Slashdot Mirror
No, Turning On Your Phone Is Not Consenting To Being Tracked By Police (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Maryland Court of Special Appeals on Wednesday upheld a historic decision by a state trial court that the warrantless use of cell-site simulators, or Stingrays, violates the Fourth Amendment. The trial had suppressed evidence obtained by the warrantless use of a Stingray -- the first time any court in the nation had done so. Last April, a Baltimore police detective testified that the department has used Stingrays 4,300 times since 2007, usually without notifying judges or defendants. Stingrays mimic cellphone towers, tricking nearby phones into connecting and revealing users' locations. Stingrays sweep up data on every phone nearby -- collecting information on dozens or potentially hundreds of people. The ruling has the potential to set a strong precedent about warrantless location tracking.
...remaining alive is deemed to give consent for any branch of government to do what the hell it likes....
It's hard enough to get a judge to rule that the cops need to follow the law. It's practically impossible to punish the police for violating the law and willfully disobeying a judge's decision.
There is absolutely no oversight on law enforcement. They routinely break the law and are routinely found to be on the wrong side of the law by the courts. What happens then is some cops shrug and go back to doing what they're doing because there are no consequences for lawless cop behavior.
When cops start getting fired (and losing their pensions and benefits) and/or being thrown in jail for their criminal offenses, things might start to change.
I've got a great preamble to that law:
the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated