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DOJ Needs Warrant To Track Your Cell's GPS History
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:30 AM
from the where-did-you-go-and-who-did-you-go-there-with dept.
from the where-did-you-go-and-who-did-you-go-there-with dept.
MacRonin recommends a press release over at the EFF on their recent court victory affirming that cell phone location data is protected by the Fourth Amendment. Here is the decision (PDF). "In an unprecedented victory for cell phone privacy, a federal court has affirmed that cell phone location information stored by a mobile phone provider is protected by the Fourth Amendment and that the government must obtain a warrant based on probable cause before seizing such records. EFF has successfully argued before other courts that the government needs a warrant before it can track a cell phones location in real-time. However, this is the first known case where a court has found that the government must also obtain a warrant when obtaining stored records about a cell phones location from the mobile phone provider."
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Note to Self (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Note to Self (Score:4, Funny)
the DOJ(Department of Jerkoffs) will extract your DNA from your ear-grease you left all over the faceplate.
Gloves, plastic bags, tape, hands free system (which you dispose of seperately). No such thing as too careful. Of course a real serial killer can still live without a telephone for a few hours. It's part of the sacrifices of the job.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Of course a real serial killer can still live without a telephone for a few hours. It's part of the sacrifices of the job."
What am I supposed to do between torture sessions with my victims then, chit-chat with them? Normally I use that time to catch up on my RSS feeds.
Re:Note to Self (Score:5, Funny)
Naa tie it to a dogs collar and set him loose in a neighborhood...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They would probably taser a bunch of five year-olds for not being cooperative. "I told them to get down, but all they would do is cry and say 'I want my mommy!' The book says we should taser non-cooperative suspects, so that's what we did." And then some scum-bag lawyer would argue that the police acted within their authority and that the law does not distinguish between a 200 lb drugged-up brute attacking a police officer and
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Thats perposterous. They wouldn't taser a five year old. However, at age six, apparently anything goes. [theregister.co.uk]
Well, not really (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder if the warrant has to be to get the data from YOU or from the cell COMPANY? Did they specify who owns that info? Because if it's the company, the could still voluntarily give up the info without the need for a warrant.
The court said the police can't ask for the information without a warrant.
You're suggesting the phone company "could still voluntarily give up the info without the need for a warrant."
Those two statements are mutually incompatible.
If the police cannot ask without a warrant, how do you propose the phone company will voluntarily give up your location?
-1 Overrated for you.
Re:Well, not really (Score:5, Insightful)
-5 overrated for you. The police don't need a warrant to ask for anything. Consent is always sufficient, no warrant required. A warrant is only required to compel disclosure.
Parent
Re:Well, not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Gee, the anonymous coward whose best comeback is "fuck your stupid" thinks he knows the law better than a lawyer.
Clue to you, dipwad. "State and federal privacy laws" have nothing to do with the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My iphone 3g got stolen! (Score:3, Interesting)
What if someone stole my iPhone 3G and committed a crime? Will I be tracked and punished?
Its analogous to the red light traffic cameras that take photos of those who jump the red light, irrespective of who's driving the car, the owner is fined!
In most jurisdictions that I know about (Score:2)
it is just a dollar civil fine w/ no possible penalties (it doesn't go on your record)
Preview... dohh (Score:2)
I drive a pretty quick CAR not care 8')
Also, I am not seriously trying to hit someone, it's my responsibility to go on green "if it is clear."
Re: (Score:2)
In AZ, video tickets are tickets. Photo summons they are called, and they count. Even for red lights.
You got it easy.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok... Say all your family have access to your car, which they all use every so often. A speeding ticket comes through the post a couple of weeks after the offence, and no one can remember who was driving. It's now your problem, and that is shit... you should not have to log who is driving what when _all_ the time.
OT - Regarding your sig, atheism is lack of faith, not faith in lack. Many atheists also do believe in a lack of god too, but atheism at its simplest is just no belief in a higher entity, not a
Re:My iphone 3g got stolen! (Score:5, Interesting)
The wonderful thing about a murder investigation is that they actually do an investigation. So as yoda would say "Being there, guilty makes you not."
This is the mistake I see being made by 90% of overly cautious privacy advocates. If you're concerned about the government knowing where you are and hauling your ass off to some secret prison to torture you without a trial... then the the country is in far more dire straights than can be fixed with a couple of privacy laws.
