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Michigan Police Could Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops
SonicSpike writes "The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program. A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and videos off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections. 'Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,' a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities." Popular Mechanics has a short conversation with a 4th Amendment lawyer about the practice of slurping cellphone data, too, though it's unclear if the Michigan police are actually using these devices to their full potential.
But, speaking from experience, you can claim illegal search and seizure at preliminary trials, which can result in the charges being dropped.
It's disgusting that it happens, but it does. Just, rest assured, cops rarely get away with it if you have a decent lawyer.
ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680.
emphasis mine. ACLU put in a FOIA, police wanted $544,680 to respond.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? No one, when the pay-to-play is that high...
Once I saw this was wired (obviously), I started to wonder about the practicality of this (ignoring all the rights issues). I mean fairly common phones are one thing. But for those of us who buy the cheaper phones...usually they use fairly obscure power/data jacks (so they can charge us an arm and a leg for power cables when they break or get lost). It'd be quite annoying to carry about a few hundred different cables...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
According to http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2110, you want to own an iPhone 3GS or later.
You can remove all settings and information from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using "Erase All Content and Settings" in Settings > General > Reset.
When you opt to "Erase All Content and Settings," the process can take up to several hours. The time this process takes will vary by device:
Devices that support hardware encryption: Erases user settings and information by removing the encryption key to the data. This process takes just a few minutes.
Devices that overwrite memory: Overwrites user settings and information, writing a series of ones to the data partition. This process can take several hours, depending on the storage capacity of your iPhone or iPod touch. During this time, the device displays the Apple logo and a progress bar.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
"Sorry officer, I don't have a cellphone"
...then use the DMCA. Instant justice.
Society use your Sciences
I am currently rigging a phone that has an unusually high power output on the incorrect USB contacts. I will keep it in my car. Is it my fault their little toy let the smoke out?
Check out the specs on these things:
http://www.cellebrite.com/forensic-products.html
"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags" and the list just goes on and on.
So, can anyone buy one of these? If it's legal for police, then...
That's nice and all...
But at what point are all these spineless citizens going to stand up and say 'enough of this shit!'
You know what would be even nicer? To be able to go about my daily life without some jackboot thinking he has any right whatsoever so look at any of my belongings on the spot.
In fact, here is a deal for the 'police'. Immediately allow full and public access to ANY of your dash cams, at any moment, by request. You are supposed to be serving the public, so it would be nice of us to be able to know that you are competently performing your job, and not just taking your word for it. You know, 'trust but verify'. If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to worry about. Right? That is what you are relying on in order to justify this intrusion into peoples personal lives, isn't it?
Americans wouldn't put up with this Soviet crap?
Neither of the articles are clear about this, but from the picture, I assume that the "snooping" device actually has to be physically connected with the phone via USB. I hacked my Nexus One to enable USB host mode, which effectively disables client mode. Any connected device won't be able to mount my SD card or onboard storage.
Should this be allowed to stand, traffic stops will become a new tool for police to conduct what would in any other context be considered illegal suspicionless searches. It's bad enough they can do this at the border for reasons unrelated to airline security, but now they want to get away with it anywhere in the country.
When citizens take freedom for granted it becomes way too easy for the government to take those freedoms away. It's also way too easy to forget the sacrifices of generations past and sit idly by as the government flushes people's freedom down the toilet.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
All data is archived somewhere. Data is sexy. No one in authority can resist troves of data for long.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
No, those "trouble makers" would be marked and "eliminated" as quickly as possible. Imagine the dispatcher decides to ... "accidentally" forget for a few minutes that you called for help when someone is invading your home, or the patrol car that has been dispatched decided to ... take the "scenic route" to your home while you're being robbed at gun point.
No, I don't have any faith in the legal system, from police up to the supreme court.
It has already been upheld that police can only search items that are in plain view during a traffic stop absent probable cause. What probable cause would they have to search your phone? Not to mention you can toss it in a glove box and at that point they will need a your permission, a warrant, or to impound the car in order to search it. I really hope the ACLU gives them the smack down in US Supreme Court over this.
No, they are not citizens, they are now property of the State. They can hold elections and have their elected government dissolved. They do not have a functional vote.. They have no say in their government. They are taxed without representation. Michigan has serious issues, and their new martial law techniques raise serious questions.
All it takes is a K9 officer to fake a "tell" on your car, and they can search you. Cops lie about probable cause all the time.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Doesn't mean they won't make up a reason to search you anyway.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Where is MPAA on this? This is a clear violation of copyright on videos held by video creators. And police are doing it without as much as a warrant? I assume MPAA will demand that Michigan police come into compliance and be fined $150K per instance of violation. Michigan police is not immune from FEDERAL copyright statues after all. In fact, if the phones are password protected, the police are also in violation of DMCA.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
All it takes is a K9 officer to fake a "tell" on your car, and they can search you. Cops lie about probable cause all the time.
Which is why all searches should require both that another citizen (who is not a cop) has accused you of a crime and that a judge has issued a warrant. No matter what they see or how suspicious they think it is. They keep abusing this power to the point where they don't deserve to have it.
If that means a few more criminals get away with it, so be it. I consider my government to be far more dangerous than a few individual criminals. I'd be happy to take my chances with this scenario. I'd rather criminals be deterred by things like conceal-carry permits than the possibility of essentially random police searches.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
However I'll give a bit of credit in that the police are clearly stonewalling the ACLU and why are they doing that if they've not been doing something they shouldn't with the devices?
The FOIA request is legit, they aren't even contesting that. They are just trying to set a price so high the ACLU will go away, a price much higher than it actually costs to process the request.
If there was nothing going on, if they were using these as they should (as in when there is reason to suspect someone is using their cellphone for illegal things) then I can't see why they wouldn't turn over the records for a reasonable fee. Dealing with FOIA requests is part of the job at a public agency.
That they are stonewalling says to me they've been misbehaving.
Well after you are done paying $1000's in traffic violations, let me know if it was worth it. He could simply claim he thought you were texting, bam, probable cause.
Yes, worth it.
I am not a crackpot.
People should expect no right to do what's illegal. People do have a right to do everything else. Adultery is not illegal. You must have us confused with Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
You think everybody's dumb enough to file a motion to suppress right away. You let the cops go out dig up the bodies and collect all the evidence then you file. Everything is excluded. Unless the police can convince a judge the would have eventually looked under his pool with a scanning radar.
Related book on why so many police officers take to planting evidence and forcing inaccurate confessions: ,,,"
"Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986
"Why do people refuse to admit mistakes - so deeply that they transform their own brains? They're not kidding themselves: they really believe what they have to believe to justify their original thought.
There are some pretty scary examples in this book. Psychologists who refuse to admit they'd bought into the false memory theories, causing enormous pain. Politicians. Authors. Doctors. Therapists. Alien abduction victims.
Most terrifying: The justice system operates this way. Once someone is accused of a crime - even under the most bizarre circumstances - the police believe he's guilty of something. Even when the DNA shows someone is innocent, or new evidence reveals the true perpetrator, they hesitate to let the accused person go free.
And progressively that can lead police officers down a route of progressive desensitization where they start planting evidence on more and more people until they plant evidence on anyone they have any suspicions about...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The information on the phone alone is worth its weight in gold even if the police can't officially 'keep' it.
The information on the phones could be very useful if you *cough cough* happen to pull over someone with a criminal background. Let's say there's some dealer you've been after. You pull him over. Hey, this is a 55 and you were going 56 maybe 65 or I don't really care you're getting pulled over. No charges or pressed but you don't care. You just want the damn phone. Now you have it.
Now a detective or narc would now have a list of that dealer's network. Probably some clients calling him. And a whole miscellany of information that would be invaluable to a detective. Wether or not you believe police don't 'randomly' pull over people, this is all the motivator to do it.
