Amazon Argues That Alexa Is Protected By the First Amendment in a Murder Trial (qz.com)

Amazon is sticking to its guns in the fight to protect customer data. The ecommerce giant has filed a motion to quash the search warrant for recordings from an Amazon Echo in the trial of James Andrew Bates, accused of murdering friend Victor Collins in Bentonville, Arkansas in November 2015. And it's arguing that the responses of Alexa, the voice of the Echo, has First Amendment rights as part of that motion. From a report on Quartz: The company's lawyers claim that Alexa's recordings and responses are subject to free speech protections under the US constitution's bill of rights, and that prosecutors need to provide more evidence that this audio is essential to the case. "It is well established that the First Amendment protects not only an individual's right to speak, but also his or her 'right to receive information and ideas,'" Amazon lawyers wrote in a court filing. "At the heart of that First Amendment protection is the right to browse and purchase expressive materials anonymously, without fear of government discovery." Amazon also referenced a 2014 case involving Chinese search giant Baidu, where a court ruled that results returned by a search engine are protected by the First Amendment.

Comments

Re:Isn't it the victim's Echo they want info from?

[Khyber]

If you wanted the e-mail proof of that, I actually possess it. Amazon can go suck it's own dick, as it has fucked me over plenty of times that I've said fuck it and have copies of its email database, all 30+ gigs of the incrimintating evidence, thanks to asking of various entities if they have that kind of proof and then paying for it.

Amazon is heavily involved in anti-trust actions.

Bring it, Amazon,
Alex Marshall McQuown
4555 Pine Street, Unit 4-C
Riverside, CA, 92501

I'll kill you like I killed Electronic Arts for their Spore bullshit.

Bring it on, assholes. I've got far more than you can bargain with. That includes source code.