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Police Can Obtain Cellphone Location Records Without a Warrant
mi writes: A new ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found by a margin of 9-2 that law enforcement does not need to get a warrant to grab your cell phone's location records. The justices ruled that there is no expectation of privacy for your location when you're using a cell phone. This decision (PDF) was based on a case in which a man was convicted of robbery after months of location data was given to authorities by his cell phone carrier, MetroPCS. Police got the information using a court order, rather than a warrant, because there were less stringent requirements involved. One of the judges wrote: "We find no reason to conclude that cellphone users lack facts about the functions of cell towers or about telephone providers' recording cell tower usage."
Because nothing says Easy To Know Where They Are like making them look like trees, or fancy arches, or painting them dull colors so they don't look obvious.
Thank god my state has a State Constitution which says there is no excuse not to get a warrant.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No expectation of privacy when using a cellphone?
This worries me. How long before no expectation of privacy when using the internet?
When using a car? (GPS in modern cars)
When do we have an expectation of privacy anymore?
shit, you need to investigate another line of work.
Attention to detail is not your strong suit.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This should be blatantly obvious to anybody that knows anything about wireless tech.. Your phone carrier MUST know which cell tower you're near, simply because it's required to have your phone work at all.. And it's trivial to keep a log of such connections; some carriers keep it for 30 days, some for 6 months.
My guess is that they're counting on the ignorance of the average criminal to NOT know that fact, which makes the job for the police much easier...
One of the judges wrote: "We find no reason to conclude that cellphone users lack facts about the functions of cell towers or about telephone providers' recording cell tower usage."
Seriously? We still have problems with heroin junkies not knowing the risks of sharing needles and teens not knowing about the spread of HIV. I'm not justifying ignorance but our society needs to recognize that inequalities in our educational system have resulted in some dull tools in the shed with more rusting everyday. The mantra that "Ignorance is not an excuse" is not accepted by a large percentage of Americans. Disagree? Keep watching our cities burn.
prior art.
Well darn, I guess criminals will have to leave their non-pre-paid cell phones at home and use pre-paid ditch-able cell phones whenever they're committing crimes. Or just not use cell phones while committing crimes. Derp.
Warrantless location tracking is just part of the equation. Monitoring will continue until morale improves. The government classifies volumes of information to hide evidence of their own wrongdoing. They use secret tools like stingrays to gather secret evidence which they attempt to present in secret, sealed and off the record. And in the event that an "activist judge" calls them on it, they withdraw the evidence so as not to have it revealed, and then re-file charges a month later to go shopping for a different judge.
In March we found out the police lock people up in secret detention facilities in Chicago, in America, without booking them, no Miranda rights, no due process or access to a lawyer, such that no one but the police even knows where these people disappear to for days or weeks on end. This isn't some terrorist POW camp at Diego Garcia, this is happening right in middle America. Police are shooting and killing people weekly if not daily, acting as judge jury and executioner, often facing zero consequences. For every "Baltimore Six" who get charged with a crime, there are just as many officers who have killed citizens without penalty.
The police state isn't coming, it's here. It's only going to get worse.
The justices ruled that there is no expectation of privacy for your location when you're using a cell phone. One of the judges wrote: We find no reason to conclude that cellphone users lack facts about the functions of cell towers or about telephone providers' recording cell tower usage.
A right and well justified decision, since it's not about the privacy of the communication but about the location records, in the same way a witness can testify that a suspect was in some location - and no warrant is needed because a court can order a witness to testify.
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
I know I'm going up against many years of case law here, but... the Fourth Amendment doesn't say anything about privacy. It says no searches and seizures without a warrant.
So the question is: Is it legal for MetroPCS to hand over the data, presumably in violation of their privacy policy and CPNI laws? Or did they do it because they were threatened and intimidated?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Don't ever expect any help from your carrier anyway. All your shit belongs to them. Check your contract, chances are they have your consent to do what they want.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Have gnu, will travel.
http://wiki.radioreference.com...
