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Appeals Decision in USTA vs. FCC (CALEA)
Note that this case is fundamentally about money: the telecom carriers are suing the government because they feel that the government's desired surveillance abilities (mandated under the 1996 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act; this is where Carnivore was born) are too expensive to implement. If the government provided more money (half a billion tax dollars were given to the phone companies when CALEA was passed, but the companies want more), these objections would evaporate.
So there weren't any principles of privacy involved, at least in the beginning. But some civil liberties groups have grabbed on the shirt-tails of this case to make principled arguments - that the surveillance requirements are too burdensome and intrusive in principle, not just too costly. So this is actually a good result where the Court mostly agreed with the civil liberties people that the surveillors should have to get warrants for some of the information they were seeking to get without warrants, and other information may be unavailable entirely. Note however that "call location" information (the ability of cellular carriers to report to the cops which cell phone tower your phone is registered with, and therefore, probably where you are) will still be available to law enforcement.
Perhaps people need to lose thier freedom and be tracked to see what its like. I can just imagine being rewarded or punished depending on where I have been tracked and have been doing.
Imagine married couples who are tagged to make sure every moment of thier lives are honest and with thier partner. Imagine our social lives being enforced with the law so we will be sure we do not make mistakes. The last bit of freedom we have ever known can be controlled by our government if you wish. Its all about privacy and freedom.
Lemme see... I've read 1984 at least 3 times, the first time in elementary school and the last time a few years ago in high school. I overuse ellipses in all my conversations, as any of my friends who I talk to on IM can confirm. It's just a bad habit of mine. And did you actually read the post I was responding to?? He called for a personal tracking device for _every_ person. And I don't know about you, but "surveillance really should be carried out by whatever means possible" sounds like a sweeping and general statement to me...
There is a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion, explicitly conveyed by the 1st amendment. Of course, getting the Supreme Court to remember that (cf Employment Division v. Smith) is a completely different matter.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
No, the traditional Sherbert doctrine approach to such laws was to uphold facially neutral-with-respect-to-religion laws that infringe upon religious freedom only when the state interest advanced was compelling and the law was the narrowest one that could advance that interest. This was changed, as I alluded to, in Employment Division v. Smith, which held that religiously neutral laws that infringe upon relgious rights will be upheld regardless -- specifically, that a law prohibiting the use of peyote by all citizens cannot be constitutionally attacked by Native Americans who require its use for their religious practices, even if there is no demonstrable compelling state interest to prevent peyote's consumption in a highly ritualized/structured/controlled environment. This is what is known as bullshit.
The constitution reserves a special place for religious interests in American jurisprudence, just as it does for alcohol via the 18th and 21st amendments. If you disagree with this fact, then the intellectually honest thing to do would be to seek a constitutional amendment.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Certainly! For instance, when a cop is caught violating the Fourth Amendment, we need to be send him to prison (real don't-bend-over-for-the-soap prison, not Club Fed).
I'd watch this thread to see if you 1)endorse this position, or 2)prove yourself to be a hypocrite.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
There are established legal principles pertaining to different levels of expected privacy. For instance, if I talk to someone on the street, a police officer who happens to be within listening range can listen, because I have minimal expectation of privacy. However, if I deliberately move out of range or ask the officer to do so, the police can't continue listening without some grounds for suspicion, because my expectation of privacy is higher once I specifically do something to protect it. (Note: The case law in the U.S. is pretty clear that asserting privacy against the police is not in itself sufficient cause.)
Obviously, a confessional has just about the highest expectation of privacy -- certainly, a higher expectation than a pesonal request not backed by strong institutional tradition. The fact that the "strong institutional tradition" in this case happens to be religious is irrelevant; government in the U.S. is no more supposed to discriminate against a religion than to discriminate in its favor.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
if [Clinton] had been [convicted of perjuy], it would have been on a non-subject, and on a question he should never have been asked
Wrong.
Clinton's alleged perjury was not just a matter of lying in response to an immaterial question about his sexual conduct. (And nobody really cares if he slept with someone not his wife, or has a thing for redheads, amputees, or sheep, none of which would be an impeachable offense.)
