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Feds Walk Into a Building, Demand Everyone's Fingerprints To Open Phones (dailyherald.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Daily Herald:
Investigators in Lancaster, California, were granted a search warrant last May with a scope that allowed them to force anyone inside the premises at the time of search to open up their phones via fingerprint recognition, Forbes reported Sunday. The government argued that this did not violate the citizens' Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination because no actual passcode was handed over to authorities...
"I was frankly a bit shocked," said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, when he learned about the scope of search warrant. "As far as I know, this warrant application was unprecedented"... He also described requiring phones to be unlocked via fingerprint, which does not technically count as handing over a self-incriminating password, as a "clever end-run" around constitutional rights.
"I was frankly a bit shocked," said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, when he learned about the scope of search warrant. "As far as I know, this warrant application was unprecedented"... He also described requiring phones to be unlocked via fingerprint, which does not technically count as handing over a self-incriminating password, as a "clever end-run" around constitutional rights.
Before that, you need a government that respects the citizens and the rule of law. Without that, everything else will be at risk.
That might be viewed as obstruction of justice, although it's arguable that what they were doing constituted any form of "justice" - it's not even clear if it was lawful. Remember, it's going to be viewed as strange in a courtroom if your phone was off when the police arrived. Who turns their phone off? Mine complains that it hasn't been switched off for months at a time.
The next step for this country is to get a tyrant at the helm. That's something that's going to happen any time now, and after that we can all just stop pretending we're not living in a totalitarian police state.
The next step for this country is to get a tyrant at the helm.
That's already happened, several times.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is an obvious violation of the fifth amendment, and the judge who issued the warrant isn't qualified to practice law in the united states.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And anybody who has done something wrong should know better than to use a fingerprint for unlocking anyway.
That is so severely misinformed. Prisons are full of people who made simple mistakes, who should have "known better" than to leave some particular bit of evidence.
What was this supposed to prove other than that they have a judge who will rubber-stamp any order no matter how appalling?
Actually its probably far more complicated than you suggest. Obtaining a fingerprint from a *suspect* is something that is well established in law. The fact that fingerprints can now be used to unlock certain information does not somehow undo the long established precedent of fingerprint collection and use. While it may be a novel interpretation of "use" its a bit hysterical to characterize it as rubber stamping. Its more a mundane example of the law not keeping up with technology and needing to be updated: that fingerprint use with respect to identification is not self incriminating, but fingerprint use with respect to unlocking is self incriminating. The current law may simply not address the difference and simply refer to use with characterizing the use. If so the failure is in the legislature not necessarily the judiciary.
It seems to violate the 4A, the one protecting citizens against "unreasonable search and seizure".
Of course, both Bush and Obama pretty much have done away with such niceties. Hillary will continue their "noble" efforts, and kill off the 1A and 2A as well.
That is the very definition of a "general search warrant".
General search warrants are the very reason the Fourth Amendment was written. They are categorically banned in the Constitution.
The judge must be a Redcoat.
Unreasonable search and seizure
A search warrant for building contents is fine.
Searching the personal affects of every person just because they happened to be present is not reasonable.
The constitution requires a specific warrant. Searching someone's person constitutionally requires that person be named in the Warrant.
Merely being present at a place of work or being at a restaurant or other public place is not probable cause for a search of someone's person.
(...) even people who have done nothing wrong (...). And anybody who has done something wrong should (...)
The problem is that everyone has some something wrong. There is some kind of law, statute or rule that you broke... or didn't follow strictly.
This day and age there are so many rule, such broad law, that everyone had some something. Even if it as minor as jaywalking. Or driving over the speed limit for a couple minutes. Or parking a little too far from the sidewalk. Or something else completely different that in a given place is a misdemeanor.
I'm not screaming "evil big government here". I'm actually a law student and an intern in a attorney office. We all break some law several times every day. But these are such minor things that the legal system simply don't care. Maybe it is not a criminal law, but only enough for a civil lawsuit. But we are still breaking the rules.
In the eyes of the law, no one is 100% guiltless, even if they are innocent.
This is one of the problems why the legal system doesn't work. We punish too many things, so we punish badly. And, in that scenario, when the policing forces (local, state or federal) get increased powers and broader mandates, they get carte blanche to so pretty much what they want to anyone they want. After all, everyone is guilty of something.
