Presenting the Lamest Drug Sting Ever, a Tale of Addiction Criminalization and iPhone Impersonation

OK, I get the general sense/argument of why attempting to possess heroin is illegal and bad for society etc, but still, just say that charge out loud. When I think of “drug problems” in a criminal sense, I tend to think of dealers and vast, violent networks of people actively doing harm (hiding money, killing people, and so forth) and less about non-violent addicts in need of help and treatmet. But, no matter, this is the charge brought against Shawn Hinton, a dude who made the news a couple of weeks ago in the lamest fucking drug sting you’ve ever heard of. Specifically, in said sting, a cop impersonated a drug dealer, Daniel Lee, on said drug dealer’s iPhone, set up a drug deal, and busted the buyer. Clap … clap … clap.

Let’s recap real quick — the cop, detective Kevin Sawyer, not only eavesdropped on private communications without a warrant, but did this whole other largely unprecedented thing, combing through the dealer’s text messages and then initiating communications under the guise of the dealer. In the case of Hinton, at least the detective was responding to a message recieved from the buyer while the phone was in Sawyer’s posession (not that that makes it much better or even OK), but in a second case, the cop actually texted a potential buyer, Jonathan Roden, asking if he “needed more.” Turns out Roden did, and the same sort of “attempted posession of heroin” bust went down, with Roden later challenging the cop’s methods in court.

Here’s what happened, according to Forbes:

Roden tried to challenge the conviction, arguing that the detective violated Washington's Privacy Act — which forbids government types from intercepting or recording "private communication transmitted by telephone." Roden argued to an appeals court that the text messages should have been suppressed, because they were intended for his drug dealer not the detective (obviously). The Washington Court of Appeals was not sympathetic, ruling that the messages were private, but because Roden knew that his text messages were being sent to another device where they would be "recorded," i.e. saved, he had no "reasonable expectation of privacy" once they were sitting in his drug dealer's text inbox. He has no idea who could potentially read them once they were stored there, says the court. (The court didn't get into the ethics or legality of a detective posing as the drug dealer.)

A few days ago, Naked Security posted a transcript of the text message conversation between Sawyer and Hinton:

[Hinton]: Hey whats up dogg can you call me i need to talk to you. [Sawyer]: Can’t now. What’s up? [Hinton]: I need to talk to you about business. Please call when you get a chance. [Sawyer]: I’m about to drop off my last. [Hinton]: Please save me a ball. Please? I need it. I’m sick.

So there you go. Great job detective, great job legal system. Another addict goes to jail instead of treatment — thanks to an addict sting — and privacy in the 21st century tumbles down another flight of stairs.

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.

• Cure Drug Addiction by Watching Videos of Drugs
• Hemp Against Hitler: How Cannabis Helped America Win World War II
• The White House Goes All Reefer Madness Again