Opinion ID: 12
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The New Public Safety Complex

Text: Construction and planning for the new Complex began more than a year and a half before it opened. Among the intended features of the Complex was a state-of-the-art telephone system, with a number of functions, including call recording. The specifications for this new telephone system, including plans for a recording system, were discussed during planning meetings. Members of the Police Department command staff attended these planning meetings, as did the Police Chief on occasion, [4] representatives from the Fire Department, the Finance Department in City Hall, the Planning Committee, architects and engineers, and defendant Vieira, who had been Director of Communications since 1993. The meetings were held in the office of the Commissioner of Public Safety, John Partington, who sometimes attended as well. It was decided at these meetings that the new Complex should include a telephone system capable of recording calls to and from the Police and Fire Departments. Attendees Vieira and Major Dennis Simoneau, the commander of all uniformed police officers, testified to several reasons for this decision. First, planners wanted a system that could record emergency calls that came in on lines other than 911 lines. [5] Second, a recording system was needed to enable monitoring of how public safety employees were handling calls from the public, including on nonemergency lines, so that citizen complaints about public safety officials' behavior on these lines could be investigated. Third, the telephone system needed a cost-accounting feature to reduce costs and prevent employees from abusing their phones. Under the old system, public safety employees' personal long distance calls and calls to sex lines cost the City $5,000 to $6,000 a month. Fourth, the experience of New York City's public safety officers following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, had underscored the desirability of a redundant system that could, in the event that a component of the communications system failed, maintain direct communication among police, fire, hospital, and emergency response agencies, including internal calls between lines on the system. This would include backup for the recorded EOC system, necessitating recording at the Complex. With these parameters in mind, members of the City's Department of Communications developed a request for proposals (RFP) for the telephone system at the Complex so that the Board of Contract and Supply could start the usual open process of selecting a vendor through public bidding. Providence's Board of Contract and Supply, chaired by the City's Mayor, is in charge of awarding contracts for any City purchases above $5,000. Charter, art. X, § 1007. Vieira approved the RFP and sent it to Alan Sepe, Acting Director of the City's Department of Public Property. In that capacity, Sepe was both a member of the Board of Contract and Supply and the head of the department that shepherded the RFP process for the City. The Board of Contract and Supply voted to approve the RFP and publicly advertised it in August 2001. The RFP stated that [t]he Board of Contract and Supply will make the award to the lowest responsible bidder who submits [the] bid and that the Board also reserves the right to reject any and all bid(s). Because the Department of Communications forgot to include the request for a recording system in the RFP, Vieira, at Sepe's behest, later requested in writing that the specifications for the recording system also be put out to bid. A supplemental RFP for the recording system was released on October 29, 2001, without further involvement from Vieira, and was again made public. On November 5, 2001, the Board of Contract and Supply received six bids from various vendors, which the board initially reviewed and made public. The bids were then forwarded to Vieira, who consulted with his staff and discussed the bids with his superior, the Commissioner of Public Safety, before making recommendations. On January 8, 2002, Vieira recommended to Sepe that the City accept the proposal submitted by a company called Expanets, because it was the only vendor who met the requirements of the RFP, namely the desired redundant backup and recording features. The proposed recording system, Expanets' Total Recall system, was capable of digitally recording and storing all inbound and outbound calls on the telephone system. Expanets' bid also specified that it and not the City would be responsible for implementing the proposed system. The total cost of the bid, including both the telephone system and the recording system, was $971,664. Sepe immediately forwarded Expanets' proposal to the Mayor with his own cover letter recommending that it be accepted. After the Board of Contract and Supply, including Sepe and the Mayor, publicly voted on the bid, Expanets was awarded the contract. Sepe testified that he voted to award the contract to Expanets because they were the lowest responsible bidder that met the specifications and could perform the services of the RFP. [6] Vieira was not a member of the Board and could not vote to award Expanets the contract. The Expanets telephone system was installed at the Complex by Expanets technicians and began operating on May 23, 2002. It also included the Total Recall system, which started recording all phone lines that day, well before anyone had moved into the building or begun using the phone lines. The cost-accounting feature also began operating on that date. Vieira