transparency and accountability please?