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A Supreme Court Case This Week Could Change US Digital Privacy Standards
On November 29th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Carpenter v. US, a case essentially asking whether or not authorities need a warrant based on probable cause and signed by a judge to see your cellphone location data. For now, they do not. Given the fact that about 95% of Americans have cellphones, this case has major implications. Quartz reports: Mobile-service providers collect "cell site location information" (CSLI) for all phones, ostensibly to use for things like improving their networks. The U.S. government considers these data "routinely collected business records" rather than private information. That means it can demand the records without proving probable cause. That's what happened in the criminal case of Timothy Carpenter, accused of a series of Detroit, Michigan robberies. At Carpenter's trial, prosecutors presented evidence collected by private companies, obtained by the law without probable cause. They used 127 days-worth of cellphone-location data, amounting to almost 13,000 data points, to tell a circumstantial story of Carpenter comings and goings.
In its brief to the high court, filed in September, the justice department argued that when Carpenter signed onto his cell-phone provider's service, he agreed that his call records weren't private information belonging to him, but rather business records belonging to the company. Therefore, he should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" when it comes to these records, government attorneys wrote. Carpenter argues that the location evidence was obtained illegally. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied that claim last year, basing their decision on Supreme Court cases from the 1970s: Smith v. Maryland and US v. Miller . The appeals court concluded that, under what's called the "third-party doctrine," Americans don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in things like check deposit slips, similar banking records, and dialed telephone numbers.
In its brief to the high court, filed in September, the justice department argued that when Carpenter signed onto his cell-phone provider's service, he agreed that his call records weren't private information belonging to him, but rather business records belonging to the company. Therefore, he should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" when it comes to these records, government attorneys wrote. Carpenter argues that the location evidence was obtained illegally. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied that claim last year, basing their decision on Supreme Court cases from the 1970s: Smith v. Maryland and US v. Miller . The appeals court concluded that, under what's called the "third-party doctrine," Americans don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in things like check deposit slips, similar banking records, and dialed telephone numbers.
A good question to ask is - what is it reasonable to expect to be private?
Here are some scenarios that most people would agree would qualify as an invasion of privacy:
- If what you did on your personal property behind closed doors was made public;
- If you gave personal information to someone, and they said that they would keep it secret, but they then disclosed it to someone else.
Here are some scenarios that would *not* qualify as invasion of privacy:
- If you did something on property that was not yours, and it was made public;
I am not sure of a situation where you give personal information to someone, and they make it public after making no guarantees to you that they would keep such information secret. Are you foolish for giving the information without such guarantees, or should you expect that because the information is personal, you should automatically assume it should be kept secret? Why should you have such an expectation?
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
>"In its brief to the high court, filed in September, the justice department argued that when Carpenter signed onto his cell-phone provider's service, he agreed that his call records weren't private information belonging to him, but rather business records belonging to the company. Therefore, he should have "no reasonable expectation of privacy"
And THAT, my friends, is the slippery slope of how privacy and freedom is lost in the modern world of technology. That exact argument has been used over and over again to strip one thing after another. You will have no "reasonable" expectation of privacy wherever you go with your almost absolutely necessary cell-phone. No expectation in your car. No expectation at work. No expectation on a sidewalk. No expectation in your yard. No expectation using your private Email at home. None watching your DVR. Want to work here or just about anywhere? Sign this agreement. Want to get any type of insurance? Sign this agreement. Want to open a bank account? Sign this agreement. Want to own a car, credit card, house, software, whatever, sign this agreement. At some point we are talking about things we can't live without in the modern world and yet things in which private companies apparently conspire to all require the same often questionable and frequently unreasonable terms. And those private companies then allow all this data to flow right to any 3-letter government agency with little or zero resistance, or just "lose" it by being hacked or doing stupid crap.
what changed when we made the transition from wireline to wireless.
How is it that, by simply changing the method of transmission, we lost so much in the realm of privacy ?
( Location tracking even when disabled, cameras front and back, microphone and fully hackable )
They used the same argument when we switched from physical mail, to the electronic variety.
( Oh, it's stored on third party servers, so it's fair game. Even if stored overseas, they still try to lay claim to it. )
Why is it that I ( supposedly ) cannot be compelled to incriminate myself ( 5th amendment ) yet, I can be forced to provide
my fingerprint, face print, whatever, to unlock my phone which may or may not contain incriminating evidence during an
overly broad search of an entire building by the FBI ? ( Sans warrant I might add )
Even a fucking pen register required someone to sign off on it. ( Not a warrant, but still had to be approved )
On top of all this, it's unlikely they even bothered to go to the Phone Company for this data. They probably just fired up the damn
Stingray and are using the phone records as a nice scapegoat for how they obtained the data in the first place.
... as long as everyone can download that location info and the phone owner's name realtime.
They watch us, we watch them.
The law enforcement agencies will be OK with that, right? Because, I mean, they work for us, right?