They probably don't care if they can legally keep the information. Or even care to use the information to build up a case. The information on that phone alone can open up a whole dragnet I won't even begin to write about. Keeping a digital copy of the info is probably not legal. But if a detective comes upon the information before they are notified they had to get rid of it and makes "mental notes" its going to be awfully hard to cook up a case proving the officer had or had not seen illegally obtained information.
42 USC 1983 authorizes suits for deprivation of civil rights. Johnnie Cochran made a fortune doing it. Of course, police have qualified immunity from suit, so you sue the city., i.e., taxpayers, for police misconduct.
But you can't criminally prosecute police for every little misstep. Nobody would want to be a cop.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
"Mistake" my ass. I have friends who work in Illinois state government. Ethical lapses can result in firing and, indeed, imprisonment if the "ethical lapse" is bad enough. Former Governor Ryan is in prison for his "ethical lapse", and former Governor Blago is headed there.
I agree with the GP. Violate a citizen's rights, go to fucking prison.
Those of us in the private sector can kill with impunity. Public sector employees cannot. Cops have great power, with power comes responsibility. Or should.
Free Martian Whores!
Data is sexy.
Tasha? Is that you?
Free Martian Whores!
If "ignorance of the law" is no excuse for me, then it should be so for those expected to enforce it.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Perhaps you should brush up on the law and understand the legal meaning of "shall be liable"? Qualified immunity does not apply when you knowingly violate someones civil rights, it is only a protection when there is "good faith", furthermore there should be no such thing as qualified immunity since it goes against the equal protection part of the 14th Amendment. You see, police are no different from regular citizens, and as such they should have no special protections under the law.
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/42/21/I/1983
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the
District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any
citizen of the United States or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges,
or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable
to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other
proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought
against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such
officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted
unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was
unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress
applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be
considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
That says that they are personally liable, not the department that they work for, and not their union. Officers effectively lose all legal protection from both their department and their union when they have a USC 1983 civil rights lawsuit filed against them (these cases only move forward when there is no qualified immunity). However, should the officer win, they can recover legal fees from the plaintiff. I know LA thinks they make the law but they do not, they've been smacked down several times for trying to play by their own rules.
I don't get to point a gun at people legally, stop random strangers on the street, and take them to JAIL either....
With power comes responsibility. Law Enforcement has too much leeway to claim they "believe" a crime is committed. It used to take two witnesses, then one, now they demand your phone "just to be sure" you're not doing something bad.... If they want more power, the bar for being wrong has to go up proportionally.
1) These aren't "mistakes", they're blatant violation of Citizens' civil liberties. This is like calling the actions of the Nazi SS "simple mistakes".
2) No, but I don't work for the government, nor do I carry a gun and get to shoot it at people who don't follow my orders. I'm a lowly employee of a private company, not someone in a position of authority within the government who has the right to take another person's life. If you're in a position of authority, then you have far more responsibility than anyone who isn't. If you can't handle that, then you should get another job.
Did you even read my post? I said qualified immunity requires the plaintiff show bad faith. It's very rare that a court finds this, and holds an officer liable.
As for the second part, stop impersonating a lawyer. You really don't know what the hell you are talking about. Nothing in that section precludes a state or city from indemnifying a police officer (stop saying "department," cities pay lawsuits, not departments), and California law requires the city defend the police officer, and most local codes require the city to do so as well. And the city even has the discretion to pay punitive damages where bad faith has been found, and this authority has been upheld by the 9th Circuit.
Again, lawyer impersonator, I've worked both sides of the bar in police civil rights cases. Your comments about LA are silly. The LA Muni Code requires the city pay damages of police officers, as do most cities, and this has been tested by federal courts, even in punitive damages (bad faith) cases.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
A. They search you, being in a good mood, sorry for bothering you, and eager to go do something else.
B. They detain you while waiting for a search order to be rubber stamped by an uncaring judge, then search you while pissed off that you dared to challenge their authority.
Your choice.