LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

At Burning Man over the past few years I have personally dealt with two friends who were subjected to an illegal search and busted for small quantities of personal substances. I have heard tales of many more instances of Cops crossing the constitutional line. We live in a constitutional republic and have rights that are above whoever happens to be in power or happens to be wearing a badge. I feel that it is time to push back. Thus, I would like to present the first draft of:



LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of law enforcement in Black Rock City. With this has come numerous reports of officer misconduct, unlawful and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

The idea of LOOP is to build an open-source system designed to bring accountability and oversight to this branch of our government that is there to Serve and Protect.

The basic idea of LOOP is to create a centralized location, both physical and virtual to act as a clearinghouse of information on the activities of the branches of law enforcement that are present at Burning Man.

The goals would be to:

1. Compile listings of the names and ID number of all government Enforcement Officers at Burning Man.
2. Compile all arrest reports/ citations at Burning Man. This can be done by filing FOIA act requests en mass to the appropriate agency.
3. Compile all first person accounts of Law Enforcement activity during the existence of Black Rock City, ideally these will be in the form of depositions under oath, as soon as possible after the incident.
4. Track individual officers and cross reference their activity to ascertain if "justice is blind" or if patterns exist that suggest otherwise.
5. Track the different agencies and cross reference their actions during the event.
6. File FOIA requests on all activities, phone logs, email logs, radio transmission logs of these agencies.
7. Compare these with eyewitness accounts and depositions to compare veracity of accounts.
8. Act as a clearinghouse of information to aid in the legal defense of the citizens of Black Rock City, particularly those being prosecuted for engaging in victimless crimes.
9. Work in a completely open-source manner.
10. To maintain truthfulness, ethical conduct and respect for the US Constitution.

What is needed for LOOP:

Physical presence at Burning Man:

Small trailer to use as office and file storage. This should be placed on either the first or second loop road where all the BM infrastructure is located. It will need:

Secure server and grid power.
Shade structure and waiting area with couches and chairs.
Cool drinks and water.
Secure and lockable file cabinets, maybe (ideally) work paperless with a double redundant server system in disparate locations. Hanky-panky in the middle of the night is always a possibility, auto wireless backup to a server in an undisclosed location within BRC would be close to impossible to tamper with.
Desks, chairs, AC.
Staffing during business hours.
Lawyer available to take depositions on a regular scheduled basis.

Potential Structure:

The key is to build the project "wide and shallow". Use open source as a model to avoid burdening any one person with too much work. Strive towards a robust structure that is not dependent on any individual. This would avoid the "founder's burn-out/obsession syndrome" and put the project above any accusations of political gain.

Use a wiki type system as the fundamental backbone of the project. Design it to be robust and tamperproof from the beginning with secure server access and a rotating team of administrators that have "god power" over the wiki, i.e. root access and ability to make changes without tracking. The nature of this project will guarantee that information, contents and maybe the server itself will appear in open court. The methods used and systems built must be above reproach.

Structure: It might be possible to use the three branch model for this project:

Executive: There should be an executive, one (or more?) person(s) must be elected to make the quick decisions required of any project. The executive must be held to account by the other branches. The executive makes the final decision and tries to carry out the mandate of the council. Reports back to the council with success and failure. Has oversight over Fundraising and PR.

Council: Largest group. Serves as the legislature, charged with coming up with the ways means and hows. Absorbs all new ideas, new workers, defines new committees. Disburses tasks to the various committees, forms new ones when necessary.

Ethics/Legal: Serves as oversight, functions as the judicial branch to ensure that things are done properly, legally and ethically. Direct oversight over the legal department. Must have a balance of individuals, with no more than half (60%?? 75%??) being members of the bar.

All branches should focus on reducing and redacting the wiki to make it clearer and more organized. This helps bring new volunteers up to speed rapidly and attempts to avoid repeating information and mistakes.

Possible Committees/Departments:

Legal: Research relevant law issues. Create a code of conduct and help with staffing the legal department. Develop a standard operating procedure for any encounters with Law Enforcement by LOOP volunteers. Develop a standardized deposition routine that is most likely to withstand challenge in court.

Operations: Set up systems for tracking the activities of law enforcement. Coordinate volunteers for observation, video documentation, reconnaissance and more. Work closely with IT department to create a robust, transparent and useful information system, distributing the required tasks across a large number of people. Build simple, open source methods to coordinate volunteer activity. Build and staff the desert office.

Information Technology: Develop technological ways to track the activities of Law Enforcement. This can be in the form of RADAR, Field agents two way communication, GPS, radio monitoring and any other means necessary. Design of information collation systems that allow a web interface to track patterns of activity both in real time and historically. Launch this information as an open-source document on the web as a historical record to aid future research.

Education: Educate the Citizens of Black Rock City on their legal rights. Educate Law Officers of their responsibilities. Train LOOP volunteers for the task of monitoring Law Enforcement.

Public Relations: One of the most effective tools in a democratic society is knowledge. Informing the citizens of BRC of the services offered by LOOP is mission critical. This should include promo's on all the radio stations, inclusion in the survival guide, regular mention and request for help in JackRabbitSpeaks, news organizations and more.

Accounting: Keep the books, keep em clean and keep them open.

Fundraising: Even with a completely volunteer organization, there are always costs. Raising the money necessary to work with a minimum of hassle and time for the individuals involved is critical to maintain morale. Often the cheapest route is the one that is most painful and disillusioning, accept that mistakes will be made and attempt to raise a little extra to make up for them.