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EFF's Cell Phone Guide For US Protesters
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation has updated its guide for protecting yourself and your cell phone at a protest. In addition to being extremely powerful tools (real-time communication to many watchers via social media, and video recording functionality), cell phones can also give authorities a lot of information about you if they confiscate it. The EFF is trying to encourage cell phone use and prepare people to use them. (The guide is based on U.S. laws, but much of the advice makes sense for other places as well.) Here are a few small snippets: "Start using encrypted communications channels. Text messages, as a rule, can be read and stored by your phone company or by surveillance equipment in the area. ... If the police ask to see your phone, tell them you do not consent to the search of your device. Again, since the Supreme Court's decision in Riley, there is little question that officers need a warrant to access the contents of your phone incident to arrest, though they may be able to seize the phone and get a warrant later. ... If your phone or electronic device was seized, and is not promptly returned when you are released, you can file a motion with the court to have your property returned."
Use a shitty pre-paid phone when you're out rabble rousing.
Wipe it before you leave the house.
Do live streams so they cannot just erase your shit. I also have my phone encrypted with a one and done failed password shutdown and a extreme acceleration shutdown trigger as well, go ahead and grab it. I'm not really worried about the police my motivation is geared towards my phone being stolen.
If this is good advice, the government is tyrannical.
Confiscation is legal. When a pack of thugs in costumes takes your phone to keep you from exposing their crimes, they're stealing your phone, not confiscating it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
good idea, If we all hide in our house's it will get better right?
If you feel strongly enough you need to get out there and make your voice heard, One person can do very little but a large group of people giving up their time to a cause can change to world.
and politically illiterate college kids voted for tyranny to get free stuff.
For example, take steps to disable 'data communication ports on the device that you don't use.
Disable the ability to pair over USB or bluetooth.
Use nonstandard filesystems.
Analysts attempting to execute an illegal search of your device are not going to be "technical gurus"; too few of those to go around.
They'll be using standard software tools they bought from some vendor.
Make sure no "standard" tools will work as expected on your device, and their costs go up tremendously.
oh yea, because democracy works in an oligarchy. They would be better off supporting 1 person and getting them employed by google then asking if google would support a reform of the area, this actually has a chance of success.
The other option is exactly what they are doing, getting international attention by going on a rampage, the area will suddenly get all the support it needs and additional funding.
Only apply the simplest amount of technology to remain efficient. This is a case where too much technology is the enemy. Go back to CB, Amateur, and walkie talkie radio for communication. Use a camera that can record to an SD card and periodically switch out the card and find a safe place to "dead drop" it. This way, the police can glean very little, if anything at all.
The only sensible thing to do, imo (aside from not carrying anything that can ID you), from /both/ the standpoint of /and/ from the standpoint of adding to a protest's effectiveness (something just a bit lost in the
personal privacy,
EFF article), is to bring just the cheapest dumb phone that you can find, and at the site immediately exchange it
with another protestor unknown to you, for his/hers. Shortly test both, and you're on.
Re: "For everyone else"
The problem is you may have to pass that area under cell tracking for some unrelated reason.
Every user that turns their phone off (battery out or turned off) near the tracked protest area will be looked at ie you where educated about tracking and wanted to enter a protest zone without your phone on.
Thats the problem with any cell device. A a vast area of use is reconstructed by gov and mil experts every phone is going to be considered.
Powered on at the protest.
Powered off before entering the protest area.
Walking to or with a person who was at the protest site or also had their phone off in a guilty way near the protest area.
The cell use map will massive over a wide area and over time. To catch people arriving early, late, meeting people or walking to or from an event.
Did they steam, upload media? If so what, where and how and to what network, where they given data to stream further way trying to hide the person who captured the true optics of the event for the press and a wider world.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"