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Newest Gov't Tracking Threat: Cell-Site Data Without a Warrant
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year, the Supreme Court put an end to warrantless GPS tracking. Now, federal prosecutors are trying to get similar data from a different source. A U.S. District Judge has ruled that getting locational data from cell towers in order to track suspects is just fine. '[Judge Huvelle] sidestepped the Fourth Amendment argument and declined to analyze whether the Supreme Court's ruling in Jones' case has any bearing on whether cell-site data can be used without a warrant. Instead, she focused on a doctrine called the "good-faith exemption," in which evidence is not suppressed if the authorities were following the law at the time. The data in Jones' case was coughed up in 2005, well before the Supreme Court's ruling on GPS. "The court, however, need not resolve this vexing question of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, since it concludes that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies," (.PDF) she wrote. ... With that, prosecutors are legally in the clear to use Jones’ phone location records without a warrant.'"
And therefor her ruling is irrelevant to cases in which the tower data was acquired since the Supreme Court GPS ruling.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
No, the moral of the story is that if you think you are covered by the 4th amendment, and that you're not living in a surveillance society ... you're wrong.
Your government will spy on you without a warrant, whenever they like.
This is all of the stuff we used to joke about "papers please" where only the evil communist bastards would do such a thing. Only now, it's accepted as perfectly normal and legal.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule: means that as long as the police thought that they had a valid warrant, their behavior is acceptable and that such illegally obtained evidence may be presented rather than excluded. But the point of the exclusionary rule is to stop police/prosecutor misconduct by not rewarding inappropriate behavior. A good faith exception means you can be sneaky and side-step the law by having a detective obtain a search warrant in bad faith (by providing or proclaming certain facts which are known to be untrue) and then by having separate police officers "act in good faith" by carrying out that warrant. :>) ]
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Why is it that for civilians/non-law-officers the concept is "ignorance of the law is no excuse"? Police instead get the "well as long as you intended/meant to do good, it's alright..." Regular people are held to the letter of the law even if they are not aware of the existence of the law. Why should police/detectives/prosecutors be rewarded for gaming the system or for an illegal search warrant? [warning, IANAL and this post strongly follows the story line of something from Law and Order about one or two years ago...
This has been going on for years in law enforcement. For a minimal fee, agencies or officers fax a request or use an online-portal to access the requested information from the provider...all without a warrant. Info that is commonly available is tower data, phone calls, texts, tapping, and a "special request" section. This is all given up to an officer without a warrant. All major cellular carriers participate.
This isn't a case of a judge just tossing out the 4th Amendment. The situation is that the cops had a court order allowing them to grab the location data from the cell towers. It wasn't a warrant, but IANAL and I don't really understand what the difference is between the two. At any rate, the courts knew what the police wanted, and gave them the go-ahead.
What the judge did in this case is duck the 4th Amendment issue completely, and seemingly intentionally. She ruled that since the cops had a court order, they were entitled to grab & use the cell data. It's clear that she didn't want to wade into the 4th-A discussion, preferring to punt that to another court -- quite possibly the supremes.
If the cops had gotten a "warrant" to get this data, I doubt anyone in the press (or on /.) would be interested in this case. So now we're down to arguing over whether a "court order" is different enough from a "warrant" to be worth putting on our Big Brother war paint.
The people who wrote the constitution may not have conceived of warrantless tapping of cell phone towers, but I'm not convinced of the interpretations which say "well, they didn't say cell phone towers so it's OK".
In terms of what they knew about, I'd say this falls under "papers and effects". And then there's the need for probable cause.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
4th amendment is no intrusion in your home and some private property like a car or boat along with having the content of your phone conversations private
Bullshit:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Nowhere does it state that the right to be free from search and seizure without warrant only applies in your own home or on private property, and only an absolute fucking moron (or government shill) would think otherwise.
Thank $deity that you don't get to decide my rights.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
No, seriously. Is there ANYTHING left that requires a warrant anymore, that can't just be bypassed with some "We thought he might be an immediate threat/terrorist" line?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
If you want to be a[n] American citizen with but a vestige of privacy, don't carry a cellphone, or venture into public, or have a profile on any website, or use the internet period, etc. etc. etc.
FTFY.
