[duxup]

>"I advised them that this building belonged to the taxpayers of Dallas County and the State had no authority to authorize a break-in of this building," Leonard wrote in the email.

I was wondering about that. If it is the county courthouse I'm not sure a state employee necessarily can authorize something like a break in.

[sb8244]

If the courthouse "belonged to the taxpayers of Dallas County", who could authorize the break in? This was a really confusing/nuanced piece of the story and I'm not sure what's correct on it.

[AmericanChopper]

It read it as him asserting his jurisdiction over the county, and this whole case seems to boil down to an implied conflict between the county and the state over that jurisdiction. I’m not a lawyer, but it doesn’t look like there’s a very strong mens rea component to this accusation. I imagine they’d have to prove that the accused acted negligently, supposing it is in fact true that the state didn’t have the authority to authorise the test. But then who else is also culpable? Coalfire? The state of Iowa? The particular state official involved in this engagement?

[elasticventures]

It's not remotely that simple; (I think; IANAL) there's lots of exceptions to this rule:

if the courthouse receives resources from the state; it has statewide terminals; etc. access points where criminal records can be modified or updated then it's still the states responsibility to verify the physical security.

If Eve wants to issue an arrest warrant for bob and alice; or have them "SWATTED" and locked up; changing records in a court house is a straightforward way to do that.

If this was done as part of a statewide voting system and the courthouse is a polling place then the state should have type of imminent domain; or other statewide drill then it would be included. If they participate in any of those systems then depending on the nature of the agreement, they're consent maybe implicit.

Obviously; nobody loves the idea of breaking into a courthouse at night.

I'd wager that could even extend to adjacent buildings; and I know federal investigators who request (and then intimidate & insist) that a business owner let them do xyz type operation .. but in a lot of cases; if there is a chance of collusion then they don't even ask for that permission.

I suppose that requires a warrant; so perhaps #red_team warrants issued by a higher level judge; ultimately it's a future area of legislation.

[wmf]

I guess the county government could authorize them to break into a county courthouse.

[closeparen]

The right to bring in a 3rd party for security assessment is sometimes part of an IT service contract; the state might have had this (or thought they had this) as part of its electronic records integration with the county.

[duxup]

I don't doubt you're right, I do wonder to what extent everyone would understand something that looks like a physical break in might be part of that.

[corebit]

This is going to be state specific. Generally courthouses are built by county boards, paid for with county bonds, and under the control and management of the local county sherriff. Counties are creatures of the state, but that doesnt mean any random state employee with a similar sounding adjective in their title have any authority over a county institution; it will all depend on the authority granted by legislation and constitutions.