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Judge: Cops Can Impersonate Owner Of Seized Cell Phones
Aryden writes with news of a recent court decision in which a judge ruled it was acceptable for police to impersonate the owner of a cell phone they had seized, in order to extract information from the owner's friends. The ruling stems from an incident in 2009 when police officers seized the iPhone of a suspected drug dealer, then used text messages to set up a meeting with another person seeking drugs.
"'There is no long history and tradition of strict legislative protection of a text message sent to, displayed, and received from its intended destination, another person's iPhone,' Penoyar wrote in his decision. He pointed to a 1990 case in which the police seized a suspected drug dealer's pager as an example. The officers observed which phone numbers appeared on the pager, called those numbers back, and arranged fake drug purchases with the people on the other end of the line. A federal appeals court held that the pager owner's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were not violated because the pager is 'nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for telephone numbers,' akin to an address book. The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner. Judge Penoyar said that the same reasoning applies to text messages sent to an iPhone. While text messages may be legally protected in transit, he argued that they lose privacy protections once they have been delivered to a target device in the hands of the police."
I always assumed they would do this.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
I don't know much about entrapment but from what I *think* I know about it, I would say this sound entirely like that. Even if the "friend" came asking for the drugs, isn't this still a type of entrapment? Please kick me if I'm completely off on this.
Passwords! Passwords! Passwords!
sudo make me a sandwich
I'd love to hear them impersonating my accent... if it's a voice call. I'd like to know if they can use the same slang if they try to text people (which... I don't do much).
Isn't this pretty much already established? We already know it's a crime to lie to the police, but it's sanctioned behaviour for them to lie to the people under their protection. Wouldn't this be an extension of that? Really, they're lying about who they are to trick the populace into giving up information they would not otherwise share with the police.
Aren't they also asking you to surrender your password and access codes for phones, laptops, etc., whenever you board a plane, and have now extended that to searches of a vehicle, and in fact, they can now force you to reveal your password without charging you with any crime. So then they compel you to surrender your identity and equipment... and then use your identity and equipment to pretend to be you, in order to do the same to others.
Agent Smith, you have competition.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The messages are communications, not mere saves numbers. They have temporal value and the knowledge that the most recent message sent was successfully received by the intended recipient means there is a reasonable belief the same will be the case on the next one. Just as searching the personal papers of a person requires reasonable suspicion and a court order, the same should be the case for live or store-forwarded messages.
Don't even get me started on entrapment and the police themselves creating a crime out of thin air which is the case for both the precedent and the ruling. That should invalidate both cases on their face.
Couldn't the same also be said about snail mail - that you have no reasonable expectation that the envelope will be opened by the recipient?
I must say, I find it slightly disturbing that there is no reasonable expectation that the owner of the phone is the one who will be reading my correspondence. What reasonable person does *not* expect someone to be in position of their own property? If it was not reasonable to believe the owner of a phone is the one holding it, why would we use such phones for communication?
:(){
The judge could have saved a lot of ink if he'd just said the truth. Our government allows us no reasonable expectation of privacy. Ever. Anywhere.
Do police have the ability to sit in my house & use my number 555-0796 to pretend to be me to entrap my friends/colleagues?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
As a sender of a message I regard the message to be in transition until it reaches the recipient *I* intended. Therefore it should be treated as the interception of a message in transit when the wrong person reads of an end device which is not hers.
In my college days (read: drug experimentation days), we were at my friend's apartment waiting for two more friends to arrive for our "after hours" party (2:01 am, after the bars close). While packing a bowl, we had our back to the door and there was a knock. We knew our friends were coming and we assumed it was them. "COME ON IN" we said. In walked two police officers (called to our location for a noise complaint). They confiscated our drugs/paraphernalia and cited us for something (I forget the details...20 years later). I don't see using the cell phone as any different. Funny ending....when the officers left, they forgot to take the drugs/paraphernalia so we ended up getting high anyway (but WOW, what a buzz kill) :(
In US law, does domestic paper person-to-person mail carry an expectation of privacy?
Given, a pager signal is essentially broadcast. But that's a side argument when the judgment pivots on the expectation of the pager being in the hands of the user. If that's unreasonable, then this is about discarding the tradition of the sealed envelope in personal communication. It's no more physically secure than the pager system, but it carries a reasonable expectation. Or maybe not in the US, inside courts, pls advise.
Also in the 1990 case there is nothing said about impersonation during those calls, only that suspected drug users were called up and offered deals. That's not particularly like-for-like between cases.
