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The Legal Aid Society’s Digital Forensics Unit invites you to our 3rd annual Decrypting a Defense conference at CUNY School of Law on May 21, 2024.
8:30am – 9:00am Registration & Light Refreshments
9:00am – 9:10am Introduction & Welcome Remarks
9:10am – 10:10am Challenging Device Forensics: Search Warrants, Tools, and Evidence
10:10am – 11:05am Digital Surveillance: Further Erosions of Equal Protection
11:05am – 11:15am Break
11:15am – 12:10pm No More Open Roads: ALPR’s and the 4th Amendment
12:10pm – 1:25pm Lunch
1:25pm – 2:45pm Location, Location, Litigation: Understanding Location Data for Defense Attorneys
2:45pm – 3:40pm Digital Smoke and Mirrors: How the Rules of Evidence Fall Short in the Digital Age
3:40pm – 3:50pm Break
3:50pm – 4:45pm Tech and the Neoliberal City: New Digital Infrastructures Expanding Carceral Capacities
4:45pm – 4:55pm Closing Remarks
Shane Ferro, Staff Attorney, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society Allison Young, Analyst, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society
It has become more and more common for prosecutors to use cell phone extractions to build their case against our clients. That process—copying content from a person’s phone and presenting it as evidence—is complicated and should not just be assumed to be reliable. Was the warrant valid? Was the phone properly handled? Was there more (or less) data that should have been included in that report? This presentation will cover several ways to identify issues and challenge the reliability of cell phone extractions from both technical and legal perspectives.
1.0 CLE credits in Areas of Professional Practice
Mitha Nandagopalan, Staff Attorney, Strategic Litigation Department, Innocence Project
While racialized surveillance, especially of Black and immigrant communities, is hardly new, extending it to the digital realm can help hide discriminatory practices by moving them further upstream in the investigatory process. Several case studies have documented the disproportionate use of tools like facial recognition software, social media monitoring, and license plate searches against individuals and communities of color. Yet in most cases, accessing the data needed to investigate an equal protection claim, let alone prevail on one, is difficult. This session will discuss several examples of discriminatory digital surveillance as well as strategies for investigating and raising equal protection claims to challenge these practices.
1.0 CLE credits in Diversity, Inclusion, and Elimination of Bias
Sidney Thaxter, Senior Litigator, 4th Amendment Center, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
As Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) surveillance systems become more sophisticated, they are also becoming cheaper, making them increasingly accessible to law enforcement. ALPRs can gather information about people and their movements, but new data analytics has allowed police to weaponize them in new ways: creating associations between vehicles, predict future travel, and identify “suspicious” travel patterns. These terrifying new surveillance technologies require new legal challenges.
Benjamin Burger, Staff Attorney, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society Joel Schmidt, Staff Attorney, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society Brandon Reim, Senior Analyst, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society
Mobile devices have become indispensable tools, but they also create a trail of location information that can be crucial in a criminal case. This presentation will equip defense attorneys with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand, utilize, and litigate historical cell site location information and other location data found on mobile devices. The program will include an overview of historical cell site information and location data that can be found on both mobile devices and cloud accounts. Participants will gain an understanding as to how this data is acquired, analyzed, and mapped. Defense attorneys will also learn how to use this data to supplement defense strategies and litigate its use by the prosecution. Participants will leave the program with the knowledge and strategies necessary for using location data in a criminal case and effectuating the best outcomes for their clients.
1.5 CLE credits in Areas of Professional Practice
Jerome D. Greco, Supervising Attorney, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society Lisa Brown, Senior Analyst, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society Chris Pelletier, Analyst, Digital Forensics Unit, Legal Aid Society
In Digital Smoke and Mirrors, we will discuss the inadequacies of the current rules of evidence as they relate to digital data and records. The standards for authentication, foundation, and overall admissibility are ill equipped to prevent fraudulent digital evidence from being used at hearings and trials. Through a mix of technological demonstrations and a discussion of caselaw, we will show how these problems arise, methods for attorneys to ensure the legitimacy of their own evidence, demands attorneys should be making of their adversaries, and challenges to the admissibility and the weight of the evidence. Some of the topics we will cover include screenshots, video and image metadata, and spoofing. The more data and information we can obtain, the better we can build our defenses.
Cynthia Conti-Cook, Director, Research and Policy, Surveillance Resistance Lab
There is a trio of co-dependent digital technologies emerging in cities: digital wallets, digital IDs, and centralized city databases. This presentation will cover how these systems work together to create more visibility for the state into the lives of people in poverty who rely on social safety nets and new capacities for state control and punishment. The public procurement of these technologies from private vendors will introduce more courtroom battles over intellectual property, trade secrets, adversarial accountability, and public oversight.
Lisa Brown is a digital forensics analyst with a decade of service at The Legal Aid Society. She possesses a Master’s degree in Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity, complimented by certifications in computer, mobile, and video forensics. Throughout her career, Lisa has examined an extensive array of digital evidence, including hundreds of computers, cell phones, videos, and cell site records.
