Anaheim and its ex-mayor won’t disclose his emails and texts, so we took them to court. Here’s how they’re suing us for the data. A lawsuit that says the city and a single commissioner can do what they want with the public’s own phone records.
Los Angeles is considering a law that would give one man, the billionaire real estate scion Robert Nelsen, unprecedented power over how police use their cellphones.
Nelsen’s proposal could give him an unlimited right to demand the use of police data from police and other agencies using police cellphones to conduct “emergency and investigative duties,” according to an agency summary of the proposal obtained by The Times.
Nelsen is demanding that the LAPD get permission from his company, Nelsen Computers of California, to conduct its own surveillance as it investigates crimes in Los Angeles, an unprecedented power, critics say, that could expand his power and expose more of the community to the public’s safety.
Anaheim, Long Beach and San Bernardino are suing the city, contending that Nelsen is abusing the open data program LAPD uses to share the data with the public to conduct surveillance of the public. Nelsen, whose company operates in California, as well as Illinois, Illinois, Arkansas and Missouri, is the president of Nelsen Computers, which is a division of Nelsen Enterprises Holdings LLC, a Delaware company.
He and the city are also fighting over other open data programs, including the LAPD’s program for sharing cell phone data with the public.
In an unprecedented move, Nelsen and the city are fighting over the LAPD’s database of cellphone location information that is accessed by the public when crimes are reported. The location data is used to check in at police stations to report a crime, but also to determine whether there are any active crimes, so that police are not investigating people who committed no crime.
The city and Nelsen are accusing each other of “unreasonably” delaying the release of public information about LAPD’s open data program, including data about the location data. (The city’s lawsuit is in Los Angeles Superior Court.) They are also arguing over the LAPD’s open data program, where LAPD investigators use the