I can see that once the police had the phone, that looking at the address book is equivalent to looking at an old style rolodex. Looking at received texts is like the precedent cited of looking at received messages on an old style pager. But *sending* texts seems like something new. Are there precedents where a police officer who is a skilled voice mimic answers a seized phone, or starts making calls from a seized phone and impersonates the true owner of the phone?
To the fourth amendment - secure in your person, papers and things. A cell phone is definitely a thing. And without warrant and probable cause the police shouldn't be touching the phone. Use a secure lock code on your smartphone! You don't have to disclose it.
Total entrapment.
When they siezed the pager, it was one way - outside to cops.
When the cops called back, they called back from another number.
Here, the cops are calling back representing themselves as the phone's owner. Totally different, totally entrapment.
Every cop doing this should be in jail.
It's always been the case that someone could have lost their phone/pager, or had it stolen. Sure, in most cases the phone will be in the hands of the owner, but it's certainly not guaranteed.
With a pager it's pretty obvious, there is no security, your phone number just displays on the screen. So I think they're correct there. Similarly, with many dump phones an incoming text message just pops up on the screen.
Now in the case of a smartphone with a password then in my opinion you could reasonably argue that you would have a reasonable expectation of privacy sending information to it...but technically speaking I have no way of knowing what sort of phone the recipient is using when I send them a text. They could have broken their smartphone and temporarily gotten a dumb phone as a replacement.
This is news? Why would anyone expect our so-called "law enforcement" officers to be held to any standard of honesty or integrity nowadays?
Liberty in your lifetime
You would think that with the Miranda decision they would have to at least text you your rights.
If the police confiscate a judges phone can they impersonate the judge and lie to people? How about a doctor? I bet the judge would find a special reason that it's different for 'professionals' once he realized it could happen to him.
How fucking STUPID do you have to be to use a phone which is wireless and
can be used to track you and is easily tapped, for any questionable business ?
If you are stupid enough to do this, you fucking DESERVE to be in prison.
At least there you cannot reproduce and fill the streets with more scum
like you.
A few times when I was younger, I saw people had left their lights on and their doors unlocked. Rather than let the battery drain, I popped the door and flipped the lights off.
I wonder what the legal situation would be on that nowadays, especially with a "bait" vehicle.
I normally ask if my dealer wants to have a coffee, play some darts... whatev... AND i know it's face... good luck with that :P
Ok, so some people are creeps and pretty much deserve whatever they get, if not more, but this is just illegal and way way beyond misjustice (though apparently not to this tool of a judge). One of the biggest issues I thought of at first reading over this is that it prevents "suspects, (and we know how accurate the government and police are in such matters) from exercising many of their basic rights. Such as for example, the right to not self incriminate (since they do not know they are talking to LEO/detectives) I mean you are given your Miranda rights when arrested. You have the right to an attorney or any other legal counsel, before you say ANYTHING.
this totally bypasses the rights of anyone to remain silent or to have legal representation.
Listening to a most likely, illegal wiretap is one thing... they say what they say talking among each other, But this allows government or local police to actively interrogate suspects without declaring they are police or giving them the opportunity to utilize their rights.
This judge and everyone involved in passing a ruling like this needs to be fired immediately and barred from further office.
I mean geez do I need to have some super duper secret passcode phrase and a blood sample and an iris / thumbprint scan just so I know who I'm talking to? wtf.
They can go fuck themselves. besides isn't that just heresy ? it's something you heard "Someone say" (who knows if it was the same person you were trying to illegally convict by this) You still need physical evidence of whatever crime or detailed testimony form multiple witnesses.
I mean what happens if you get a phone call out of the blue, saying it's a friend you haven't seen since like 3rd grade or something? Sure, you should watch what you say anyways, but this is just.. criminal IMO. I think police or other law enforcement both federal and local should be required to ID themselves as such... Hell they are.... they are required to knock and say police! This is just fucked up. and sadly cops just do whatever the fuck they are told, no wonder most people hate cops, and we hate judges and politicians more.
the pager is 'nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for telephone numbers,' akin to an address book.
If a phone is like a pager, then by this reasoning, opening your snail mail is fine, because an envelope is 'nothing more than a contemporary receptacle for street addresses, akin to an address book.' Note that the envelope contains the communication itself, which is protected. That in itself should preclude responding to the letter by a police impostor. The cell phone also contains protected communication, and that in itself should also preclude the spoofing.
In the absence of RTFA, this sounds like soviet-style rubbish.
"...someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner." IANAL but this sounds crazy to me. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect someone to have their phone in their possession or in a private location. What is the point of using the phrase reasonable expectation if you have to be sure. In the bathroom you reasonably expect to not be videotaped, you don't have to search the entire bathroom for a camera first if you wish not to be videotaped.
