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Police Don't Need a Warrant To Track Your Disposable Cellphone
New submitter Blindman writes "The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it is okay for police to track your cellphone signal without a warrant. Using information about the cell tower that a prepaid cell phone was connected to, the police were able to track a suspected drug smuggler. Apparently, keeping your cellphone on is authorization for the police to know where you are. According to the ruling (PDF), '[The defendant] did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location.' Also, 'if a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal.'"
...To fit the drugs in his phone. Or he had an 80's brick phone?
The first?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
...our reasonable expectation of privacy and the experiment of civil liberties. The sad thing is that we have lost a lot of them to "aid in fighting" un-winnable and/or lost wars.
You're going around shouting at different people and then the police ask these people where they think the noise was coming from. There's not asking what was being yelled, just which direction the noise is coming from. I can see this falling into the range of non-private data, as much as I would like to say it's not.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writ_of_assistance
Idk, but between border control, the patriot act, and the drug wars, it seems to me that e have a whole lotta writs of assistance in this here "free" country.
"did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location."
Sounds pretty damn reasonable to me, I mean you are literally broadcasting who, where and what you are saying, all one need do is listen.
Talk about a non-story. It's not a real scandal like Obama eating dog or anything.
So, where are the publicly available devices capable of tracking this signal. I'm waiting for it, because I have a few senators, congressmen, and judges I think should be tracked 24/7. After all, they don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy, do they? And therefore they should be able to be tracked using the cell phone, right? Note: this isn't entirely a joke, I honestly think people should find a way to track lawmakers and judges if this decision doesn't get overturned. Obviously, the decision should be overturned, but if not, that would be a good way to insure a law protecting such information is enacted.
Of course people have a reasonable expectation of privacy for that data. It isn't publicly available, and in fact the police had to request it from the cell phone company. Just because you can track someone using it quite easily does not mean they do not have an expectation of privacy.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Something I think many users of "disposable" phones fail to realize amidst their presumed anonymity is the factor of unique patterns. For example, if an individual suspected of dealing drugs or any other crime has a phone, chances are that the outgoing and incoming calls fit a pattern unique to that user. Even if frequently disposing of old phones and buying new phones, it hardly requires more than two or three calls to uniquely identify someone. You see, it is so wildly unlikely that anyone else in the world would call Alice's mother, The Dealer, and Bob, that anyone doing so is probably Alice. So even if Alice runs out and gets a brand new phone after every big deal, it may only require calling Bob and one other previously called individual to put a unique flag on a user. Unless the whole network replace their phones in an organized coordinated manner, they at least potentially give away their identity. I don't think it ever required a warrant to do that, but I don't know. As for tracking people via cell-phone, this news is appreciated, but no more to me than an affirmation of the already assumed.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
You'd better be, because if not, then there is no real privacy for anyone ever.
The legal system doesn't know that he was doing anything illegal until after he's convicted of it. Up until then, he's presumed innocent, but accused of doing something illegal. It may seem like a fine distinction, but it's a critically important one.
To say that someone doesn't get their privacy rights because they're breaking the law is to say that cops get to decide someone's guilt or innocence -- which they don't get to do. Judges get to do that in a court of law. Under existing law, a judge can make this sort of determination during the investigatory phase: it's called "issuing a warrant".
Emphasis mine; let's apply that "logic" to other "voluntary" purchases, and see if it passes the smell test...
there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the voluntary use of a voluntarily bought house
there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the voluntary use of a voluntarily bought automobile
there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the voluntary use of a voluntarily bought pair of pants
Yup, smells like bullshit to me.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
'if a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal.'
So, anything made of reasonably ordinary matter at a temperature greater than zero Kelvins doesn't enjoy fourth amendment protection? Am I going to have to start using neutrinos as drug mules?
"Can a SWAT team kick in your door in the middle of the night? Yes. Therefore it will be done. Stop complaining about the reality."
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
So by that logic, they have right to listen into my conversation on my phone since it's broadcasting. Heck, talking in the privacy of my home is broadcasting sound waves.
Oh, hell, I send out alpha waves too. Guess in a few years it'll be legit to listen in on my thoughts when the technologies allows.