Fixed it real good.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yup, and for the past few years they do what their party tell them to do. The supreme court has not been the defenders of the constitution that they were supposed to be for decades....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Criminal activity includes not agreeing with your government or being a proponent of freedoms that have been taken away.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They are the Government. They can do it. If they are now allowed, they'll make a law. Period.
The Constitution trumps any laws created by the legislative branches of the federal and state governments as well as any executive orders by governors or the president. The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, or it's supposed to be anyway.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Apparently the Fourth Amendment has all sorts of exclusionary clauses that us mortals can't see. Secure in papers and possessions? Well, email isn't really paper... No searches without warrants? It's ok if the police thought they had one. And tracking you without your knowledge isn't really a "privacy" issue. The Second Amendment, however, is clearly iron-clad, exception free, future-proof, and literal except that "militia" really means "individuals." Interestingly, though, I still can't own a plastic gun because undetectable guns are illegal--though perhaps all the loopholes in the Fourth Amendment supersede the Second Amendment? I can't wait to see how SCOTUS views equal protection when it comes to sexual orientation. Is it an iron-clad, literal right or are there more invisible exceptions that only special people in black robes can see? Or maybe it will suddenly be states rights issue this time (but not drugs, no the commerce clause clearly covers those.)
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
IF you want to get their attention. buy a disposable camera and go taking photos of security cameras. You will get to meet the people behind those cameras pretty quickly.
They like to watch you, they hate it when you watch them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is all of the stuff we used to joke about "papers please"
But... I only got a pipe, man!
Free Martian Whores!
I told you they'd listen to Reason.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Everyday, it seems, someone wants to watch me, be it government or websites that track my movements across the web. Short of pulling the plug or exerting massive amounts of proxy, mixmaster, VPS expensive nonsense, I'm about ready to just live and not worry about it. Actually, corporations are more likely to keep me awake at night than government. When there is money to be made, you can bet they will stop at nothing to achieve their sinister goals.
For the most part you can just live your life. If you are just going about daily business you have little to fear. The problem arises if and when you want to make a significant change to the status quo. Say you want to join the Occupy movement, or advocate against hydraulic fracking, or agitate for criminal proceedings against Wall Street felons. These new law enforcement abilities will be used against you to preserve that status quo that so many powerful people benefit so much from.
Question: What do people do with all that wealth. How many cars or nice houses does it take? How many islands, how many women in your wake suing? Why cannot people be content with normal?
At a certain level it becomes not about wealth but power. Money talks in the US like nothing else. If you have enough money, you can have a hand in shaping society to be the way you want it to be; no election necessary. You can buy ad time on TV to broadcast the message you want. You can fund foundations and think tanks to do the work and write policy papers reflecting your point of view. You can fund political campaigns and make demands of the Congresspeople you help elect. You can hire lobbyists for similar purposes. Hell, you can break the law and get away with it by hiring a legal dream team, or better yet getting your Congressman buddy to squash the investigation.
Like you said, at a certain level you don't care about Ferraris and private islands anymore. You've got 6 of each already. You turn your attention to making society the way you want it to be, and for your own interests. Have your ever wanted to remake the world according to your own image? If you had $50 billion you could start doing it.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is all of the stuff we used to joke about "papers please" where only the evil communist bastards would do such a thing. Only now, it's accepted as perfectly normal and legal.
Literally. I thought this was an Onionesc piece of satire when I started reading it but as far as I can tell it's real.
Welcome to the new world.
Who is John Galt?
You'd be OK with armed police asking everybody who goes by to identify themselves and justify why they're in that area? Really?
If this isn't the culmination of "papers please" I don't know what is.
A free society isn't supposed to do that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I would be terrified if they could do it that way. There's no probable cause that you personally may have done anything, but a big fishing expedition that says "if we stop everybody, sooner or later we'll find someone who is guilty". I should hope that sure as hell doesn't meet any legal test.
Hell, I'm going to throw out the wild, unsupportable figure that 25% of all cops are corrupt. So since we know that to be true, we need to heavily scrutinize all of the cops to determine which ones have money they can't account for. Of course, they'd whine and bitch that we're violating their constitutional rights.
At which point, why should their rights hold greater weight than ours?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.