I very well do have a legal expectation of privacy. cell blocked (or cellular blocked) is a phrase applied to scanners and wideband receivers manufactured for sale in the US which denotes that they comply with the provisions of PL 102-556, which amended Section 302 of the Communications Act (47USC302) to prohibit manufacture, importation, or certification of scanners which could receive the frequency band allocated for analog AMPS cellular telephony, "the frequencies allocated to the domestic cellular radio telecommunications service":
824-849MHz
869-894MHz
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
The summary makes it sound like the police now can just walk in and get all the records they want with almost no restrictions. The reality is this ruling said that a warrant isn't needed but A COURT ORDER IS. The problem, and why it was appealed, is that a warrant REQUIRES the showing of probable cause, while a court order just means the judge thinks it might be useful information. But it still means a judge has to sign off on the request in an active case. Also, this ruling was in the 11th Circuit which covers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, so it isn't binding elsewhere. The article says there has been a similar ruling in the 5th Circuit (Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas), but a contrary ruling in the 3rd Circuit (Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania).
I would love to have my cell phone data available to me. Why should the police have access to it, and not me? Apparently, customers are the only ones who can't have it.
Under the recently passed data retention laws passed in Australia, law enforcement only needs to ask your carrier for the data and they are obliged to provide it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Doesn't "searching" your cell phone records constitute a search under the Supreme Court ruling banning cell phone data searches without a warrant? Seems like the 11th Circuit lacks standing to rule since the Supreme Court already has.
Didn't SCOTUS recently rule that a warrant was required to obtain cellphone metadata? If so, wouldn't that be relevant to this case?
Technically this seems wrong because people actually do have an expectation of privacy even when data is recorded. For example people believe when they take nude photos they will have an expectation that only people they send it to will see it. We also believe when we place a call it is secret only between the parties and that no one else can list or hear. We also believe when we email someone only the intended recipient will receive or have access to it. but law enforcement gets into these photos, phone calls, emails, other data and nab em a variety of ways. A warrant should be required at minimum to prevent unreasonable government intrusion onto citizens.
the expectation of privacy comes from within. People generally feel that even if technology allows snooping on a person such as by fiber split or stingray or metadata that is passed on to government .. that they should have privacy, even if they continue to use technology that allows them to be snooped on. The reason is using a telephone, mail, internet, state road, highway, car, whatever people generally feel the government should not be able to snoop without probable cause and a just individualized search warrant.
Probable cause requires the person to be reasonably guilty of a crime which is being investigated to warrant such snooping to occur.
This ruling they completely ignore citizens actual expectation of privacy in favor of their own false view on it to support law enforcements needs. What the people actually expect doesn't matter, its what the judges believe the citizens should expect based on whatever fallacy they concoct to push their intentions and wants through.
They are also saying that, they will not allow lawsuits through the 11th circuit based on the argument that privacy was violated or the 4th amendment, so they are protecting government from liability. For people in the 11th circuit jursdiction the only gope is us supreme court precedent to override it, or a hope the court changes its mind at a later date but its not likely.
What an unjust world..
obamasweaponn.com
'broadcasting' in the tech sense, yes, but NOT in the usual PUBLIC SENSE. convenient that you leave that part out.
to get your location, special equipment that The Public can't get (!) is needed. how is this 'broadcasting' then? its encrypted AND locked down so that only special people can see or tune it. that does not meet the definition of 'telling everyone around you where you are'. just the opposite!
why do you hate america and freedom? or, are you just trollin' ?
we can't answer this question, but take a guess: how do you think the framers of this country and its constitution would feel about this? you think they'd fine 'fine and dandy' with the government getting your 'person to person' conversations; the content, location, everything? you really think that would have approved of this?
of course not. we are not even close to the same spirit of freedom that STARTED this country. shame. damned shame, in fact. we once stood for something great.
Sorry, you're wrong. And while I can't speak for the other guys, I'm not saying this to "troll" you. I am telling you the truth, so listen.
Broadcasting can't be said to be being done in any one particular sense. It's broadcasting, PERIOD. Your cellphone, when operating in normal, customary mode, (not off, or in airplane mode, etc.,) is sending out a radio signal identifying itself to cell towers; without cellphones doing this, the cellular telephone system wouldn't work. This is without regard to whether your phone is smart, dumb, or anywhere in between. Special equipment is not necessary, in fact, just the same standard equipment needed to operate in the system, to determine your location. Your phone is doing the electromagnetic equivalent of shouting its name to anyone who can hear. You want it to be able to do that but somehow get mad when someone notices the shouting? You're a funny one.
