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Location Privacy Act Approved By California Legislature
New submitter wermske writes "Ars Technica and ZDNet report the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434) was passed by the California legislature on Wednesday. The California Location Privacy Act, co-sponsored by the ACLU of California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, updates California privacy law to reflect the modern mobile world by providing needed protection against warrantless government access to a person's location information. Recent reports indicate that cell phone tracking is routine and few agencies obtain warrants for such surveillance. The need for this protection resurfaced last week when warrantless GPS tracking appeared again in the national news — a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement is allowed to track the GPS signal coming from a suspect's prepaid phone without a warrant. The scope of the Location Privacy Act would include gathering GPS or other location-tracking data from cell phones, tablets, computers, automobiles, etc. The next stop is the governor's desk; however, there is concern that Governor Jerry Brown may not sign this act into law. In 2011, Gov. Brown vetoed an attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules."
Things are federally legal and locally banned/restricted all the time.(guns is an obvious one)
I would assume this would mean the fed could still track you without a warrant, but any state/city etc police would need one.
IANAL
I'm sure its not coincidence that this came right after the supreme court ruling. Maybe the wording of the current law allows them to track GPS, but California sees a way to rework the scope. Are there more crooks in California ? Maybe the people lobbying for privacy are scammers..
Proof that a broke clock (California) is right twice a day.
sudo make me a sandwich
Yes, but the feds already have the patriot act and such. This, if signed off on by Brown, will prevent CA cops from unchecked snooping.
He promised!
a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement is allowed to track the GPS signal coming from a suspect's prepaid phone without a warrant.
Somehow I suspect even non-technical appeals court judges know that GPS signals do not originate on a phone.
I suspect either the summary or ARS has things a bit confused. The ruling had to do with location data from cellular providers which they collect in order to provide you service, and which is regarded as pen register data, merely which towers you are pinging off of at any given time. This is how calls are routed.
If your phone also reports your precise GPS location to your carriers, then we need legislation to prevent that, unless or until the user places a 911 call.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If the old king would have abused the power, we, the free people of the US, need to prevent its use withot a warrant.
Shame on people who think otherwise. You don't deserve the vote in a free society.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The federal government rarely trumps state law, the feds can not compel the state to follow federal law but can cut their funding if they choose not too. If the feds were in California breaking California law, or snooping on someone in California outside of California, then there would be a new case for the supreme court regarding the 10th amendment. Too bad Jerry Brown will never sign it, it would be an interesting case, and I would hope that the Supreme court would rule correctly.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Local (i.e. non-federal) law enforcement would be required to comply with the state law.
Basically, the Federal Constitution provides the minimum rights afforded to everyone in every state. No state can have a law which would reduce those rights. The states are entirely free to give people more rights and freedoms, however. Many States do just that. In some states there are provisions of the state constitution which are word-for-word copies of parts of the federal constitution, but which have been interpreted differently by the state courts.
One example in the search and seizure area is routine traffic stops. SCOTUS says you can arrest someone for not wearing a seatbelt and haul their butt to jail. The Nevada Supreme Court says: that may be a "reasonable" seizure within the meaning of the federal constitution, but it sure as hell isn't "reasonable" as we interpret our state constitution's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. The evidence you found during the subsequent inventory of the defendant's car is therefore excluded.
Another way to look at it is that the laws aren't really in conflict. The federal rule excludes evidence under certain circumstances. The state law excludes evidence under those circumstances and other additional circumstances. The federal rule isn't about what evidence is allowed in; it's about when it must be kept out.
This could be clarified very easy by reading the Tenth Amendment. And since the 10th was ratified AFTER the actual 1786 constitution, it supercedes anything that was written at that time. Powers not given to Congress are reserved to the Member States of the Union.
The 10th says that Congress does not have the power to ban a substance inside a state. Therefore California can legalize marijuana. Or Pennsylvania can legalize natural milk. Or ____ can legalize automatic weapons. Only when you cross state lines can you be arrested (see the case of the Amish farmer who was arrested because he sold milk to non-residents, but is still allowed to sell to PA residents).
Back to topic: If California's government wants to ban themselves from taking cellphone or ISP records of conversations without a warrant, they can. That won't stop the federals though if your conversation crosses the CA line.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Anyone know why Jerry Brown is against privacy protections? I thought he was big on civil liberties rather than being a "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" type.
Is he still traumatized by 9/11 or something?
>>>No state can have a law which would reduce those rights.
That's only been true since about 1900 in a gradual process by the SCOTUS called incorporation. Prior to that point states didn't have to obey the Constitution. For example Congress is barred from establishing an official state religion, but the many States continued to have their own state/taxpayer supported religion upto ~1840.
>>>One example in the search and seizure area is routine traffic stops. SCOTUS says you can arrest someone for not wearing a seatbelt and haul their butt to jail.
Yeah but they also ruled any evidence found is not admissable, because the officer had no cause to randly pull-over your car and impede your travel. He can ticket you for the safety violation of not wearing a belt, but if he finds drugs then he is exceeding the purpose of the stop & the evidence must be thrown out.
This is why if you get pulled-over by DHS along one of their internal checkpoints, you are not required to comply with their demands to see inside your car or trunk. No warrant == no right to search your person or effects.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Wouldn't the federal government trump state law here? Why would they care that it was illegal on the state level if they were doing Official Federal Government Snooping?