It was about his testimony in a sexual harrassment lawsuit, where such perjury would constitute an obstruction of justice, denying a victim her fair trial. That IS an impeachable offense - especially when committed by someone whose position includes being "the chief law enforcement officer of the land".
As a result of his (allegedly?) getting away with it, the sexual harrassment laws of the United States have now become effectively moot. Offenders now use the "Clinton defense" and generally get off.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually, triangulation will not be allowed under this ruling. The only requirement for Cellular carriers will be to provide the location of the tower handling the call. The court rightly felt that triangulation "could undermine individual privacy" because triangulating a persons position based on towers turns a cell phone into a tracking device.
K
This story at eetimes (dating back to:04/26/99, 10:54 a.m. EST) talks about a company called Starium (Monterey, Calif.). They have an ecryption model for digital cellular comunications that seems interesting.
The truth of this statement hinges on what you mean by "confessional". Are you refering to the box in a church where you sit, or the act itself? If the former, yes, there is a strong expectation of privacy, backed by the institution you are in. But the discussion was of a confessional over the phone, which has no more expectation of privacy than any other phone conversation.
The legal effect of confessionals upon wiretapping laws is and should be nill. The admissibility of such tapes should, IMHO be no different than that of phone tap records of calls to suicide hotlines, rape crisis centers or pregnancy crisis hotlines, all of which have an expectation of privacy and anonymity. To set any contact with a priest above other private contacts, and protect against even the chance of breaking "sanctity" as the original poster suggested is discrimination in favor of a religion over similar, non-religious services.
Oh, and while I am not Catholic, I have a greater expectation of privacy when I have extracted a personal promise from a friend than from a bored guy sitting in a box. Basing legal protections on "expectations" seems guarenteed to discriminate against the social minorities, especially if it is the majority's expectations that matter and not those personally invoved in the transaction.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Slippery slope arguments are intellectually bankrupt. Its nothing but the argument ad absurduim - "I can't find a problem with this idea, so I'll exagerate it beyond reason and find a problem with that. Then I'll pretend that its the same thing."
Legal arguments by rational people are about rational extensions of the topic at hand. If you need to make your slope slippery to show how one thing could lead to another, you are just fearmongering.
Rational extention - allowing police to stop cars based on "gut instinct" has been shown to lead to the use of racially tinted "profiles". If there was a proposal to let cops evesdrop on cell phones on the same "instinct" one could rationally worry that similar profiling trends would emerge.
Slippery Slope - Some people might like to have GPS locaters for emergencies, and similar devices could be used to enforce house arrests or restraining orders on convicted criminals. Oh no! This means that the government will track every single person at every moment of the day and criminally charge people who spend too much time with a dot not their spouse!
History has proven it's entirely unreasonable to rely on arbitrary stopping points.
Rationality shows that all stopping points can seem arbitrary. Legally enforced stop lights and speed limits are not the first step to a police trafic state where you enter where you want to go in your car and a government bot tells you exactly what route to take and how fast to go at each second along the way. Laws against rape are not the first step to a reproductive police state where people are only allowed to have sex once a year in government aproved pairing.
Slippery slopes got so slippery from all the mental masturbation people do to create them. If you want to slip on your own mental jizz, go ahead, but I prefer a rational anaylis of what is.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
However, the law which is seen to "interfere" with this is neutral, or we might even say orthogonal, to religion. The SJC has on several recent occasions made it clear that a religiously neutral law (one which is in no way "aimed" at a particular religion) is binding even on the religious. They have even struck down a federal law meant to say the opposite.
Example time. Horse drawn vehicles are slower, less manuverable and have a panicable animal attached to them. Therefore, traffic laws generally require them to have visible reflective hazzard signs attached if they are using the same streets as cars. In most places this only impacts on those who drive such vehicles to make money or as a hobby. In the Pennsylvania Dutch country, there are also the Amish who drive horse drawn vehicles as part of their faith, and also don't like bright shiny signs.
One could argue that forcing them to put signs on their buggies interferes with the Amish faith and should be forbidden under the 1st amendment. However, the laws are orthogonal to the amish religion. They address only a practical matter of safety, and to compromise that safety because it happens to interfere with a religious action (as opposed to belief) is to grant special legal status to a religious group, which would be the real 1st ammendment violation.
