Willamette Week Online | Cover Story | RUBBISH!..... 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.
More importantly, the US Supreme Court doesn't think so, either: Since respondents voluntarily left their trash for collection in an area particularly suited for public inspection, their claimed expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items they discarded was not objectively reasonable. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left along a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through it or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. The police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public.
But to continue back in Oregon: [....] 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.
The mayor was notably unamused by this particular stunt:
More than a week after WW reporters Chris Lydgate and Nick Budnick informed the city's top elected official that they had heisted her recycling for a story about privacy (see "Rubbish!," WW, Dec. 24, 2002), Mayor Vera Katz refuses to say whether she plans to follow up on her threat to pursue legal action against the newspaper. "The mayor does not wish to comment at this time," said deputy chief of staff Judy Tuttle last week.
On Dec. 18, Katz angrily reclaimed her recycling from the two reporters in a meeting at City Hall and dismissed them without a word. Later that day, she issued a statement that read in part: "I consider Willamette Week's actions in this matter to be potentially illegal and absolutely unscrupulous and reprehensible. I will consider all my legal options in response to their actions."
Of course, the problem is that, thanks in part to the positions taken by her own district attorney and police commissioner, Mayor Katz has pretty much no legal options whatsoever available. At one point, they seem to have been floating the concept that Oregon's constitution affords considerably more privacy rights than the US constitution when it comes to state cases; however, since this position puts them in direct conflict with the position they're defending in the police officer's case (it is in fact HER defense and would fatally undermine the prosecution), it's somewhat untenable, to put it mildly. (The article does, eventually, hook into a discussion of the Patriot Act, oddly enough.)
Posted by iain at January 03, 2003 03:12 PMComments
