Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Asheville Police Sgt. Eric Lauffer faces a lawsuit from a subordinate officer he supervised, Officer Cherie Byrd, who alleges that Lauffer sent her sexually suggestive and harassing text messages. Byrd makes other allegations, but I’m going to focus on the text messages. First, a little more detail from the Asheville Citizen-Times:
Officer Cherie Byrd makes the allegations against Sgt. Eric Lauffer, who won a 2008 “officer of the year” award from the city.
Byrd said she filed the lawsuit against the city and Lauffer after officials failed to address her complaints and retaliated against her.
The suit claims Lauffer used vulgar language describing sexual activity in messages to Byrd
“Other texts contained messages such as ‘I must licky you’ and ‘I am just a man. Never satisfied always wanting more,’” the lawsuit states.
“He also texted her a picture of the back side of a naked man and implied in another message that she was a ho.”
This story provides an enterprising reporter with a hook to delve into the text messaging issue. What are other city employees texting to people, and how is it used by employees? How often? How much is the service costing city taxpayers?
It’s my understanding that text messages are public record. The Detroit Free Press conducted a groundbreaking investigation a couple of years ago of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. One linchpin of the newspaper investigation was its pursuit of the mayor’s text messages, and what those messages revealed.
One starting point is a Freedom of Information Act request asking for all the text messages of Asheville Police Department officers for a set period of time. Maybe the last six months of 2009, or the first three months of 2010. Get the records, and see what turns up. Then extend the request to other city departments whose employees are issued city phones that have texting privileges.
There may be complicating factors. Are the text messages stored, and if so, where? On city government servers, or on servers held by a third party?
I’m not sure, but somebody needs to start asking. It remains to be seen if the allegations in this lawsuit will be proven in a court of law. But this case throws up a big red flag.
http://www.divorce360.com/divorce-articles/cheating/catching/checking-text-messages.aspx?artid=1071
fan, is this a story you’re quoting from somewhere? if so, do you have a source for this? it sounds like good information. i’d like to know the source. thanks.
CELL PHONE COMPANIES DON’T STORE MESSAGES
Even the cell phone companies express an inability to save or extract text messages. A T-Mobile spokesperson said that the company can’t discuss the issue at all. Mark Siegel, the executive director of media and industry analyst relations for AT&T Wireless said that he knows of no way to save a text message, other than just not deleting it from the hand set. He said AT&T stores text messages for 48 hours to ensure they are delivered, and then deletes them.
Debra Lewis, from Verizon Wireless, agreed that the only way to keep a message is to keep it on the handset. She said that her company does not keep text messages on their servers for any length of time. However, if there are messages that are retrievable, a subpoena is required to get copies of them.
The text and photo messages cycle through the servers, and then are no longer available if the phone company does not store them, Lewis said. If Verizon gets the court order in time, it will save the messages for a bit of time. “We don’t disclose the length of time (except to law enforcement), but it’s not lengthy and can vary — but you can think of it as days not weeks or months,” Lewis said.
The company often works with law enforcement agencies to get calling records and text messages for use in investigations, she said. But for the average customer, the best chance of saving a message is not deleting it, she said.