The practice of getting warrents to tap phones is orthogonal to religion. To adjust the practice because it may intefere with religious action of one particular denomination is to give special rights to Catholics. To get silly for a moment, if the Catholic church cannot survive this neutral law, it is no more the government's problem than if my theoretical church requires that I go directly to church every sunday without stopping and I keep getting trafic tickets for running red lights. As long as a law was not implemented against a particular religion, the side effects on a religion are just tough nookie.
To soften my earlier stance somewhat however, I will again grant that a preist may constituationally be granted the same status as other non-licensed counselors. I object however, to the idea that this would be done to protect the Church, rather than being done in the same spirit of personal privacy as protections for doctors, lawyers or rape crisis centers. And in the same line, such privilege should not be any more of an argument against the act of phone tapping, it just effects whether such conversations are then admissable in court. The religious right to never be heard, as opposed to a legal right of confidentiality, I remain contemptuous of.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
It seems that some people have a need to say "1984" and think that it is an argument when faced with any discussion that includes the words "tracking" or "survillance". This sad and socially damaging form of the Tourettes syndrome often appears amoung people who have not actually read the book in question, and never includes an understanding of the complexity of the world described therein. Associated behaviours include squaking out the phrases "slippery slope!" and "nanny state!", the inclusion of elipses to appear thoughtful, and spasmodic leaps from voluntary or warrented systems to survelance of every person on earth.
Unfortunately any attempt to medicate for this problem only results in an increase in the "nanny state" eruptions, rather than reducing overall squaking.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Imagine a discussion on slashdot where the ideas were actually discussed instead of plunging into a hysterical pit of slippery slope arguments. Naw, that could never happen.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
However, to let that exercise break religiously neutral laws would give the religious more rights than the irreligious, thus establishing religion, forbidden by same ammendment. The logical and traditional approach has been to say that no law can target a religious practice, but a neutral and justifyable law that happens to interfere with a specific religious practice will be enforced. If my building's fire code prohibits open flame, it doesn't matter if candles are on a pagan alter, a birthday cake or a menorah, the law speaks only of flame. Because the law was not passed "regarding the free exercise of religion" it is enforced evenly on all to avoid "an establishment thereof".
The first ammendment protection of religious exercise prevents congress from passing laws whose only or primary intent is to inhibit religious exercise. Considering the second, establishment clause, it cannot be taken to protect any exercise which you choose to call religious from being regulated by neutral law.
The SJC understands this ballance perfectly, it is congress that has been a little on the dense side.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
In fact, because policy favors consolidation of cases, attaching all the parties to the case is favored by the courts and laws (that's why there are provisions in the law to do so). That way the courts don't have to hear the same facts and arguments twice.
It sounds to me that by passing laws that they know will get thrown out in court, the government is demonstrating that it has no respect for the legal system. Not that I can point the finger since the U.S. Congress does the same thing, but your argument is somewhat flawed. There are certain factions in all governments that would be happy to sacrifice the necessary checks and balances on the state for short-term gains.
Well, I think the problem with RIP is that the government didn't want to loose face but knew it was in trouble (IIRC, it got through with a majority of one vote), and to be honest they never wanted to admit that they were technically incompetent. If they had, they wouldn't have let this one through. It was a rush job put through a bit of gentle pressure from the law enforcement agenices who wanted to be seen to be doing something. Expect a new RIP bill to be presented to parliament within 5 years at a guess.
I'm sorry, I have to take exception to this. I also live in the UK, and I've been an admin of an ISP or two in the last few years as well. I have also worked within the civil service, and can see things from both sides of the fence. To be blunt, I think you're being hysterical.
To say that we live in a state where "law enfocement bodies now have the right to walk all over us" is a redundant and rather stupid statement. We live in a state whereby democratic politics is allowed. Would you rather live in a country where surveillance is carried out, but you're never told about it? Or would you rather have the ability to state that the laws are wrong and vote for those parties that promise to abolish those laws once you vote for them? Oh, I know, we don't have any of those rights do we. Except that "Mother of all Parliaments" thing that we have.
I find your attitude (in that you imply the suggestion we are unable to do anything about laws to which we are morally repulsed) quite hilarious. You don't happen to be a researcher on the Mark Thomas Comedy product do you?
