What an election season! First, a housekeeper comes forward with a surprise. Then a Brown campaign staffer uses rough language that gets broadcast (pun intended) for another surprise. And now Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley has had to admit that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has been using GPS tracking to monitor the private business of many Californians, including those who donate thousands or even millions of dollars to the L.A. County owned Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cooley is the Republican nominee for California Attorney in next Tuesday’s general election and highly favored to win in all recent polls.

Listing to Cooley speak on the KPCC radio talk show with host Larry Mantle, you would have to give this silver tongued attorney high marks for tact. He responded very matter of factly and was quite polite. But anyone who carefully analyzed what he said would see that neither the L.A. District Attorney’s Office nor the trustees of LACMA have taken care that these intrusions on privacy and personal business and finance are not abused in a way the International Council of Museums has determined to be unethical. In addition, the American Association of Museum Directors has adopted a policy that mere compliance with the law is not sufficient and that any conduct which results in a gift or bequest that an individual would not have made of their own free will without outside interference is unethical and subject to restitution.

Without considering what the museum community’s high standards for interference with donors’ privacy are, Cooley essentially admitted that L.A. County and the LACMA trustees violate these routinely and frequently. This in turn constitutes an admission that LACMA is not complying with an important provision of the tax code for 501-C non-profits, which are required to demonstrate that they serve the public good.

What Cooley did say largely contradicted the position the federal government has taken in supporting claims against German and Austrian museums. The German language press has been paying attention. Last month, the number two German newsweekly Stern Magazine published information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that up to 15% of big city police officers are engaged in some type of criminal activity such as blackmail and extortion and dozens have physically abused innocent citizens (and occasionally used guns) in exchange for payment. Of course, their ability to obtain information about large cash or art gifts to LACMA and locate private assets with GPS tracking provides many additional opportunities for extortion, theft of artwork and coerced sale of property. Since the U.S. government has considered this type of conduct by the Nazis to be so objectionable that Americans can bring claims against the German and Austrian government in the U.S. courts, the Germans enthusiastically welcome this opportunity to pursue claims against Americans in German courts.

The language used by Examiner.com’s affiliate company Now Public actually makes the Nazis seem genteel by comparison. Their headline for this report is : “GANG STALKERS DOWN: U.S. COURT REJECTS WARRANTLESS GPS TRACKING. Electronic backbone of covert fusion center coordinated nationwide community "gangstalking" network -- warrantless GPS tracking data fed by federally-funded law enforcement agencies such as RISSNET to local police and community "policing" vigilante patrol squads -- declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Aug. 6, 2010.” The full article is online.

This global perspective made Cooley’s explanation of the GPS tracking less than acceptable by the standards of the international museum community. He explained to Air Talk host Larry Mantle that the GPS technology was a legitimate surveillance technique. However, recent U.S. federal court decisions dispute this for a very good reason. No one can obtain unbiased legal counsel if a law enforcement agency can follow someone and interfere with their legal counsel with 24/7 GPS tracking. Even having information such as how many minutes a defendant or plaintiff met with the attorney and interferes with due process and the right to a fair trial. Of course, this applies to meetings with trust and estate attorneys who provide advice about gifts and bequests to LACMA as well. And the now infamous hacking of Sarah Palin’s e-mail passwords showed that the more information you collect about someone the easier it is to decode their passwords and obtain private financial and business information, like whether someone can afford legal expenses. Since Palin could not afford these, she was forced to resign her position as Governor of Alaska to earn more on the public speaking circuit.

What does LACMA have to say about this? Nothing, absolutely nothing. When contacted by California Lawyers for the Arts, LACMA’s trustees declined to comment.

Author’s disclosure: In June 2010 I officially endorsed Steve Cooley’s campaign on Facebook and contributed $150 of personal funds for advertising supporting Cooley’s candidacy. I do not agree with his position regarding GPS tracking of LACMA donors and benefactors, but admire his work ethic and intelligence.