The "Public" (sic) can actually get the equipment. Contrary to what you've been told, your cellphone's RF emanations are NOT encrypted, when not in a call. When you first turn your phone on, or back on, or take it out of airplane mode, it listens on its assigned band of frequencies for a carrier wave from the tower, picks the strongest one it's compatible with, and tells the tower its ESN or MSIN, or whatever. Now there's some negotiation and eventually an encrypted connection is established to reduce to virtually nothing, the odds of your phone being "cloned," which was a big problem for old-style, conventional cellphones, before everything went to PCS, digital-type services, or the equivalent. But the initial communique CAN be eavesdropped upon. Even if no one can understand what's being "said," the shouting can still be heard. The signals can still be followed as to their movements. Even if it's encrypted, if a law enforcement or spy agency knows a certain piece of cellular/PCS equipment went along this path, and traffic cameras show only ONE automobile following THAT path at the time it intercepted the signals, they can still listen to the moving signal to continue to follow your car after the traffic and cop-car cams have lost sight of you, and can establish where your car likely was, etc. and so on. All you need is a commonly available and easily obtainable radio receiver and maybe a spectrum analyzer or radio-direction finding set.
Imagine shouting not your own name, but nonsense syllables walking down the street. Even if no one can understand what you're saying, they can still tell where you are, and where you're moving. Encryption doesn't protect you the way you think it does. Here's another example. Suppose someone at a party winks at your spouse, and whispers something in another language you don't know in his/her ear. Then he smiles and saunters off. You might not have any idea what was said, but it's enough to make you suspicious when he/she excuses him/herself five minutes later and disappears for about a half hour or so. You can put two and two together if only
Yep, called a phase II ping. Gets em within 50-75 feet, if not closer.
This people, is why in every movie ever, Bruce Willis throws your cellphone out the car window. What a noob.
If they grab the cell phone users general location by finding which cell tower they are connected to, I'd be good with that. If they are hacking into the phone and grabbing exact GPS coords that's different
And that's pretty much it if the police state can get away with it.
This could be partly solved by making a cellphone that only transmitted when you used it meaning they would only have your location when you made or received a call and nowhere in between
a constant network connection is not really necessary for calls
you could redesign the cell networks to do this but its not necessary
the simplest way to go about this would be to have a secondary system controling power to a standard phone transceiver
easy way would be to get the guts out of a cheap phone and build around that i wouldn't bother trying to get my own cell chipset built as afaik that would require me to add in a patriot act style backdoor which would defeat the purpose of the whole project so yes better to just cut the power to a prebuilt chipset
the secondary sytem could be rigged up to listen on certain channels for encrypted broadcast information delivered by broadcast radio would consist of txt messages caller id info and incoming call notification if someone wants to talk to you they can text you and you can call them back or when someone calls you can decide if you want to turn on your transiver to receive the call
This by and large would solve the historical location privacy issue no calls no history and you get to stay in contact at the same time text messages should even be practical to receive without disclosing location
of course of you insist browsing the web every 10 minutes on your phone this isn't going to help you either way
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The most ignored and by far the most important amendment, the ninth, was crafted specifically to counteract the notion that people didn't have any rights other than those that are carefully spelled out in the other amendments.
We find no reason to conclude that cellphone users lack facts about the functions of cell towers or about telephone providers' recording cell tower usage.
That sounds like they are saying that so long as people know the data is collected, it is legal for police to compel companies to provide it without a warrant. Unless I am grossly misunderstanding, I'm gonna bet on this one being overturned. It seems completely opposite of what the 4th amendment says, and the opposite of recent Supreme Court rulings.
of this technology.
This is what the "Obama's coming to take over Texas and take our guns away" crowd just doesn't get. What the hell do you need guns for? That's decades behind the time. The government is taking over our lives with information, not guns.
So if the police say my cellphone was in the vicinity of a robbery, then I am the robber.
If the phone is nowhere near the robbery, then someone else could have been carrying it and I am still the robber.