I dunno. Are federal personnel allowed to violate state laws? ALL state laws? Let's say, for instance, that there's a state law that prohibits sex with chickens, but no such federal law. Can an FBI agent get amorous with chickens with impunity? And if not, what exactly makes snooping GPS records different?
It's not real clear from the article exactly what the bill provides for. Can a cell company voluntarily hand over the data? Would the cell company be liable if it turned over the data without a warrant? I suppose that if the feds did it without entering the State of California, it would be hard to get them extradited to stand trial in Sacramento, but the cell company has to have a local presence to maintain the towers.
The 10th says that Congress does not have the power to ban a substance inside a state. Therefore California can legalize marijuana. Or Pennsylvania can legalize natural milk. Or ____ can legalize automatic weapons. Only when you cross state lines can you be arrested
Where have you been living last couple decades?
As I understand it, almost anything can be banned by utterly stretching the "interstate commerce clause" and supported by the supreme court. Recently, there had been numerous crackdowns on the totally legitimate (by CA law) marijuana dispensaries.
Or are you describing how things should be if we lived in a sane world?
Well here is what you do to that. First the state and local governments grow a pair and start passing laws that restrict what the federal government can do within the boarders of the state. This is all perfectly legal according to the 10th amendment.
Then you start enforcing these laws at the local level. When the TSA pedo goons molests a child during a search, you arrest them and charge them. When FBI/AFT/DEA agents kick down the doors to a perfectly legal marijuana shop, you file charges against those agents and arrest them.
You start sending a message to the individual ground agents that they are not above state laws.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
>>>One example in the search and seizure area is routine traffic stops. SCOTUS says you can arrest someone for not wearing a seatbelt and haul their butt to jail.
Yeah but they also ruled any evidence found is not admissable, because the officer had no cause to randly pull-over your car and impede your travel. He can ticket you for the safety violation of not wearing a belt, but if he finds drugs then he is exceeding the purpose of the stop & the evidence must be thrown out.
Who said it was random? You weren't wearing a seat belt. If he can arrest you he can search your car. There are a couple of different exceptions that allow this search without a warrant. One is called the "search incident to arrest." This allows the officer to search your person and your immediate vicinity when you are arrested. It is well established that this includes your car (though probably not the trunk).
Of course if you are arrested for that seat belt ticket, the officer isn't required to leave your car there on the road. It will be towed and impounded. For defense against claims of damage or theft from the vehicle, it may be subject to an inventory search. This search must be done according to a department policy, but they can definitely look in any containers in the vehicle (including the trunk). Any evidence found during a lawful inventory search is most definitely not going to be thrown out.
This is why if you get pulled-over by DHS along one of their internal checkpoints, you are not required to comply with their demands to see inside your car or trunk. No warrant == no right to search your person or effects.
There are numerous exceptions to the search warrant requirement. One is called the "automobile exception." If you are stopped for any legal reason and the officer develops probable cause to believe there is evidence or contraband in your vehicle (e.g. you reek of recently burned marijuana), they are not required to hold you on the side of the road and get a warrant prior to searching.
As far as I have heard, it has been limited to federally controlled areas like National parks.
The supreme court has already weighed in favor of the feds, see Gonzalez v Raich (June 2005). So the federal law making possession an offense still holds. There are reports of arrest here and there, but as I understand the feds are not willing to push it and are limiting the number of arrest they make.
But if you are caught in a federally controlled like a National park, all bets are off.
"You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Certainly there is not a word in the constitution that gives that power to the Justices any more than the other branches. The Constitution wisely divided this power among all three branches and the state governments." - Thomas Jefferson (and close friend of James Madison, the actual author of the Constitution).
Madison vetoed many many bills with the argument that Congress can not exercise powers that are not specifically enumerated in the list he created. Oh and I'd like to know: If the federals have the power to ban any and all things they desire, why haven't they banned the sale of natural, unpasteurized milk in Pennsylvania and other states? (ponder). Probably because they know they don't have juris diction over a member state's territory.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Go fuck yourself moron. Medical marijuana is perfectly legal in some states. I never said it as legal on the federal level.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
As far as I have heard, it has been limited to federally controlled areas like National parks.
There is much more going on. Examples of federal efforts as well others.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Perhaps you're not a criminal today. I wonder what the future holds.
"Don't do anything wrong..." - Don't be a stupid, short-sighted, ignorant cunt. There, now we're even. I forgive you.
\r
Well, the Federal Government occasionally steps in when there's a "risk" that it could cross state lines. Drugs, kidnapping, and bank robbery are some examples.
I had no idea that phones produce "GPS signals". Fascinating.
GPS signal coming from a suspect's prepaid phone
The Global Positioning System satellites (GPS) sends out the GPS signals, GPS devices only receive the signals, they do not emit them. Phones of course communicate via microwave EMFs with the cell towers and it is this which could be tracked.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gps
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Governor Brown is not acting in the interests of his constituents (and no, large corporations with an interest in individuals' data are not constituents), hence needs to be removed from office. Immediately.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Mod parent up.
What's the difference between a Federal agent and God?
God doesn't think he's a Federal agent.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.