4th Amendment Thread

[SuburbanFarmer]

The fact that they're asking for SSNs doesn't mean that Google has them.

They won't have MAC numbers either. Sounds like a small town sheriff trying to use words he just learned.

[de officiis]

The fact that they're asking for SSNs doesn't mean that Google has them.

Is that common in a warrant? Demanding someone turn over information they might not have?

You can't always be sure what they have, so the strategy is to be overinclusive so you don't miss something important. If they don't have it, they'll tell you that.

[de officiis]

Lawmakers propose law requiring warrants to search electronics at US border

... a bi-partisan group of lawmakers is proposing the unthinkable. Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate on Tuesday floated legislation requiring US Customs and Border Protection agents to get a court warrant to search electronic devices of "United States persons." That's right—in an era when you can be accused of publishing fake news for even questioning the government, a few members of Congress want to expand your civil rights and require a judge to sign off on a device search.

"Americans' constitutional rights shouldn’t disappear at the border. By requiring a warrant to search Americans’ devices and prohibiting unreasonable delay, this bill makes sure that border agents are focused on criminals and terrorists instead of wasting their time thumbing through innocent Americans’ personal photos and other data," said Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. Along with Wyden, the "Protecting Data at the Border Act" is sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky; Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat of Colorado; and Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Republican of Texas.

It's doubtful that the rest of Congress will listen to these lawmakers and adopt this legislation. For starters, John Kelly, the DHS secretary, won't even respond to Wyden's call to answer a few basic questions about how the border search exception is used in practice.
...
However, the bill is getting widespread support from the privacy community, regardless of it likely being dead on arrival.

[de officiis]

Facebook Loses Appeal to Block Bulk Search Warrants

New York State’s highest court dealt a blow to Facebook and other social media companies seeking to expand privacy protections, ruling on Tuesday that Facebook had no right to ask an appellate court to quash search warrants ordering the company to hand over information from hundreds of accounts in a disability fraud case.

The state Court of Appeals . . . upheld lower court rulings that New York law does not allow a social media company to appeal a judge’s decision to issue search warrants in a criminal case, even if the company believes those warrants violate the constitutional rights of its users.

...

The ruling was a setback for civil libertarians and social media companies hoping the court might create new legal guidelines for search warrants aimed at seizing all the information in electronic accounts, treating them more like civil subpoenas, which can be challenged as overly broad before they are executed.

[heydaralon]

The fourth amendment is dead. What a bummer, because it was one my favorites. You can tell its dead, because during the 2016 election neither Hillary or Trump really discussed civil liberties in a serious way. If either of them won, the 4th lost. I used to read all the snowden greenwald articles about this stuff, but I guess I got outrage ennui. Just put tape or a post it note over your webcam when you masturbate (That's what I do). Pretty soon that will be illegal too lol.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

The fourth amendment is dead. What a bummer, because it was one my favorites. You can tell its dead, because during the 2016 election neither Hillary or Trump really discussed civil liberties in a serious way. If either of them won, the 4th lost. I used to read all the snowden greenwald articles about this stuff, but I guess I got outrage ennui. Just put tape or a post it note over your webcam when you masturbate (That's what I do). Pretty soon that will be illegal too lol.

Hell no! If the Men in Black want to watch me tug it that is their loss.

Consider it a victory and flip the little camera the bird every time.

[de officiis]

NSA scales back warrantless collection of emails, internet communications

The National Security Agency will stop using a controversial form of warrantless surveillance that collects Americans’ communications with those outside the United States based on the mention of a foreign surveillance target.

The decision . . . followed an evaluation prompted by “compliance lapses,” according to a statement issued by the NSA. . . . the agency will also delete most of the previously intercepted communications collected under its Upstream surveillance program.

“NSA will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target,” read a statement issued Friday by the agency. . . .

The change in policy concerns the NSA’s collection of international internet communications — including emails, web-browsing traffic, and other messages — as authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. . . .

...
The change in policy comes after the NSA said it conducted an in-house review of Section 702 activities and “discovered several inadvertent compliance lapses” that involved queries of Americans. Those lapses were reported to Congress and the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. After the reports, the NSA devised a plan to resolve the issue. . . .

...

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, who have argued for reforms since the programs were revealed through leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, applauded the change. . . .

“The content of our emails and texts contains incredibly personal information about our work, our families, and our most intimate thoughts. The NSA should never have been vacuuming up all of these communications, many of which involved Americans, without a warrant,” said Michelle Richardson, deputy director of the Freedom, Security, and Technology Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “While we welcome the voluntary stopping of this practice, it’s clear that Section 702 must be reformed so that the government cannot collect this information in the future.”

[SuburbanFarmer]

We can hope. Meanwhile, they just solved a murder case with Fitbit data, so don't expect this rollback to last.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Something for Fathers Day.

http://deadstate.org/these-undergarment ... y-the-tsa/

[Ph64]

We can hope. Meanwhile, they just solved a murder case with Fitbit data, so don't expect this rollback to last.

Did they have a warrant for the Fitbit data?

I'm not against using data from modern technology to solve actual crimes when said data is acquired legally with a warrant stating specifically what they are searching. I *am* against bulk data collection of any/all devices they can from people not accused/suspected of a crime without any warrant, or on some overly broad blanket secret warrant that's trying to say grabbing everything from everyone is OK.