Oregon among 37 states where inmates calls were recorded and leaked in data breach
Securus Technologies Inc., the prison phone company giant under contract with Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, recorded and stored at least 14,000 phone calls between inmates and their attorneys across 37 states, including Oregon.
The Intercept reported an anonymous hacker breached Securus’ security and obtained data on more than 70 million recorded and stored phone calls placed by about 63,000 inmates. According to The Intercept, the hacker was concerned that inmates’ constitutional rights had been violated and submitted the phone records to the online news organization. The Intercept on Wednesday broke news of the hack and thousands of potential violations by Securus of attorney-client privilege. Conversations between inmates and their attorneys are confidential and private under attorney-client privilege laws.
Nov. 13, UPDATE: Alexander told Street Roots his office recieved confirmation that no Multnomah County data was impacted or involved in the data breach in any way.
Reporter Jordan Smith, one of the co-authors of the article appearing in The Intercept, told Street Roots at least one of the calls included in the data leak was to an Oregon attorney.
“I don’t know if there might be more because we don’t have a list of attorney cell numbers,” she said via email.
Securus issued a statement Thursday saying the data were not obtained by a hacker but an insider. It also said it has “seen no evidence that records were shared as a result of a technology breach or hack into our systems.”
Smith said she could not comment on Securus’ rebuttal to her article at this time.
Among the millions of phone records obtained, spanning from December 2011 to spring 2014, were at least 14,000 calls between inmates and their attorneys, The Intercept reported. Each call record included a link to a downloadable recording of the call.
In a news release, however, Securus said there was “no evidence of attorney-client calls that were recorded without the knowledge and consent of those parties.”
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It is unknown whether the reportedly leaked information contained any phone calls made within Multnomah County, said Lt. Steven Alexander, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson. Street Roots will update this story as that information becomes available.
Whitney Boise, a local high-profile criminal defense attorney, said communication between clients and their attorneys shouldn’t be recorded.
“In Multnomah County, they have a system where calls are recorded between inmates and their family members,” he said, “and apparently, some calls between attorneys and their clients have been mistakenly recorded.”
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Alexander said county jails provide secure lines for phone calls between inmates and legal counsel, and anytime a call is being recorded, both parties will hear a recording notifying them that the call may be monitored.
Boise said he hears that notification during less than 5 percent of the calls he’s on to the jail. But even when the inmate is notified a call is being recorded, he said, if that’s the only way they can talk to their attorney at that time, it “would probably invade their right to effective assistance as counsel.”
He said that in recent years, news of attorney-client phone calls being recorded at Multnomah County jails has made him cautious when speaking to inmates there. Most infamously, phone calls between white supremacist David “Joey” Pedersen, convicted in a multistate killing spree, and his legal counsel had been recorded, The Oregonian reported in 2014.
Pedersen wasn’t on a secure line and would have been notified the call was not privileged, Alexander said.
“Based on what I see going on, I tell my clients I don’t want to talk about anything of a super confidential nature,” Boise said. “It’s my practice, if I’ve got something really important, I go see my client in person.”
Not every attorney has time to visit the jail in person to discuss sensitive information.
“We have to use the phones,” Metropolitan Public Defender Chris O’Connor said. “The court system would shut down if we had to do in-person contact visits with every client.”