Secondly, everybody knows that the RIP bill is unenforcable, and will fall at the first hurdle when tested in a court of law. To think otherwise is again, stupid and mildy amusing on your part. Yet again, you have assumed that The Government will show no respect for the legal system, and will just bang us all up in prison for even suggesting that they should give us freedoms. Oh, and they'll probably stop us from being able to vote as well. Britain is soooo like that.
What I always find really, really, really amusing about all these people (like yourself) who complain about the RIP bill, is that you didn't realise that the Interception of Communications Act had been in place for years. The only differene between the RIP bill and the IOCA is that the RIP bill extended responsibility for interception to ISPs as well as Telcos, the IOCA required a secretary of state to sign the warrant rather than senior police officer, and the RIP bill discusses crypto. If somebody wanted to intercept your traffic, they always could, it's just now going to be the case that the operations will be cheaper to run. Oh, and they'll tell you about wanting your key rather than finding it themselves on a supercomputer somewhere....
Oh, and there is one more thing. Do you honestly think that the Police or the Government really have the time, resources, or even slight inclination to give a damn about you? They're stretched to the teeth already - this law is designed to assist in the capture of major drug smugglers and their kin, not some warez kiddie who posts hilarious and ridiculous political statements on slashdot. If you're not a criminal, this law will never even affect you - ever. As an ISP admin, it may affect me, and I am prepared to install any equipment that the Government ask me to install, and run any interception required providing that the appropriate warrants have been filled in correctly and in adequate time.
The only way to be truly secure is to 1) Assume that if the law enforcement agencies even slightly suspect any wrong-doing on your part, that they're going to go ahead and wiretap, read your email, listen to your cell phone and cordless conversations and then work out the legal details later. And 2) Use strong encryption (this has been said a million times), don't use cell or cordless phones for important information, shred your important documents, etc. etc. Be as paranoid as you can.
How come no one threw a fit when people realized that you could listen to your neighbor's phone conversations with a RadioShit scanner? Oh...that's right, they gave us the ability to change the channels. WOOHOOOO!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Am I living in a dream world or are cell communications not encrypted quite well.
I thought when analogue phones died a death 5 years ago that we were all safe from eavesdropping.
If you simply assume collusion between the police and the courts and therefore say they can always "get around" the law, then you've essentially given up on civil society. I haven't yet. That's why it's important to establish in principle that such actions are illegal.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Although it's easy to argue this is invalid under the First Amendment, it's also relatively easy to argue it is valid, interestingly under exactly the same amendment. I can speak only of Roman Catholicism, since that's my background. The sanctity of the confessional is a key part of the Rite of Reconciliation, which the Church holds to be a sacrament and a core of the belief system. Even the Pope cannot order a priest to violate that sanctity. The assumption is that the confessor is acting like a telecom device and that the confessee is speaking directly to God.
If people didn't believe in the sanctity of the confessional, they very well might avoid confession of sins. In the eyes of the Church, this puts them at risk of damnation, which is (of course) a failure of the Church's mission. Therefore, breaking the sanctity of the confessional directly and massively impedes the practice of Roman Catholicism -- so the First Amendment (it can be argued) extends its protection across this practice.
I believe that is the argument used, although I hardly claim to be an expert, or even to play one on TV.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Seriously, take a look at some of the scenarios below:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/scenarios. html
Consider yourselves lucky you live in an enlightened coutry and not a polic state like ourselves.
Said it couldn't last, said it wouldn't last... This is the last stand against tomorrow's world.
FBI Guy #2: "What? We don't have a warrant! We can't possibly look at that information."
(they laugh)
Use encryption, use encryption, use encryption. Short of sniffing people's email and posting it on the web ("What? You had no expectation of privacy."), how can we convince the average AOLer that this is something he has to do?