Things are only getting scarier.
morcego
Probably just one before it's okay for them to arrest you. One of those situations where "wrong finger" more than once will be taken as resisting arrest.
Why resisting arrest?
Because it's what they're about to scream you're doing once you're unconscious
We have very little information to go on. I'd like to read the actual warant and know the cirumstances, but based on the article it seems like a violation of the FOURTH amendment. The cops are supposed to have a warrant, based on probable cause, describing what particular things they are searching for and where, and why they think those things are in that place.
I can't imagine a probable cause to believe that everyone in the building has some specific evidence on their phone. Thus the search itself is unconstitutional under the fourth, with or without a fingerprint.
The fifth says you don't have to testify against yourself. It doesn't say you can't be fingerprinted. Thus I see no *fifth* amendment violation, though it seems like a rather onerous *fourth* amendment violation.
One thing that /. users don't get is that while that may seem obvious to you, it's not obvious to everyone. That's why the law and regulations are constantly in search of trying to balance citizens from having to be experts about everything they buy/own/need. And the time honoured thought of "oh, only idiots will not do this, and idiots are people who deserve what happens to them" plays nicely into the hands of a dysfunctional society. If you have a "just world" mentality, that things happen to people *because* they deserve it, you may not get out enough.
"Old man yells at systemd"
That word...
The US has never been a tyranny, wake up. Sometimes it's a bit grim, but it's a democracy, that's what you get. As long as people strive to be good the country will persevere and prosper.
No, Donald Trump has never been our President.
Donald Trump is an anti tyrant. He's more like a little boy who has no idea what to do or how to do it. In some ways having a child who doesn't understand politics at the top of what is shown to be an institutionalised assault on the rights of all may actually be a good thing.
The alternative is a career politician and the pure embodiment of 1%ers reaching for an even bigger power grab.
I'm glad I'm not American. I'm actually not sure I could bring myself to not vote for Trump, and that would just leave a sour taste in my mouth.
Well, if you see them coming in demanding everybody unlock their phones, just quickly take it out, unlock it and turn it off. Takes about 3 seconds. Then when they get to you, it's too late because the phone will now require a password which you don't have to give.
Doesn't work if you're the first one they ask, of course.
Where do you think tyrants cone from? They are always immature little boys with no sense if actual fairness of empathy.
Want to know why it took a thousand plus year from the fall if time to rebuild society? It was because the average ruler started in their twenties and life expantacy dropped.
They were hormonal teenagers. It wasn't until si with progressed and life expectancy got longer that more mature thoughts started happening.
Would you give a teenager a nuke? That is what will happen when people vote for trump.
I always said Republicans would rather vote for Hitler and allow gas chambers next to their homes rather than see Hillary in office. It looks like that is what will happen. Why gas chambers? 70% of illegals in the USA fly here, to round up and deport 11 million you need to build concentration camps to hold them, while you file the paperwork to deport and allocate money for return airfares. Deporting that many would take a decade. It is why Ronald Reagan went the cheap route and granted citizenship.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
No, Donald Trump has never been our President.
Donald Trump is an anti tyrant. He's more like a little boy who has no idea what to do or how to do it. In some ways having a child who doesn't understand politics at the top of what is shown to be an institutionalised assault on the rights of all may actually be a good thing.
Didn't that already occur with Dubya?
The Bushes are voting for Clinton this time around.
Go figure. It's not because Trump is a 'disaster'. It's because he doesn't represent their political class. Hillary does.
Yup, we are better off with Hillary, who 'acts' nice, that is better than being one's self. And we are less vulnerable to tyranny with Hillary even though the media will send her message for her, she can lie about stuff and get away with minimal scrutiny by the mainstream media. She can cover up her tracks and get the FBI to cut a deal to allow her underlings to destroy evidence with no ramifications. She has a powerful political party AND money machine behind her.
So you think Trump, who won't have either political party at his back and who the media won't let get away with anything is gonna pull off some major control coup. Yeah, he's gonna be able to pull of a move to dictatorship under those conditions... give me a break. Obama gets away with significant overstepping of Presidential authority as it is.