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.

Comments

Hold down power button and ...

[dgatwood]

... keep holding it down.

Seriously, this is such an unconscionable violation of basic privacy that even people who have done nothing wrong should automatically have that reaction. And anybody who has done something wrong should know better than to use a fingerprint for unlocking anyway. What was this supposed to prove other than that they have a judge who will rubber-stamp any order no matter how appalling?

Re:Hold down power button and ...

[morcego]

(...) 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.

Re:Hold down power button and ...

[Bing Tsher E]

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.

sorry my phone is off

[beckett]

if the iPhone reboots, the key code must be entered as touchID does not work. Passwords are still protected by the 4th amendment in the US, right?

Something you have, something you know

[jenningsthecat]

It's been said countless times here. Requiring both a fingerprint and a passcode would have protected phone owners from this fishing expedition.

As for the greater ramifications of the unprecedentedly broad warrant that was issued, well, I'm glad I'm not a US citizen and don't live there. And I'm increasingly reluctant to travel there as well, precisely because of things like this. America has become a scary, scary place.

The judge fucked up, and should be disbarred.

[jcr]

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

Re:The judge fucked up, and should be disbarred.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and the judge who issued the warrant isn't qualified to practice law..."

Note the very careful wording, both in the Warrant, (Which has yet to surface...), and the reporting about it. There is far more to this case than appears.
-No _person_ was charged or implicated either before or after the Warrant was issued and served. The Judge has not been named.
-The reason(s) for obtaining the Warrant has not been released.
-One witness has come out and expressed confusion; she claims not to know why she was ordered to comply. No explanation was given to her, and she has witnesses to this.

This seems to be a Fishing Expedition gone horribly wrong, and the Judge isn't the only one who is blameless. Somebody wanted very much to have this happen, most likely for "National Security" reasons. (Unpaid Parking Tickets seems unlikely, at least for now.) And indeed if that is the case, we may never know any more. The Law Enforcement Industry likes to keep mum on their screwups.

Too much attention is being paid to the How, and not enough people are asking Why?

That judge failed history

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

This is mostly a Red Herring

[RubberDogBone]

Fingerprints are an inherently insecure way to 'secure' a device of any kind because there are techniques to obtain latent fingerprints, which we all leave everywhere anyway, and use them to make a replica fingerprint which will open devices, security doors, phones, whatever, which is supposedly secured by said prints.

If you secure anything with fingerprints as your sole method of security, you have accepted having no security. It's a really bad way to secure anything unless you just don't care.

A normal search warrant already gives the police the right to obtain those latent prints and, hell, make you submit to fingerprinting on the old ink pad or the new electronic scanners. The same warrant also gives them the right to seize the devices that they wish to open.

Apparently the cops think they don't have the right to go through the steps to make a replica print and get the device to open. They are manufacturing something rather than just looking at the evidence. Personally I don't see a hill of difference here between that need and a police raid that seizes a padlocked box for which the police are unable to find a key. They would get a locksmith to open it, or more likely, cut the lock. So you have a locked phone. Make a replica print. Done.

This fingerprint warrant just sounds like they didn't want to spend time on doing it the hard way. Or they were after something else.

It's a 4th amendment issue

[mysidia]

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.

Seems like violating the 4th amendment, not the 5t

[raymorris]

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.

It was a premises warrant.

[tlambert]

In a premises search, they can compel an unlock of phones by fingerprint, assuming you lock your phone that way.

The specific legal decision was the 1988 John DOE, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES. 487 U.S. 201 (108 S.Ct. 2341, 101 L.Ed.2d 184) decision.

It came down to whether on not an affirmative action was required on the part of someone, or if it was a non-affirmative action. Use of a key on a safe or lockbox is not affirmative. Being forced to enter the combination is not affirmative; it's tantamount to compelled testimony.

Here's the part of the decision of interest:

A defendant can be compelled to produce material evidence that is incriminating. Fingerprints, blood samples, voice exemplars, handwriting specimens, or other items of physical evidence may be extracted from a defendant against his will. But can he be compelled to use his mind to assist the prosecution in convicting him of a crime? I think not. He may in some cases be forced to surrender a key to a strongbox containing incriminating documents, but I do not believe he can be compelled to reveal the combination to his wall safe —- by word or deed.

Moral of this story: use a pin code, rather than using the fingerprint unlock. It may be a cool feature, but it offers you no legal protection.