I dunno, a stale pizza, a box of tissues and a copy of Quake would be close enough for most purposes.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
"Why should a thief, a murderer or an adulterer be protected by laws meant to protect the innocent?" People are innocent until proven guilty. Having said that, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, reading you your rights, are often seen as laws that protect the guilty. They are not. It is true that many criminals get off on technicalities. This happens when police do not follow procedures meant to protect everyone. Without laws like these it would be much easier to convict innocent people of crimes they did not commit. It is already easier to be proven guilty that it is to be proven innocent. Once convicted you are pretty much screwed regardless of innocence. Already a disturbing number of innocent individuals have been incarcereted or even executed for crimes they did not commit. These laws are meant to protect the innocent, it just so happens that when police fail to uphold these laws guilty people can hide behind them. I for one would rather see one - hundred guilty people go free than one innocent person executed. But people call me an idealist (all christians should be). " We need to get back to being tough on criminals in order to prevent crime, and if the police can track offenders down then it makes their job easier when they (invariably)reoffend. " It has been proven that the death penalty is not a detterent to crime. It has also been proven that persons who are thrown into prisons early in life are most likely to become MORE criminal in prison and reoffend when they are realeased. There are some interesting reasons for this. Getting tough on crime will not reduce crime. Removing a criminals reasons for committing a crime will. If you really want cleaner safer streets you would do well to support programs that attack poverty, homelessness etc. You want the reoffense rate to drop, stop supporting the farce that prisons are "correctional facilities" they are punishment and retribution facilities. They are also, ironically, "criminal hardening" facilities. People come out of prisons hardened criminals because of the brutality with which they are met with on a daily basis. Sending an at-risk kid to be raped on a daily basis for five years in a state pen for a minor offense like drugs(most common offense in state pens), will not make him think gee I shouldn't do drugs anymore. I will however make him enraged (justifiably so) at the society which submitted him to such torture. Also in order for him to survive in this environment he will have to become just as hard as those brutalizing him. Now you have one more hardened person. Ofcourse since no one will listen to me on this I propose that we execute all offenders who are sent to state or federal penitentiaries. That way we guarantee a reoffense rate of 0% and it may be more humane that the torture system we have in place now. STOP THE HYPOCRASY
Now all we have to do is get law enforcement agencies to repsect the laws. Any chance of that happening? Probably not.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
the surveillance requirements are too burdensome and intrusive in principle, not just too costly.
Too costly is never a good platform to debate from. In technology, the price drops are too precipitious. Principle will last long after "costly" is history.
Live to be Moderated
To the police at any level everyone else is either a 'suspect' or a potential 'suspect'. In order to do law enforcement work people have to be dehumanized; they can't be your friends. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to slap hand cuffs on a good friend and throw them into a cage? People to whom this is NOT difficult are psychopaths, is that who you want policing you?
Once you understand that the FBI sees all of us as their enemies their requests for surveillance begin to make sense. All that is necessary is for you to attract their attention to be watched.
For example this posting is enough for me to get their attention and be a target for surveillance - after all I am speaking against them - so I must be their enemy - which means I must be one of the bad guys.
However, it is not necessary to speak out against a law enforcement agency to draw attention. It is enough to be one of those 'hacker types' who post to a known rabble rousing site like Slashdot to draw attention. Remember, despite your politics or views if you are not part of a law enforcement agency you are their enemy and a criminal who just hasn't been caught yet.
That is why you need to be afraid of surveillance capabilities. It also why law enforcement never apologizes when it breaks down the wrong door on a drug bust; the attitude is "Well we just didn't get you this time - but your turn is coming."
I agree totally that if the FBI or the NSA want to have the ability to read people's email then they should be ones paying for it - to do otherwise is to reduce the ability of ISPs to compete in the market, which is to be avoided (unlike in the UK where the government couldn't seem to care less about how much ISPs are going to suffer from the costs of implemented their RIP bill). Given that these agencies have a considerable budget already I'm sure they can afford it.
But why do civil liberty groups feel the need to get involved in what is nothing more than a financial matter between ISPs and the agencies involved? Is it because they have finally realised that the average American would rather have this system in place than suffer continued terrorist violence and paedophile rings, and they are now trying to sneak such court cases in through the backdoor? Whenever politicians attach riders to bills with a completely unrelated and detrimental content people on /. are up in arms - how is this any different?
If these groups want to challenge measures such as Carnivore, then let them to it alone, rather than hanging on the coattails of a real court action.
I think you're missing a key point: why should the government be allowed to enact hilariously idiotic legislation riddled with technical flaws and to quite patently ignore our human rights as given by ECHR?
