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New Cellphone Surveillance Safeguards Imposed On Federal Law Enforcement
Earthquake Retrofit writes: The NPR website has an interesting story that the Justice Department says it will beef up legal requirements for using cell-site simulators. It includes a rare picture of the device and refers to them as dirt boxes. From the story: "Under the new policy, federal investigators will be required to get a warrant from a judge demonstrating probable cause, in most domestic criminal probes. Agents will need to explain to judges how the technology is being used. And they'll be directed to destroy volumes of bystanders' data 'no less than once daily.' 'This policy is really designed to ... try to promote transparency, consistency and accountability, all while being mindful of the public's privacy interest,' said Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates."
What an imposition!
Is all law enforcement will give about these guidelines.
In this case, the word is "most"...
So, who wants to bet that in future the overwhelming majority of uses will, purely coincidentally, not fall into the area covered by "most"?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I bet this little dance does nothing but make it harder to prove your rights were ignored in pursuit of your conviction.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway.
Given that the local Barney Fifes are still allowed to use them (and still lie about using them), makes this decision the equivalent of a thousand angles dancing on the head of a pin.
A source in the police department, in a reaction to this, stated: "Mouhahahahaha". After this our reporter was arrested on obstruction of justice charges. The police officer was laughing so hard while peeing on the constitution some of his urine missed his target. The police chief had the following to say when defending the bravery of his underlings: "Huh? wha? Peeing on the constitution in the line of brave police work should be praised or would you like your children be savaged by strangers! We do it for the children".
You're right, the old system was better? Fuck off you jaded piece of never happy shit, and take your little grey cloud with you. It's a step in the right direction. At least someone acknowledges the issue.
What kind of argument is that?
"I acknowledge that our sect might have raped and killed children in the past but now we only slit their throats. This is progress!"
Only applies to feds, not local or state LEOS
Need a WARRANT for this shit. I don't give a damn what any of the Courts said on the subject, per Marbury v. Madison, they're to be ignored because their rulings are VOID. The Fourth Amendment's blindingly explicit and this shit? It violates it all to hell, just like the FISA court does. And it won't stop until people turn around and tell the fuckers "ENOUGH!"
Why would a policy will make any difference? Policy is like the weather.
Law enforcement regards the law as something to be applied to other people...
Basically the justice department is reacting in much the same way as private corporations when threatened with a new stricter regulatory regime, they trot out symbolic but ineffective "self regulation" regimes that look good on the surface, but effectively change nothing. It's all a PR game to avoid real regulations that protects the constitutional rights of citizens.
How are you going to "put these clowns in prison" when they have the military and a three trillion dollar budget? Why should they listen to you or care about your little opinion?
"volumes of bystanders' data 'no less than once daily."
This is a simple governmental policy which has no real legal force, there is a proven history of government agencies wholesale ignoring clearly stated law, let alone policy. I don't know if they're still doing it but a few years back there was a controversy regarding the firearm purchasing background check system. They (branch of FBI I believe) are required BY LAW to destroy the records every month or so, this was put in law specifically to prevent it as being used as a round about way of creating a national firearm registry. They openly said they would not destroy the records and were keeping them indefinitely, no doubt specifically because they hoped that policy would change and they could use the records to as the basis for a registry.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates's dirt box!
The safeguards already existing in the US Constitution, the highest law of the land. Data CANNOT be collected without a specific court order.
This is a back-door attempt to legitimize their circumvention of that law, and any person who swore to uphold the constitution as part of their hiring process or inauguration should be fired or impeached, as appropriate.
Captcha: sketchy
I wonder how many local police departments will now be receiving "donated" Stingrays with the "undocumented" proviso that when national LEOs need it, the local department will deploy it and collect the data. You know, a local department that they just happen to have a data sharing agreement with.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
How did we get from "the Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government" to "we do whatever we want, unless and until we decide to invent our own rule telling ourselves not to" ?
The company that makes this box is DRT (now owned by Boeing). I find all of the negativity amazing. Google and Microsoft know what fetishes you have and when the last time you lied to your boss about being home sick. Amazon knows when your toilet is broken and some zit faced sysop at Verizon has a thumb drive with naked pictures of your mom. But heaven forbid the local cops capturing your IMEI when you happen to drive down the block of a Crack house.
That's hogwash. It's an internal guideline and it explicitly states that it's not legally binding and that there are no consequences to be feared.
Which is in itself is obfuscation since law enforcement is pretty damn sure already bound by existing laws and warrant requirements.
So basically it's rather openly an "if you proceed like that, we don't want to have it on record" or "here's when to use parallel construction" regulation.
Why does the bystander data need to be destroyed unless it was collected as allowed by the warrant? Are they issuing warrants to collect bystander data? What probable cause allows that?