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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.
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).
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?
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And then they hold you in contempt of court until you turn it over.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/24/024233
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) :(
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.
I believe that depends on what state you live in. I know for a fact that it is illegal to lie to police in the state of California. Especially if it hampers an investigation. That's why they tell you not to speak without a lawyer.
You can be held in contempt of court indefinitely without ever being accused of a crime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beatty_Chadwick
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Set your password to "fuck off".
Cop: "What's your password?"
You: "Fuck off"
Cop: "Perjury is a crime you know. What's your password?"
You: "Seriously, fuck off"
Etc.
Yes, it could have been stolen. However, to say that something is not impossible is not to say that something is reasonable. The crux of the matter is that I have a reasonable expectation that a phone will not be stolen when I send a communication to it. After all, if the phone was stolen, a reasonable person would report it stolen promptly, and the service would be shut off, thereby removing the ability of the thief to read the contents of any message I send to the phone. With the advent of remote wipe abilities, you could also try to make the argument that a reasonable person would have all the info from a stolen phone remotely wiped, therefore denying access to even previously successful communications with the intended recipient.
However, I am drawn back to the snail mail analogy again. It's always been the case that someone could take the mail directly from your mailbox. However, this expectation is unreasonable because taking someone else's mail is illegal. In the same token, stealing someone's personal property is also illegal.
So, again, if you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy because the recipient's phone could be stolen, why would you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when sending snail mail?
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Actually, what we need are police who are accountable before the law. Not police who know they can illegally detain, search and shoot people with utter impunity because none of their buddies will arrest them and the prosecutor will not prosecute them.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
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.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Forfeiture