You seem to think that just because the legislation is unenforceable, that's OK. Why? Don't you believe that people who are trusted to govern our country should be expected to go about their business in a competent way and to generate legislation in which we can be proud, rather than a foul smelling heap of rubbish?
I just can't understand your complacency. You're letting them get away with utter incompetence and total disregard for the views of the people they govern, and to ignore with impunity the opinions of those who are far more technically competent than they are.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
that kind of thing might be neat and fun, especially if you could turn it off at will... if it was just a wrist-band or something.
but as something the gov't and liberty-trampling police organizations can make use of to invade my privacy without any notice, i resent it.
it's not about whether it might be useful or fun as a toy, it's about other people having the ability to invade your privacy without you ever knowing anything about it.
i don't really want the whole world to know, for instance, what kind of porn i prefer, or even something as trivial as what stores and restaurants i frequent.
these are things that only the people i choose to tell and associate with should know, not something any little piggy can find out with the push of a few buttons.
if you don't see the threat of these kinds of things, i really don't know what to tell you except put down the crack pipe.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
ok, putting aside the fact that this can and would be used to invade the privacy of innocent people (probably more often than guilty people), even the guilty have rights until they are proven so, and that means they have rights against the methods that are used to prove them guilty.
you cannot say 'hey that guy looks like a guy who would rob a kwik-e-mart!' and then go up to him and take his fingerprints, or search his house for the clothes the robber wore.
without the requirement of getting a warrant (and even then i don't like it), these kinds of surveillance capabilities are too much power put in the hands of ignorant piggies.
attitudes like yours are facilitating the police state that we live in.
as the snooty waiter in ferris bueller says :
i weep for the future.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
Its perfectly fine that it not be required of the phone company, but triangulation should be allowed and performed under certain circumstances. The most obvious is when there is a cut off 911 call and a call-back is not answered. Depending on what if any information was transmitted before the cut off, police should be able to get the location of the phone and respond.
Of course there are those who wold assume that any ability given to LEOs will lead to random harrassment of geeks, and those who would consider even the above situation to be an invasion of privacy, but what can you do?
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
If they have a warrent to listen to the calls of either you or your priest, yes, they have the right to listen to your confessional. In the eyes of the law, your "confessional" with your preist should be no more significant than if I call a friend and say "I have to tell you something really really secret and this can't ever be known by another soul." It is a conversation with great significance to you, but in a religiously neutral state, its just another conversation between two people.
At the very most, I suppose we could consider the priest a counselor and extend whatever confidentiality privelege is given in that jurisdiction to rape crisis workers and other non-licensed therapists. But the "sanctity" that you and your priest have should have no more legal relevance than the special chant two childhood friends might use to establish a special secret-telling zone.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Apart from the fact that it is virtually impossible to intercept a cellphone transmission except in the movies (and perhaps the early nineties) using a scanner, I still think this could be abused.
Consider the situation where you have just caught a drug dealer, you could then use the cell providers to identify anyone who was in regular contact with that dealer. I think that is a pretty severe invasion of privacy.
Also you forget it's not just when you use your cellphone that it can be triangulated. My phone rarely leaves my person throughout my whole day, it even charges at night on my bedside table. Having access to cell records is like having 50% of the public wearing the electronic tags they give to sex offenders.
It's easy!!
:)
You know how they always show the phone call traces in films, and they start with a green line at the point where they are based and that slowly moves towards the point where the person is using the phone... all you have to do is keep moving and then all they have is as floating average of your position
I am not so sure that this decision is a good thing. Yes, the four items from the so-called "FBI punch list" were stricken, but two others, the ones that made EPIC concerned, were left in force.
Basically, the court has thrown out the requirement that telecom carriers capture any digit tones (made by pressing buttons on the phone keypad) trasmitted after the call has already connected. Example: calling-card calls -- the original call is to an 800 number and then, after the call has connected, you dial the number you actually want. Note that this could include also such things as bank account numbers and voicemail passwords.
However the court left in force the requirement to supply the physical location of the closest-to-the-caller antenna tower (thus providing the ability to track the caller). It also left in force the interception of packet-mode communications.
So: win some, lose some. The decision to allow tapping packet-mode communications *could* set the wrong precedent for TCP/IP interception...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.