...they also rule that cops can seize houses and impersonate the owners.
And how will this play into corporate adoption of mobile devices in the workplace? If there is no expectation of privacy on a phone there must be less on a "computer system".
For example: Employee gets arrested for marrijuana possession, and gets his corporate tablet confiscated. Police look through his email contacts and start soliciting state employees or potentially undercover agents to buy drugs. Agency A is now pitted against Agency B. They both show up at the arranged meeting time and arrest each other? F-diddly Hillarious.
You'll end up calling my mom, wife, dad, or sister. And the local restaurants. I'm fairly sure my local Pizza Hut is not a front for a Columbian coke ring.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
That's more of your rights, protections we the people granted ourselves against the monster that is what became of the government our fore-bearers created being ripped violently away, leaving you with less protection than you had before. The notion of justice is kind of a joke, anymore.
The "judge" opined, "The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner."
By that same deeply, tragically flawed logic, a piece of mail addressed to you may be opened by police before you receive it, without needing permission nor fearing repercussions, since once it reaches your mailbox, there's no guarantee you'll be there to receive it the moment it arrives. So the police seem to be granted by this misguided, downright moronic ruling, the freedom to rifle through anyone's mail without their knowledge or permission, and even answer letters for you, all in the name of keeping drugs off the streets, in a war they're guaranteed to lose for the exact same reason they lost the war against booze: like retarded monkey's with no ability to think or reason, they're attacking the wrong side of the problem.
But it goes further than that. There's no reason it has to stop at text or letters. Police could find or steal your phone, and fake that it's you, sending OR receiving voice calls to and from others. This also grants police tacit permission to spoof you, which means if they want to spoof you, and you try to stop them, you're interfering with police, with a police investigation, etc. This dipshit "judge" just opened Pandora's Box... Hopefully some appellate court will have the good sense to reverse this lunacy.
This whole society, sometimes, seems to have its collective head jammed up its collective ass.
"The court also held that someone who sends his phone number to a pager has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he can't be sure that the pager will be in the hands of its owner."
WHAT?
So my mail is no longer private and can be read just because I can't be sure that it won't be read by someone else than the recipient?
Great reasoning.
So, if i'm using encryption on my phone + boot-pw and unlock pin and requiring pin when answering etc... Some countries requires the owner of a cellphone to hand over any encryption-keys and passwords...
Is it still allowed to impersonate me even when nobody but me will be able to use the phone? (Except government that will force the pin/encryption out of you?)
If i have a pager that's screwed down in a locked room, is it still allowed to use it in the described manner??
Since the copper-wires, that goes to my land-line phone, are exposed in the staircase outside my apartment and anyone could hook into those... Is it ok to hook in there too and start impersonating people?
If anything above applies then if a lawyer calls the police could actually impersonate the person and get information that's considered private.
Impersonating another person without their consent should always be considered illegal. If it's impersonating a police, celebrity, some government official or normal person it should all be the same... If the need arises for someone to not use their real name they can pick an alias and go with that...
Now to actually using the phone/pager etc, well that should still be allowed... With a court-order for all 2-way communication.
just because it maybe illegal to sell or possess certain drugs does not mean it's is illegal to buy them.
People need to learn how to buy and sell drugs...
There's one important difference between calling back numbers from a pager and using someone's texting service to impersonate them that I think the judge forgot.
When you call back a paged number, your voice is being heard by the "target" of the sting. If the target is too stupid to realize they're not talking to the person they paged, they're fair game for getting burned by the police.
But when you use someone's text messaging service, there is no indication that you're not "talking" to the person you think you are. In my mind, that takes it up a notch into "entrapment."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
So in other words, it is acceptable for police to commit fraud, because privacy rights are not technically violated. What a country.
Years ago I knew a person who happened to be a dealer of pot. On the side (and probably with the proceeds of his dealing) he collected laser movies. The local cops have known about him for years, but he mostly kept his head down. Eventually they busted into his place and seized all his laser movies and several players. These items found their way into the police station lounge where they were used for several years while the wheels of justice turned. Because his collection was so large, the police rented a storage space and put the bulk of the movies there. When he eventually won his case and wanted his property back, 80% of the movies now had laser rot from being improperly stored, and many were just plain missing. Over the course of the years his case went on, the player in the police lounge eventually wore out and was dead when returned to him. The point I am making here is that when they seize property, and start using it for their own purposes, prior to case resolution, they open themselves up to litigation. He literally sued city hall abut the damaged equipment and damaged disks, and actually did get a settlement. But nothing like the real or replacement value involved, since many of the disks were collector's editions no longer available.