Lohan responded in modern fashion -- on her Twitter feed, where she essentially pointed the finger of blame at Littleton's Alcohol Monitoring System, which makes and tracks the booze-sensing anklet she was ordered to wear.
About sixteen hours ago at this writing, Lohan tweeted, "My scram wasn't set off."
She followed that up with: "My scram wasn't set off-Its physically impossible considering I've nothing for it to go off-All of these false resports are absolutely wrong."
And then, more profanely: "This is all because of a FALSE accusation by tabloids& paparazzi& it is fucking digusting- I've been more than I'm compliance &feeling great."
Her last words on the subject to date: "oh, fyi i have never heard of any sort of "curfew" at all.. so this is all news to me... i always upload my scram."
Lohan's history with alcohol monitoring has been disputatious. As noted in our May 27 post, published shortly after Lohan was ordered to wear the SCRAMx device, we pointed out that she reportedly tried to tamper with a similar gadget back in 2007 -- an accusation she's denied.
At the time, Alcohol Monitoring Systems spokeswoman Kathleen Brown emphasized the overwhelming futility of such attempts. "I'm not saying its failure-proof," she conceded. "But we test everything very carefully and have from the beginning. We have teams of people constantly making sure it works, and works properly."
Brown described the SCRAMx as being "very similar to having a Breathalyzer for your ankle. Instead of a person blowing into it, a little pump sucks in perspiration we all have on our skin and measures that sample to see if there's alcohol consumption. It does that every thirty minutes. Then, usually once a day, but sometimes as often as six times a day, the bracelet and its base station basically look at each other and send all the data to us in Littleton. That's where our secure, web-based server houses the data and generates any reports."
She also stressed the care AMS takes in terms of getting the facts right: "We go through an arduous check-and-balance process for every report, because a violation can have serious consequences. People can go back to jail or lose their job -- serious stuff. So we have a whole team of data analysts who look at this, and then local jurisdictions can move forward with the paperwork and decide how they want to deal with the clients."
At present, there are conflicting reports about whether Lohan had a curfew under the original court order. As Brown proudly noted, SCRAMx can also keep tabs on people with such restrictions on them.
How does Brown feel about Lohan suggesting that her latest problems can be traced to a technical glitch rather than her fondness for likker? So far this morning, she hasn't responded to multiple interview requests; if and when she does, we'll update this post. But yesterday, AMS put out a press statement about client confidentiality and the reliability of its reports. The document doesn't mention Lohan specifically -- but that's not really necessary, is it? Here's the release:
SCRAMx Client Confidentiality and the AMS Confirmation Process for all ViolationsSCRAMx Client Confidentiality AMS has a Client Privacy Policy that affords every SCRAMx client privacy related to any and all information about their time wearing SCRAMx. Our process ensures that any and all information about any individual client goes only to authorized personnel at the contracting jurisdictions.
AMS Confirmation Process for all Violations AMS conducts a thorough and arduous evaluation of the entirety of every client's monitoring data and the SCRAMx equipment worn at the time of a violation before issuing a final confirmation to the monitoring agency and the court. Because of this multi-step review process, we stand behind any confirmation of any violation 100%.
Since 2003, SCRAM has conducted more than 489 million alcohol tests on 137,000 offenders in more than 1,800 jurisdictions in 48 states.
