DOJ Needs Warrant To Track Your Cell's GPS History 122
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."
Note to Self (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
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"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.
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Re:Note to Self (Score:5, Funny)
Naa tie it to a dogs collar and set him loose in a neighborhood...
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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
Resisting a Rest (Score:2, Funny)
Police were called to a preschool today when a 5 year old didn't want a nap.
He was charged with resisting a rest. (oblig)
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Thats perposterous. They wouldn't taser a five year old. However, at age six, apparently anything goes. [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Note to Self What??? (Score:1)
They'll have already remote-activated the microphone, and --if the target is a Person of Interest-- they'd have had also had ground assets in the area looking for a divergence between the target and the target's monitored electronics.
I would not be surprised if nowadays they erect aerosol dispensers (colorless, odorless, visible by satellite or local aerial units...) around the doors of targets to "tag" them when they depart or when guests enter.
If there are multiple ports on the dispenser, targets can be "
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Well, not really (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
Re:Well, not really (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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No, because such privacy laws are intended to prevent telcos from handing over consumer information to private parties. They almost always have an exception for law enforcement activities, court order, or discovery by private parties in civil actions.
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The NSA and FBI have been sniffing GPS since early 2000 and they already have access to the roving bug and triangulation for older phones.
Cell phones in the US havn't had reliable GPS for anywhere near that long. Now, the ability to see what tower any give cell phone is connected to is another story.
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in some cases this information is available from the devices themselves.
And why would they be allowed to search that without a warrant? They can't very well snoop through your files just because they want to.
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)
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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
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In that scenario, does it matter who was doing it at that point? It's your car, for which you are responsible. I completely agree that they should not be able to assess points, etc against your record - but I don't see anything wrong with saying "The owner of the car is responsible for how that car is used".
OT - I agree, but most people who vocally profess atheism are of the "faith in lack" variety. Hard to make the distinction in the space allotted to a sig though. There's a world of difference betwe
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In Arizona, it doesn't take but two red light tickets to get your license suspended. You can avoid this by taking traffic school which is a minimum of 8 hours. If you're not careful, you can find your license suspended, pay >$300, and still have points that leave you subject to a non-appealable suspension on another infraction. Not a 'no possible penalties' situation to me...
As an aside, AZ just enacted traffic laws making it illegal to traverse the 'gore area', that triangle where an exit ramp separa
And video tickets count toward that? (Score:1, Offtopic)
We have a similar thing for being ticketed x times for y violation here, but video tickets, at least here and CO don't go on your abstract. If a cop writes you a Red Light ticket though, you are basically SOL.
I have to say, I am all for it. I make it a priority to stop on yellow. I drive a pretty quick care, and I hate when people make me sit at a green light because they are trying to scoot through a recent red.
Now I just make it a game, and see how close I can come to hitting a red light runner so I ca
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."
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In AZ, video tickets are tickets. Photo summons they are called, and they count. Even for red lights.
You got it easy.
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.
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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
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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.
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"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
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Yes but what makes you think the government will respect those privacy "laws"?
The problem is being wrongfully arrested not the government knowing where you were. Our energy and time and money should be put towards protecting people from the government not legislating escape hatches to protect us FROM a tryannical government.
I see gun control laws the same way. I don't see a reason to ban an assault rifle vs a hunting rifle but I also don't see the "to save us from a dictatorship" as a legitimate reason ei
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"Yes but what makes you think the government will respect those privacy "laws"?"
They will not. They already have not. Still, I don't think the time has come to give up on using the law to protect our constitutional rights. If it has then what else do we have? Give up and let the tyrants rule? Revolution? I just don't think we are there yet.
It's the minds of the people we have to change. Make them stop believing in the growing dictatorship. It's hard to imagine doing that while turning our backs on t
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Which is why I advocate the current law that a warrant is required (as mentioned in my GP post). However many people are taking it a step further and talking about the 'liability' and invasion of privacy of that information existing. That the government will be routinely using this information to track everybody. When in reality we're already miles past the point where we can easily hide from the government. Want to use a credit card? Visa know where I am every day. My cell phone logs, IP addresses, e
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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
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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
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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.
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Well, it's your phone, but it's also the telco's cell tower and switch system. Do you own them? Do you own the data about that network transaction, by virtue of ownership of (at most) 1/3 of the participating nodes (phone, at least 1 tower, at least 1 switch)? You don't even have a majority stake in that data!
Stuff on your phone not involving the phone network, you clearly own. That's why normal personal search-and-seizure laws apply to the phone book and call log in the phone itself. However, most of the m
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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
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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
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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
Correction.
The Patriot Act is not spelled b-a-c-k-w-a-r-d-s.
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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
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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.
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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
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The problem with that theory is that it isn't even wrong because it takes the Nin
It's not so clear-cut (Score:2)
In Smith v. Maryland (1979), the Supreme Court ruled that lists of telephone numbers from outgoing calls (so called "pen registers [wikipedia.org]") are not constitutionally protected because the telephone subscriber voluntarily discloses that information to the telephone company. Given that precedent, it's a tenable argument (although one rejected by the court in this case) to suggest that GPS logs are also unprotected for the same reason.
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)
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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.
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Oh, wait, I had just forgotten to put on my doom-and-gloom hat...
*adjusts tinfoil*
ZOMG, you're sooo right!! We're soooo going to hell in a handbasket!! It's all because of {insert name of hated group/person}!!
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.
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Now is a dark, dark hour in US history
You are about to be eaten by a grue.
Thanks, EFF (Score:2, Insightful)
They keep records?!?!?!! (Score:1)
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Corporations do not have rights, as they are not humans. The government - us have granted privileges to them, such as immunity to personal liability and enormous tax breaks. They can bargain en masse.
They have no "right" to spy on anyone because they own property. They have only what we grant them, and no more.
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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.
heh (Score:2)
Can I have my own records? (Score:1)
Bypass gps tracking (Score:2)
one (more) small step toward corporate sovereignty (Score:1)
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For some reason, I don't think AT&T is ready to beat down my door with M16A2s because they THINK i'm a drug dealer terrorist anytime soon
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that'll keep Bush from spying on you (Score:1)
The Constitution hasn't been much of an impediment to date. What's one more court ruling?
it is sad that this is good news (Score:2)
nothing more to say about that
telco immunity act (Score:1)
But there is a workaround for the fourth amendment (Score:1)
Only use older (basic) phones.. (Score:2)
That do not have this capability (GPS), several smaller companies still offer these phones.
Suspected terrorism? (Score:2)
Aren't warrants so outmoded these days?
Tracking with Cell phones (Score:1)
Well that is good to hear BUT I'll bet the MAJOR exclusion is FISA.
Somehow I don't think the feds will obey this.
Useless Cell phone GPS (Score:1)
My cell phone has 'gps' but as far as I can tell it's completely useless.
There is no way, using my cell phone for me to get lattitude, longitude and elevation.
There is a way to 'disable gps except for 911' which I clicked. Presumably this means that if you use your cell to call 911 then they can get your lattitude, longitude and elevation, but I can not. Why would I want other people I call to know my gps? I can't guess. However my wife has a cell phone with a similarly useless GPS feature. I turned o
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.