testified that the Total Recall system was required not only to record calls but also for the desired cost-accounting feature to function, a fact plaintiffs disputed. The cost-accounting and Total Recall systems were separate functions, and the databases that stored the cost-accounting data and the recordings were separate as well. These functions had all been active for some time when the occupants moved into the Complex in July and August 2002. Specifically, the Total Recall system had been recording approximately 690 lines, located throughout the Complex and configured for the Police and Fire Department and their associated staffs. The phone lines recorded at the Police Department had a range of configurations and uses. There was a central station area with several shared lines, where a desk sergeant sat and several clerks received emergency and nonemergency calls from the public. Some police officers and administrative officials had their own offices with individual phone lines, which they used to make calls on both law enforcement and administrative matters. Finally, there were also shared lines in shared office spaces used by Police Department employees for police business. All of the testifying Chmura plaintiffs said they also used these lines to make personal calls. On July 22, 2002, shortly after the Police Department moved to the Complex, Major Simoneau e-mailed all sworn police officers and civilian employees of the Police Department. He informed recipients that all lines in the new station would be recorded and employees should speak professionally at all times. He also asked desk sergeants to alert all of [their] clerks of this fact, in case they did not receive the e-mail. [7] Unlike the Police Department, the Fire Department did not alert staff about the recording system. The recorded phone lines at the Fire Department also had multiple configurations and uses. There were individual lines for members of the departmental leadership housed in the Complex. Several internal extensions were installed to call other fire stations but did not permit external calls. After relocating to the Complex in August 2002, plaintiff Thomas Walden had the telephone company move to the new facility the firefighters' personal telephone line, which they paid for and used to speak with their families. Unlike in the old building, where the telephone company had physically installed the separate line, the personal line was routed through the Complex's telephone system and into the telephones in the firefighters' space. When the telephone company did this, the line was automatically recorded by the Total Recall system. [8] Soon after the move, Lennon and several technicians who she supervised attended training sessions on the Total Recall system and were given system passwords along with a list of lines recorded. In late July 2002, Vieira requested that his employees remove ten telephone extensions from the recording system, and Lennon received an e-mail informing her when the task was completed. This was not done pursuant to a written policy; indeed there was no written policy governing which lines were recorded or removed from the system. [9] Instructions to remove lines came initially only from Vieira or his deputy. Among the twenty extensions removed from the system during the system's operation were lines to Vieira's own office and residence, the lines to his deputy and to his administrative assistant, and the line to the residence of the Police Chief. [10] In January 2003, The Providence Journal asked the Fire Department for recordings of 911 and interdepartment calls regarding a drowning. Fire Department Chief Guy Lanzi consulted with Senior Assistant City Solicitor John T. D'Amico about the request, at which point D'Amico learned of the recordings for the first time. In a January 22, 2003 letter to Chief Lanzi, D'Amico recommended an inquiry into which phone lines were being recorded and warned that [d]epending on circumstances (e.g., which telephone is being recorded), the recording may be unlawful and depending on the circumstances, if appropriate, [recording on those lines] should be discontinued or the users notified. [11] During these consultations, Fire Chief Lanzi learned that his telephone line and other Fire Department leadership lines were recorded. Lanzi directly contacted Anthony Desmarais, a technician in the Department of Communications to request the lines be removed. Soon thereafter, Desmarais removed the Fire Department leadership's extensions from the recording system at the instruction of Vieira. In February 2003, the City's new Police Chief, Dean Esserman, learned of the recordings, and on February 10, 2003, at Esserman's order, the Total Recall System was completely deactivated and stopped recording all lines at the Complex. On the same day, Vieira and Lennon left their employment with the City. A state investigation followed. The state Attorney General's Office concluded that there was no evidence that any of the calls recorded were listened to without the consent of a call participant or for a criminal, malicious, or non-business-related reason. The Attorney General's Office further concluded that the use of the Total Recall System fell within the ordinary course of business exception to the state and federal wiretap statutes. [12] Between May 2002 and February 2003, the Total Recall system created and archived approximately 750,000 audio files of recorded telephone conversations. Of these recordings, only three were ever listened to and those calls are not at issue in this case. [13]