Benjamin Burger is a Staff Attorney in the Digital Forensics Unit of the Legal Aid Society. Benjamin advises attorneys on digital forensics and surveillance issues, including automatic license plate readers, the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system, and eavesdropping warrants. He has also created numerous training programs on topics like digital searches at the border, authentication of digital evidence, and digital device search warrants. Recently, Benjamin has litigated Freedom of Information Law requests relating to law enforcement surveillance capabilities in state trial and appellate courts. Prior to joining the Digital Forensics Unit, Benjamin was a Staff Attorney in the Bronx Criminal Defense Practice where he represented thousands of clients on misdemeanor and felony matters.
Cynthia Conti-Cook is a legal and policy strategist working at the intersection of technology and justice movements. She is the Director of Research and Policy at the Surveillance Resistance Lab, where she focuses on Durable Public Infrastructure, Technology and Democracy. Previously, she advised the Ford Foundation’s Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice program on the impact of emerging technologies on justice movements. Cynthia has been a civil rights attorney since 2007, most recently at the Special Litigation Unit of the Legal Aid Society (of New York). She founded Legal Aid’s Cop Accountability Project in 2014, where she co-created a first-of-its-kind public database that made police misconduct information by New York City police officers available online. Cynthia has also taught graduate and undergraduate seminars on digital technology and government and is writing a forthcoming book under contract with One Signal Publishers.
Shane Ferro is a Staff Attorney at the Digital Forensics Unit, where she works on both litigation and policy work. She advises attorneys on how to best litigate issues related to digital evidence in their cases, including facial recognition, ShotSpotter, cell site location information, social media evidence, and cell phone evidence. She also is a member of the Privacy NY coalition and lobbies the city and state governments on anti-surveillance legislation on behalf of the Legal Aid Society. She was previously a staff attorney at Queens Defenders in New York, where she litigated People ex rel. Ferro v. Brann, one of the first New York appellate cases to hold prosecutors to their new obligations under the 2020 New York discovery reform. She graduated from Columbia Law School, and was previously an economics journalist at multiple national media outlets.
Jerome D. Greco is the Supervising Attorney of The Legal Aid Society’s Digital Forensics Unit. Over the past eight years, he has expanded the Unit from four analysts and one lab to three analysts, two senior analysts, four staff attorneys, one supervising attorney, one paralegal, and two labs. Jerome works closely with attorneys and investigators on issues involving electronic surveillance technology, cell phone extractions, location tracking, and facial recognition, among other fields. In the last five years, he has presented over seventy digital forensics and electronic surveillance related CLEs and trainings. Prior to joining the Digital Forensics Unit, Jerome worked as a trial attorney in the Society’s Staten Island and Manhattan criminal defense offices from 2011 to 2016. In addition to his work with technology, Jerome is experienced in litigating freedom of information requests and is an advocate for government transparency.
Mitha Nandagopalan is a staff attorney with the Innocence Project’s Strategic Litigation Department. They lead the Neighborhood Project, a new initiative that combines litigation, research, and policy advocacy to investigate emerging surveillance technology and address the community impacts of its racialized deployment. Before joining the Innocence Project, Mitha worked at the Law Offices of the Public Defender of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Prior to that, they clerked for Justice Susan Carney on the Alaska Supreme Court in Fairbanks.
Christopher Pelletier is an Analyst in the Digital Forensics Unit of the Legal Aid Society. He graduated from Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City, New Jersey with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. Chris has been certified as a Certified Computer Examiner (CCE) by the International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners (ISFCE), is a current LEVA Certified Forensic Video Technician (CFVT), and is also a current Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner (CCME). He has been helping Legal Aid Society clients with their digital data since mid-2019.
Brandon Reim is a Senior Analyst in the Digital Forensics Unit of the Legal Aid Society. He graduated from Bloomsburg University with a Bachelor of Science in Digital Forensics. He also holds numerous certifications, including Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner (CCME) and Encase Certified Examiner (ENCE). Brandon works on Mobile Devices with an emphasis on broken and damaged devices. He is currently working on becoming an IACIS Certified Mobile Device Examiner.
Joel Schmidt is a Staff Attorney in the Digital Forensics Unit of the Legal Aid Society. He works on both litigation and policy work. He advises attorneys on how to best litigate issues related to digital evidence in their cases, including facial recognition, ShotSpotter, cell site location information, social media evidence, and cell phone evidence. He is also a member of the Privacy NY coalition and lobbies the city and state governments on anti-surveillance legislation on behalf of the Legal Aid Society. He recently delivered a know your digital rights training and has delivered Continuing Legal Education programs to attorneys on the topics of location tracking and cellphone extractions. Prior to joining the Digital Forensics Unit, Joel was a Staff Attorney in the Queens Criminal Defense Practice where he represented thousands of clients on misdemeanor and felony matters. He is a graduate of Boston University School of Law.
Sidney Thaxter serves as a Senior Litigator for the Fourth Amendment Center at NACDL, which provides the defense bar with resources and litigation support designed to preserve privacy rights in the digital age. Sidney focuses on new and emerging electronic surveillance including: location tracking, communication interception, device searches, government hacking, biometric identification, and data collection.
Allison Young is an Analyst in the Digital Forensics Unit of the Legal Aid Society. She has expertise in computer, mobile, and cloud account preservation and analysis. She is a current Cellebrite Certified Mobile Examiner, is a current LEVA Certified Forensic Video Technician, and holds a master’s degree in digital forensics from the University of Central Florida. Allison has examined hundreds of computers and cell phones during her career and has a love-hate relationship with data.