From the original news article:

"The messages, sent in 2014 and 2015, were discovered as part of a police department probe into a sexual assault allegation against Lai by a woman last year. Prosecutors declined to file rape charges in the case, citing insufficient evidence.

"Lai has since been charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of illegally accessing Department of Motor Vehicles computers for a nonofficial purpose. He is scheduled to be arraigned May 3."

This appears to be a PR move by the department, to get rid of a supposedly racist cop before he gets removed (or not removed) for alleged criminal activity.

It seems like the digital communication revolution is bringing some of our baser human instincts out to the forefront. The ease with which a virtual mob can be brought down on anyone at anytime is disturbing. The delineation between the public and private sphere is blurry and getting blurrier and blurrier. I suppose the benefits outweigh the negatives but it seems that heckler's veto is becoming more prominent in society.

Sadly it seems that being pro free speech is becoming more and more a niche cause in our society. It makes me appreciate you site even more.

Not sure I agree that texts sent to other people are "private thoughts".

I don't suppose the benefits outweigh the negatives. Unless you happen to be perfect, and your beliefs are au courant with whatever is going to be publicly acceptable decades from now.

He apologized to the public, adding that there is "no tolerance for officers who hold such reprehensible views."

It seems like the digital communication revolution is bringing some of our baser human instincts out to the forefront. ~ Shtetl G at April 29, 2016 9:24 AM

Mark Fuhrman was branded racist due to comments remembered by others. With the electronic revolution, conversational comments that once were gone as soon as they were finished are now preserved for eternity in the electronic ether.

The scary part is his boss at the behest of a lynch mob deciding which viewpoints are "reprehensible." What if he and the mob decide supporting a certain candidate is reprehensible? Or belonging to a certain political party? At what point did doing your job stop being enough?

Lyndon Johnson's famous quip about African-Americans voting Democrat for 40 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Bill passed comes to mind. Would they rather have had the Civil Rights Bill, or a president who had politically correct motivations? Sometimes you take the good with the bad.

In Brothers In ArmsKareem Abdul Jabar praised George Patton for being willing to commit the 761st Tank Battalion to battle alongside white troops and to accept black troops under his command when most commanders found excuses not to, in spite of his inherent racism.

This was Officer Lai's personal phone, so how did it become part of the investigation - and why were the texts made public? Do we have any expectation of privacy left?

That said, if you're a police officer, you've gotta know that doing the electronic equivalent of hanging Klan regalia in your living room is gonna cause people to question your impartiality. Seriously, save the "nig" and "beaner" comments for a beer with the guys after work. Dumbass.

Even in the electronic age, don't forget the wisdom of Earl Long: "Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink."

Shtetl - Heckler's veto? Who's the heckler here? The police department found these texts, and fired him. If anything, it sounds like hecklers are trying to veto the police department's decision.

"Brandeis and Warren explained that a person has a right--a natural human right--to determine to what extent their thoughts, opinions, and emotions and the details of their "private life, habits, acts, and relations" will be communicated to others. They noted that this right to privacy comes out of our right to be left alone and that it applies whether an individual's personal information is "expressed in writing, or in conduct, in conversation, in attitudes, or in facial expression."

That's fine and that applies to private citizens quietly going about their hobbit lives but when you are in a position of public trust, quite a bit more of you is a matter of private interest.

Tat means for instance that if you are an Army officer, even your right of free assembly does not allow you to belong to neo-Confederate or any other subversive groups or to have any association that may bring discredit on the army or the military as a whole, unless you first resign your position with all its powers and renounce the oath you swore. It's an either/o proposition.

that is the main difference between private citizens and public persons.

kf,
"Not sure I agree that texts sent to other people are "private thoughts"."

They have to be subpoenaed, but the point is that they are subject to subpoena.

Jim,

Good post. The texts don't *have* to be subpoenaed to be public. Someone could read them over the friends' shoulders, the friends' wives could read them, the friends could have big mouths, the friends themselves are part of the public so even if nobody else ever saw the emails, at least some of the public already knew what sort of people the SFPD employed.

I disagree with Randazza about what "most intimate private thoughts" entail, and that this had anything to do with how well Lai "hid" his deepest darkest most intimate personal thoughts.

Look at the lesson being taught here. Obviously Lai, instead of disparaging people he doesn't like, should have just shot them.

Everybody wins, until the top games department in the country cancels the “Legends of the Games Industry” — that’s not me editorializing, that was the actual name of the panel — just four hours before the event because the panelists happened to, well, collectively lack vaginas.

http://dailytrojan.com/2016/04/25/point-postponement-sca-panel-reveals-snowflake-culture/

"Technology's impact on privacy isn't a new issue. "Numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that 'what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops,' " wrote Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis in the Harvard Law Review in the 90s--the 1890s. They were worried about the advent of affordable portable cameras and dismayed at the way newspapers had begun covering people's private lives.
Brandeis and Warren explained that a person has a right--a natural human right--to determine to what extent their thoughts, opinions, and emotions and the details of their "private life, habits, acts, and relations" will be communicated to others. They noted that this right to privacy comes out of our right to be left alone and that it applies whether an individual's personal information is "expressed in writing, or in conduct, in conversation, in attitudes, or in facial expression."

This has not changed because of what's now technically possible: how it takes just a few clicks to Facebook or Instagram an embar- rassing photo of a person or blog their medical history, sexual orientation, sex practices, financial failings, lunch conversation, or daily doings. No matter how fun and easy the technology makes immediately publishing everything about everyone and no matter how common it's become to violate everyone's right to privacy, each person's private life remains their own and not a free commodity to be turned into content by the rest of us."

I find that interesting and enlightening in terms of my often frustration with Orin Kerr (Volokh Conspiracy) and what often seems a defense of the gov't's ability to use anpr/alpr, cameras and other devices and then put it all into a database. But I've never seen Kerr address Warren and Brandeis.

I wonder what an attorney representing a citizen (criminal or otherwise) shot by this officer might have done with this information?

I wonder what an attorney representing a citizen (criminal or otherwise) shot by this officer might have done with this information? ~ Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 29, 2016 12:34 PM

I think the OJ trial gave us a good idea what a defense attorney could do with information like that.

I am 100% in suport of firing his stupid ass.

I dont care that he is racist, as I am pretty sure most Asians are. My gripe is he was being investigated for racist texts and his stupid ass KEPT sending them.

Unthought:

Just who do you think is going to replace this person? Mr/Ms Politically Correct doesn't usually volunteer for a career in law enforcement. As we can see from rallies around the current candidates for President, they don't have much use for laws or even basic decency.