If the government is going to frame you... why go through the hastle of actually using real footage.
If the government's case against you is "his phone was at the scene of the crime when it was committed" and they win then you've got far bigger problems in your legal system then needing a warrant.
I completely agree with the legal decision that digital information should be only accessible through a warrant. Just like I think that surveilance footage should only be accessible through a warrant. If 'the law' can riffle through my stuff in my apartment with a warrant then I see no problem with them rifling through my digital stuff with a warrant.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the mistake I see being made by 90% of overly cautious privacy advocates. If you're concerned about the government knowing where you are and hauling your ass off to some secret prison to torture you without a trial... then the the country is in far more dire straights than can be fixed with a couple of privacy laws.
You are assuming a 'vast conspiracy' problem. Before that stage comes the one of a bunch of little conspiracies. Like individuals in positions of authority abusing that authority for personal reasons - like harassing ex-girlfriends and their new boyfriends, or individual police officers abusing the system to manipulate courts to convict people they 'just know' are guilty, or incumbent politicians using surveillance information to gain an unfair advantage over political challengers (sort of like the way Ho
Re: (Score:2)
Plus there's the non-privacy related 'problems we have to contend with'. Like the Denver area government officials who apparently took huge bribes from some of the big oil companies. Some of the bribes allegedly included drugs provided by hookers, but the DEA isn't involved in the investigation, (at least yet). Anyone willing to bet that the officials who were getting away with this for years would have drawn the line at any other abuse because it was privacy related? Anyone willing to bet that, if they get
No, you don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
If the government is going to frame you... why go through the hastle of actually using real footage.
Because they don't know if they want to frame you yet. We're all anonymous and faceless.. until some tracking trend decides that we'd be a nice scapegoat. You have to show up on somebody's radar for that to happen. Your unusual, slashdot-reading, open-source programming, bookstore-visiting habits might be enough. Don't give them any hooks to go after you. If they can't track it, they won't be interested what it says about you--or what they can make it appear to say about you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If you're concerned about the government knowing where you are and hauling your ass off to some secret prison to torture you without a trial... then the the country is in far more dire straights than can be fixed with a couple of privacy laws."
The point is to head things off with the privacy and other civil liberties laws long before it reaches the point of people disapearing into secret prisons, etc...
I think history shows us pretty clearly that tyranny is the natural end that governments evolve towards i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not a question of being framed. It's a question of overzealous police and prosecutors deciding that you are guilty, then coming up with the evidence to prove it. This is a well known and common problem. It's just human nature. Police nearly always decide on who is guilty long before sufficient evidence of guilt is available. That's why our system protects suspects so greatly, because that's the only way to prevent them from being hanged by "good" people who believe that they are entirely in the right.
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What if someone stole my iPhone 3G and committed a crime? Will I be tracked and punished?
Well, if you're sitting in an interrogation room, and AT&T says your phone is in Disneyland, probably not.
Re: (Score:2)
What if someone stole my iPhone 3G and committed a crime? Will I be tracked and punished?
Its analogous to the red light traffic cameras that take photos of those who jump the red light, irrespective of who's driving the car, the owner is fined!
I had a friend who got fined for driving a car that wasn't his because his face was in a set of those photos. The owner of the car got the notice, but he wrote to explain who had been driving and sent along photos of both of them (they didn't like each other much anymore) and the fine was sent to the driver.
How is this "unprecedented" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It scares me that this is considered an "unprecedented" victory. This looks like a clear-cut example of what the 4th amendment is meant to do. If the government wants access to private data they must have a warrant. Why is that so difficult to understand? It's one of the cornerstones of justice.
Today, it seems like the thinking is that the government can get access to anything they want, unless it is specially protected in some way. That is backwards.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, the data is not clearly yours. They could get it from the cell phone companies, who may be happy to violate your rights without a warrant.
If I was carrying around a pocket GPS device, of course the police would need a warrant to dump the history and have it be admissible in court. I hope...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the data is mine, it's completely about me so it is mine. It cannot be considered directory information or public records.
Let's see if we fight the same fight for GPS data from our cars or our running shoes.
In a similar way, my medical & health information is also mine, since it is about me, independant of how that information was created, observed, or gathered. Yes, I understand there are special protections in place specifically for medical information - I really intend to address how I fee
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the data is mine, it's completely about me so it is mine. It cannot be considered directory information or public records.