This decision seems incompatible with the GPS tracking decision, which said a warrant was required for GPS tracking. IIRC, the GPS decision didn't key off the fact that the cops had to plant a transmitter, they based the decision off the idea that it was really creepy. This seems to be an identical level of creepiness.
Police cars are usually broadcasting radio signals as well. Is it OK if I create an app that shows the real-time position of any police vehicles that are identified? Should be. Fairly easy to overlay on a google map. It is no different than seeing one drive down the street and then telling someone. We could make a web version that serves from another country to protect it from a take down. I'm gonna put this up over on kickstarter.
It's illegal for the cops to use an IR camera to observe your house, without a search warrant. "But your body is an infrared transmitter, dammit! When you walk around spraying ir in all directions the people it is bouncing off of have a right to absorb some of it and do with it as they wish! That includes the cops." No, no they do not.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
stallman is crazy, in some ways; but he was RIGHT that we are carrying 'involuntary tracking devices'. and we even PAY for them, out of our own pockets!
its not really 'tinfoil', anymore, to want to remove your battery when the phone is not in use. (not sure what apple fans to, but normal phones can at least have their battery taken out easily and on-demand).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Because everybody has rights, or nobody has rights. If the police are allowed to use evidence they've gathered illegally, then there's nothing to prevent them from simply spying on everybody.
1) The phone wasn't broadcasting data that the police happened to notice. They had the phone company send the phone commands querying it for it's precise precision (this is a feature that is required by law to be in phones for the purpose of e911). So this was an active search, not a happenstance observation.
2) Because this isn't a signal that just anyone can monitor, but rather one that requires explicit cooperation of the phone company to generate and access, people have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding that signal.
Those two facts essentially are the definition of when a search that requires a warrant.
By extension, if the police are allowed to use illegally-gathered evidence there is no protection from manufactured evidence. At that point, a bad guy is defined as anyone the police say is a bad guy. Anyone who believes the latter is a good thing needs to be removed from the gene pool.
It's a radio transmitter, dammit! When you walk around with an operating radio transmitter spraying rf in all directions the people it is bouncing off of have a right to absorb some of it and do with it as they wish. That includes the cops. If you want no one to know where you are don't broadcast your location.
Since when is it legal for anyone to do with it as they wish with private communications between individuals? If I decode the signal from your phone I can do whatever I want with it? Really?
This is not even true for unlicensed and ameature frequencies. You do not even have the right to do whatever the hell you want with the contents of conversation between two parties you overhear even if that conversation is "in the clear".
Whether the EM waves you are emitting are visible or not makes no difference.
Yes it does. What if a device is invented that can detect the minute changes in gravity that occur when an object moves about. Lets assume that by using this device the police could reconstruct a 3d rendering of an entire city include all the people in it and what they are doing. Does that sound like a good idea?
Whether your cellphone signal can be tracked without a warrant is not a technical issue. It's a philosophical, moral, societal, political and legal question.
Yes, because a special detector violates the reasonable expectation of privacy clause.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
They turn off the phone? Or just switch it to "Airplane Mode"?
And please don't say 'but it could still be transmitting!' We have these amazing gizmos called 'antennas' that can—I am told—detect radio transmissions. Transmitting also takes power. If smartphones really kept transmitting while off or in air mode, (a) the battery would drain relatively quickly even when the phone is off, (b) some paranoiac with a microwave receiver would have already discovered the unauthorized transmissions, and (c) the FAA (among other groups) would be all over the manufacturer.
Oh, but I forget: TV provides irrefutable evidence 'they' can track phones which are turned off; at least, when 'they' are not too busy uncropping photos and tracking your IP with a GUI interface made in Visual Basic.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The sad thing is, this is actually pretty consistent with how the courts have worked for a long, long time now. (IANAL, grain of salt, etc.):
There are essentially two arguments here. First, the cellphone pings off of cell towers to identify nearby towers with best service for hand off. Even if this process wasn't wireless, your agent (the phone) would be actively attempting to engage the agent of a publicly-available private service (the tower). This is similar to how it may (and has) been argued that you have no expectation of privacy to traffic between some servers, or to emails that are stored on a third-party server, because that third party can read any of them at will. For phones, the content of a call is protected by wiretapping laws. But the connections used to establish quality of service for a future call which may never be placed? This ruling states that that is not protected. This is ultimately similar to the question of how private are the ADDRESSES printed on your private mail are (which, since they need to be public for delivery, is not very).