Just as an IP doesn't identify a person, a cellphone location does not identify a person's location, only the phone's location.
Since no one here actually read the opinion, and /. has once again engaged in sensationalism (what else is new), I feel it necessary to point out a few things:
* NONE of this data included GPS data from the phone
* NONE of this data included ANY data from the phone AT ALL
* NONE of this data included ANY kind of location data when the phone was not in use
The data in question is toll record data that indicates a phone number and the cell tower it is using to make a call. Obviously this information isn't very precise to start with, so wasn't central to the actual trial in the first place. If the government had wanted to get GPS or "prospective location" information ('pings' from unused phones as they traverse space) that has been fairly well litigated already as requiring a warrant (not saying people don't break rules, but the case law there is much clearer). This was a very fine point that is not earthshattering or groundbreaking in any way (basically a translation of existing Call Detail Record landline data case law to the mobile space).
From TFS:
In other words, we assert you probably know your privacy is being violated by existing technical means, so we'll just ignore the obvious constitutional instructions about warrants when dealing with personal information -- whereabouts, in this instance. Because the constitution is abused and/or ignored by most judges now, so that's ok, right? RIGHT?
Let's say some people commit murder in parks. Because they do. So, using the "reasoning" of the utter morons in this court:
And therefore, it's perfectly ok. Mr. Murderer, go forth and murder some more. Next Case!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And by "we", of course you mean the tiny, tiny minority that isn't... sitting in front of their television, a string of drool trailing from their partially open mouths, while the latest reports of Kim Kardassian's antics reflects from the their glazed eyes and the Doritos grease spots around their mouth. Or the deluded information-poor who consume Faux News broadcasts as if they were (cough) actual journalism.
Metaphorically speaking, little tiny soapboxes located at huge distances from one another, that no useful number of people pay any significant attention to... yep, that's pretty much right where we are.
It's not a slippery slope. It's a deep pit, and we're at the bottom already. They've just painted the sides with jingoistic and fear-inspiring slogans, that's all. The only way out is to stand on each other's shoulders, but that would require the use of backbone, which our society currently lacks in any significant sense.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Technically, no.
For the government, as it is explicitly constrained from legitimately doing so by the constitution, yes, it is something special.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The federal and state governments have more constraints than you do.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
while it is still private...
You'll get better treatment if you join a mafia.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
Do not set yourselt against police...http://www.topbagsspot.com
DOJ says the President can get rid of federal laws -- all he has to do is issue a presidential directive telling them to stop enforcing one and it's gone.
There are 26 states suing because this President has gotten rid of a few federal laws through that exact process.
Will be the reasoning for the removal of the other rights to privacy.
If we look at the larger picture does this now mean that if Uncle wants to detain you then all Uncle needs to do is see the most visited spot you have been and then break out the paddy wagon??
ask Cameron Willingham - oh, wait, we can't b/c they killed him for a "crime" that didn't even happen...
Tim Masters probably has some strong (certainly well informed) opinions on the subject as well. I'm not saying if you're a witness you shouldn't cooperate but be aware of your situation & know that lazy/stupid cops are not above pinning crimes on targets of convenience. as baltimore, charleston, etc remind us there's rarely adverse consequences for police misconduct & prosecutors who convict innocent people frequently end up becoming judges.
So... they don't need a court order called a warrant... they now can also use a court order that is not a warrant. HORRORS!
If you have no reasonable expectation of privacy when using a cell phone (with regard to metadata), then why is it illegal for ordinary citizens to intercept cellular?
Clinton legalized this fully in 1994 with CALEA. Complaining now is pointless.
Paying close attention and actually understanding what is going on.
A law is gone, or "rid of", when it's *gone*. Not when its enforcement is variable, low, presently ignored, or deferred.
Be precise. When your argument or implication is faulty, informed responses will disrupt your points even if the idea behind them had some merit.
Obama's been very effective at using his presidential powers in a legitimate manner. And he's not been shy about it -- unlike most presidents, his actions are published right where you can get at them. This is worth a read.
Lots of hand waving on both sides. The facts are... other.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...that will let you know where The Authorities think you are at any given moment based on cell tower data?
What is the resolution?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.