CITY DISMISSES
CHARGE AGAINST
SLEEPS PROTESTER
MAP OF AGENCIES THAT
SHOWED UP IN THE
HACK OF HACKING TEAM
IMAGE: SHAWN MUSGRAVE
According to Hacking Team’s brochure, RCS allows an
agency to “take control of your targets and monitor them re-
gardless of encryption and mobility. It doesn’t matter if you
are after an Android phone or a Windows computer: You can
monitor all the devices. Remote Control System is invisible to
the user, evades antivirus and firewalls and doesn’t affect the
devices’ performance or battery life.”
The private Italian spying firm Hacking Team was itself
The hack on Hacking Team has raised debates on what
recently hacked and some of its internal documents, invoices,
some see as government and law enforcement’s need to be
emails and customer lists were made public — the informa-
able to monitor terrorists and criminals versus the ethics
tion can be found on WikiLeaks. According to Wired not only
of who those agencies are dealing with, including Hacking
has the FBI used Hacking Team’s wares, “many of the other
Team’s troubling relationships with repressive regimes.
governments who bought the same software are repressive re-
EPD’s McLaughlin tells EW,
gimes, such as Sudan and Bahrain.”
“We are are not using this system.
Public records request-focused
When officers go to trainings the
news site MuckRock put together
vendors at booths sometimes get
a map showing agencies that have
emails of attendees.” According to
gotten Hacking Team demos or got-
MuckRock, Hacking Team pulls
ten onto the company’s email list.
lists from law enforcement confer-
The Eugene Police Department ap-
ences.
pears on the map.
WikiLeaks emails show that the
EPD spokesperson Melinda
email account of EPD detective
McLaughlin says there was no hack
Curtis Newell sent automatic replies
on EPD emails, and the emails post-
to Hacking Team on messages with
ed on WikiLeaks “are ‘reply’ emails
the subjects “Hacker Can Send Fatal
from those sent to an individual at
Dose to Hospital Drug Pumps” and
EPD.”
— HACKING TEAM
“IRAN v. SAUDI: (CYBER) esca-
The FBI purchased Hacking
lation” in June 2015.
Team’s premiere spy product, “Gali-
Newell has worked on human
leo” aka “Remote Control System,”
trafficking cases and on Lane County Interagency Narcotics
which Wired says is “a simple piece of hacking software that
Team, according to media reports.
has been used by the Ethiopian regime to target journalists
The WikiLeaks emails involving EPD can be seen here:
based in Washington, D.C. It has also been detected in an at-
wkly.ws/21x. — Camilla Mortensen
tack on a Moroccan media outlet, and a human rights activist
from the United Arab Emirates.”
EPD SHOWS UP ON MAP OF
AGENCIES IN CONTACT WITH
PRIVATE SPYWARE AGENCY
‘Remote Control System
is invisible to the user,
evades antivirus and
firewalls and doesn’t affect
the devices’ performance
or battery life.’
Hedin Brugh, one of three protesters charged
with trespassing during a Safe Legally Entitled
Emergency Places to Sleep (SLEEPS) protest
at the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in 2013,
had his charge dismissed by the city of Eugene
on July 24.
According to the Civil Liberties Defense
Center (CLDC), Lane County “conspired with
the Eugene Police Department” to “unconsti-
tutionally restrict First Amendment rights on
the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza” by clos-
ing the plaza to protesters in September 2013.
Several SLEEPS protesters defied the order and
received trespassing charges.
Though Brugh and his CLDC legal counsel
say they are happy the charge was dropped,
lawyer and CLDC Executive Director Lauren
Regan says the decision by the city to drop
the charges was “pretty weak” and likely done
because “clearly they knew they were going
to lose and didn’t want an opinion stating for
the third time the CLDC has proven that Lane
County has violated the constitutional rights of
the community” by closing the Wayne Morse
Free Speech Plaza.
The SLEEPS protesters were charged after
returning to the plaza following its closure by a
4-1 Lane County Commission vote for “emer-
gency” cleaning — cleaning that, according to
the CLDC, should not have taken six days.
CLDC also says the city of Eugene violated
the protesters’ equal protection rights after the
city allowed Saturday Market to operate in the
closed plaza but immediately clamped down on
returning SLEEPS protesters.
“Within five to 10 minutes of the tents being
up, the EPD swarmed in with eight officers,”
Brugh says.
Two protesters had their charges upheld this
June but have asked the Oregon Court of Ap-
peals to take the case.
According to city spokesperson Jan Bohm-
an, there are “two other cases going forward
and there are some issues in there that are more
important,” and it “wasn’t necessary to move
forward” with the case against Brugh.
The situation has been sticky for the city of
Eugene and Lane County because the plaza’s
name has an inherent connection to free speech.
“The county needs to acknowledge that free
speech rights trump all sorts of other factors
when it comes to Wayne Morse Free Speech
Plaza,” Regan says. — Mike Bivins
PACIFIC GIANT SALAMANDER,
DICAMPTODON TENEBROSUS
IT’S
ABOUT
TIME
BY D AV I D
WA G N E R
T
his year August is set up with a
glorious week of stargazing. The
Perseid meteor shower will
send hundreds, maybe
thousands, of shooting stars
across the sky during the second week
of August. Peak shower activity will be
August 11-13. The best meteor watching will be in
the hours before dawn, when the constellation
Perseus rises from the northeastern horizon. What
makes this year’s shower likely to be spectacular
is that nearly moonless nights coincide with the
peak streaking.
It may be
dry and hot during
the day but an overnight
camping trip to central Oregon might be
worth activating your explorer cards. Meteors and
the Milky Way are a great combination. To find clear
skies it will be necessary to pay attention to forest
fire smoke. It is an extreme fire season.
The east side Delta Ponds are now covered with
a nearly pure layer of duckweed. Not only are the
ducks out there shoveling it in, but geese also. The
sight of geese sucking duckweed is not a common
one. They usually prefer eating fresh, green grass
but the grass around the ponds is so dry that the
duckweed seems to be an attractive feast.
One of summer’s most enjoyable
pastimes is wading up and down
small streams. The streams which
now have low flow over gentle bedrock
are especially fun. It is easy wading and there are
lots of things to see in the water. Look for newts
and the Pacific giant salamander.
David Wagner is a botanist who works in Eugene. He teaches
moss classes, makes nature calendars and studies liverworts.
Contact him at fernzenmosses@me.com.
eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 6, 2015
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