Second, the connection is wireless, and the phone does emit a signal. This is a second way the ruling states that a phone may be tracked. If you're just tossing your private radiation out into a public space, well, then it's fair game for anyone who can detect it. This is pretty much the same logic that makes radiation detectors legal for counter-terrorism uses, and thermal imaging legal for tracking down hidden grow-houses. (Note that some jurisdictions have passed separate laws specifically illegalizing such practices, but some still let it fly.) The logic on this isn't too far out there, either: it's just an extension of a physical argument to technological space. In particular, it's an extension of the question of how much of an expectation of privacy you have for private goings on that are visible from public land. Can you expect your pot farm to be somewhat hidden by privacy laws if you have it on private land? What if you have no fence? What about a fence that's just too short to block the view from a building across the street? What about the case of a passer-by in a helicopter near your property? What about satellite imagery?
Another old ruling that was in the news recently upheld the container interpretation of a cell-phone's data. It was argued that a cell phone's data is not protected from search because it is similar to the data of a pager, which was previously decided to be unprotected. Pagers were not protected because they are simply containers of numbers, akin to an address book, which was also searchable. (The earlier analysis overlooks the fact that pagers are not address books, since they record reals numbers traceable to people who DEFINITELY DID try to contact you, as opposed to numbers that may or may not be real, for people that you may or may not try to contact at some point. The newer analysis just ignores how many non-phone-like things a modern phone does.)
The main issue here is that if it's legal for a human to do something, a group of humans using technology to do the same thing 100 times better, then 1000 times over is still legal. At the point where quantity becomes a quality all its own, legislators need to step in and acknowledge that the game has changed, because jurists will almost never do that on their own. Another issue is that jurists often work from precedent, and try to apply the general, technology-agnostic case to the modern, technology driven case. Generally, that's a pretty good idea, but you have to be careful to recognize when a preceding metaphor no longer represents reality (e.g. a smart phone is like a cell phone that is like a pager that is like an address book that is not that private).
Another huge problem is that implementation and application are important, and a sound decision from general terms can mean a lot of grief in the real world. For example, consider locks. Locks do not protect your house. Most of them are too flimsy to offer real resistance, especially on a wooden doo
(not sure what apple fans to, but normal phones can at least have their battery taken out easily and on-demand).
Apple is actually leading the way in this regard. Some people say this is wrong, but I hear that you get the same effect simply by holding the phone a certain way...
If only my device drivers were as reliable as the ones they routinely subvert on CSI:Sacramento! Hell, I can't get a video feed out of my TV tuner card half the time, and the web cam only works on its own schedule, not mine. And audio drivers? Forget about it!
So good luck, spooks. If I wake up tomorrow and all those systems start to work, I know who to thank.
John
"Also, 'if a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal.'"
What I find amazing is that his cell phone was used to transport a significant amount of drugs.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Did anyone actually read the ruling? The police got warrants from a judge for every step of this surveillance of these suspected drug runners. Please stop with the knee-jerk cynicism. This is no different than what the police have been empowered to do for years. Nothing to see here.
I semi see your point; EM and light waves are nearly the same thing. but that said, much like light they ought to be required to be within range to pick up the EM waves directly, not watching from over a tower. Same concept as video surveillance vs first-hand witness. If it is okay to use towers to watch everything you do over the EM spectrum then it follows that it is okay to do so over the light spectrum - yet it isn't. well, *yet* at least. Regardless, I'm not willing to accept tools like this to aid in stripping our freedom, and more specifically my freedom is more important than catching criminals without due process. Not sure what the big deal with simply getting a fucking warrant is.
...until you are.
And by "interesting enough," I mean
etc.
See what I did there?
Yeah, right.