<discussion type="Devil's advocate">And if I wrote an unauthorized biography of you, based on private investigators tailing you and observing your publicly-accessible data and publicly-viewable facts (such as the location of the newsstand where you bought that *ahem* picture magazine), is that data yours? I'm not sure that case law agrees.</discussion>
I agree with the
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that I would consider the data generated about me by my phone to be my data. I believe that's what they were trying to say.
If an investigator witnessed me in certain situations I would consider that piece of data to belong to that investigator.
Re: (Score:2)
No the GP has it right, legally speaking.
You can dispose of any information you have gained by proper means any way you like, with a few exceptions like when you have a fiduciary duty. It's not fundamentally different from anything else you have a right to do. You're free to spread the information, but in some cases there might be consequences.
If information about other people you got by legitimate means were their property, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it without their opt-in. It's not hard
Re: (Score:2)
You can dispose of any information you have gained by proper means any way you like, with a few exceptions like when you have a fiduciary duty. It's not fundamentally different from anything else you have a right to do. You're free to spread the information, but in some cases there might be consequences.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Lots of folks (myself included) work with information that could be considered personal, sensitive, and confidential. We have an obligation to ensure this information is not distributed, modified, or disposed of improperly. Some restrictions are legal, some are policy, others are maybe just common sense. Unless you consider the whole employment thing to be fiduciary.
There's also defamation, libel and slander. Anyone who distributes information, knowing it is false, ca
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Today, it seems like the thinking is that the government can get access to anything they want, unless it is specially protected in some way. That is backwards.
Today, it seems like the thinking is that the government can get access to anything they want, even when it is specially protected by The Constitution. That is backwards.
There. Fixed that for ya.
As to unprecedented, I think it means, "Unprecedented since 9/11, when we all decided that being terrified is a reasonable response to terrorism." Or, alterna
Re: (Score:2)
This looks like a clear-cut example of what the 4th amendment is meant to do.
The fact this article was on 9/11 is revealing.
Generally, the phone companies give all information to the police, at their request, except for actual tapping of conversations.
What makes this landmark is that the records are included, not just real-time spying on citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you are mistaken on this.
We went through this years ago with a device called a pen register. You clipped it onto the old analog phone lines, which used voltage changes driven by a spring loaded rotary dial to transmit phone numbers to mechanical switches. Because you disclosed the phone number to the carrier (obviously, you'd have to), it wasn't yours personally; it wasn't your papers, your effects and was not in your home. Therefore it didn't fall under the fourth amendment.
There's an import
Great (Score:4, Insightful)
... in Western Pennsylvania (Score:3, Insightful)
[insert "Old people in Pittsburgh [wikipedia.org]" meme...]
It's only a Federal district court [wikipedia.org] so far, so the Feds can still appeal it if they want. But it's an excellent start.
the DOJ? warrants? (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't stop them (Score:2, Insightful)
sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Now is a dark, dark hour in US history when a court upholds the Constitution and the words "unprecedented victory" are used in the coverage of the event.
Re:sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Now is a dark, dark hour in US history when a court upholds the Constitution and the words "unprecedented victory" are used in the coverage of the event.
Well since this case had no legal precedent for the Judges to rely on, it stands to reason that the decision was unprecedented in the most literal sense of the word.
Lawyers use unprecedented as a technical term.
Get off your drama pony.
Parent
Thanks, EFF (Score:2, Insightful)
heh (Score:2)
Bypass gps tracking (Score:2)
It's regrettable that this was even litigated. (Score:4, Insightful)
The language of the fourth amendment isn't ambiguous at all. Anyone who's passed the bar should know damned well that obtaining records from a private party requires a warrant.
-jcr
it is sad that this is good news (Score:2)
nothing more to say about that
Re:clarification (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if it's the company, the could still voluntarily give up the info without the need for a warrant.
AND apply for "retroactive immunity" - don't forget THAT part.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
According to the article, they keep records of the cell phone towers used to interact with your phone. I know the summary says GPS, but that's not what the EFF attorney said in the article.
There are any number of perfectly good reasons for cell phone companies to track cell phone tower usage. That's their equipment. There are even reasons (e.g. potential billing disputes) why they might not want to anonymize that data.