4th Amendment Thread

[SuburbanFarmer]

I'm ok with suspending all Constitutional and natural rights for suspected child molesters.

Idiot.

You have like 4 kids right? Abstract ideals are more important to you than punishing people who destroy the lives of kids?

It's far from abstract, and I don't need to be made a slave "for safety". I'll defend my kids just fine, without Uncle Sams loving hand up my ass.

[heydaralon]

http://www.theonion.com/article/car-dea ... g-sp-33317

[Ex-California]

Idiot.

You have like 4 kids right? Abstract ideals are more important to you than punishing people who destroy the lives of kids?

It's far from abstract, and I don't need to be made a slave "for safety". I'll defend my kids just fine, without Uncle Sams loving hand up my ass.

You defending your kids is against molesters' rights in the eyes of the law. That's what I'm talking about; not some slavery for safety bullshit like he Patriot Act or the TSA

[SuburbanFarmer]

You have like 4 kids right? Abstract ideals are more important to you than punishing people who destroy the lives of kids?

It's far from abstract, and I don't need to be made a slave "for safety". I'll defend my kids just fine, without Uncle Sams loving hand up my ass.

You defending your kids is against molesters' rights in the eyes of the law. That's what I'm talking about; not some slavery for safety bullshit like he Patriot Act or the TSA

Yes, but then WHO is a 'suspected child molester'?

If somebody hits the wrong link they go to jail? If you surf 4chan enough, you'll run into some child porn, without meaning to. Every time one of those images is posted in a thread, that temporary file is downloaded to every computer reading it, through no fault of their own. Arrest em all? Use it to pile on molestation charges for any electronic search?

That's just a common example. How about if a sting op sends people false-flagged pictures, then uses that to set them up?

What if someone posts a link to their sting site, under a different name as a prank? (Think rickrolling).

Should we pretend that all 900 people they caught were going to become active molesters at some point? Guilt by thinking about a crime?

Remember too, that every charge ruins someone's life forever - guilty or not.

The precedent is extremely dangerous. And while I am all for creative torture for those that actually hurt a kid, this is not the way to catch them.

[de officiis]

Court revives Wikimedia lawsuit against NSA

A lawsuit challenging electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency will go
forward, a federal appeals court ruled . . . .

Wikimedia can now make the case that the NSA is unconstitutionally spying on Americans though a program called “Upstream” — collecting communications as they travel in or out of the country through the main cables of the Internet.

“Wikimedia has plausibly alleged that its communications travel all of the roads that a communication can take, and that the NSA seizes all of the communications along at least one of those roads,” wrote a three-judge panel of the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. “Thus, at least at this stage of the litigation, Wikimedia has standing to sue for a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And, because Wikimedia has self-censored its speech and sometimes forgone electronic communications in response to Upstream surveillance, it also has standing to sue for a violation of the First Amendment.”

...

“The government for years has used all kinds of procedural mechanisms to keep the public courts from judging this surveillance on the merits and examine whether it’s constitutional,” said Patrick J. Toomey of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case. “This type of surveillance has had a significant impact on freedom of expression and privacy.”

[de officiis]

California: Let’s End Unchecked Police Surveillance

Too often, the political process advantages police over the public interest. In California, a new bill—S.B. 21—offers the rare opportunity to shift the balance in favor of privacy.
...

Police know that once they acquire a new spy gadget or system, it’s difficult for elected officials to take it away, lest they seem “soft on crime” during the next election. When police do seek approval of privacy-invasive technology law enforcement agencies often provide only the barest amount of information to policymakers and the public about how a system works and how they intend to use it . Sometimes police officials will avoid the approval process altogether by purchasing equipment with asset forfeiture slush funds, by having them purchased for them by outside nonprofits, or by accepting free trials from vendors.

In the worst cases, police have abused this technology for their own political goals. In Calexico, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice found that police had quietly acquired $100,000 worth of high tech spy gear—GPS trackers, surreptitious audio and video recording devices, tactical binoculars, and even a special backpack for conducting field surveillance. These officers then used this technology to spy on elected officials and members of the public who filed police complaints, allegedly with the motive of extortion. The DOJ also criticized Calexico for approving body cameras, automated license plate readers, and a city-wide video system "before implementing the essential fundamentals of policing."

Police should not have unilateral power to decide which privacy invasions are in the public interest.
It’s time for Californians to seize back control of these surveillance technologies. Police should not have unilateral power to decide which privacy invasions are in the public interest. All surveillance technologies must go through a public process in which citizens and elected officials have a chance to decide the limits of high-tech policing, including whether to acquire and use new spying tools in the first place.

EFF urges the California legislature to pass S.B. 21, a surveillance technology reform bill introduced by State Sen. Jerry Hill. This legislation would require that police departments, before acquiring or using new spying technology, obtain approval in advance to do so from an elected board during a public hearing. When police obtain such approval, they must also get approval of a use policy that includes privacy safeguards.

The bill would require a biennial transparency report on surveillance technology in which an agency must disclose information such as the total cost for each surveillance technology, the number of times each technology was used, how effective the technology was, instances in which technology was shared with another agency, and instances in which the technology was used in violation of department policy.

The bill would also allow individuals to sue an agency if they’ve been harmed by a violation of the legislation.
...

California should end unconstrained police surveillance. There is a clear way to defend against secret acquisition and arbitrary use of policing technologies that invade the privacy of thousands of innocent people per usage: pass bills like S.B. 21 to ensure the law is on our side.

[de officiis]

Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn’t require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that’s apparently what’s been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.

We think the FBI’s use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search people’s computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent people’s constitutional rights. That’s why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people’s devices. ...

... The key question is at what point does a private person’s search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment. ...
...

A federal prosecution of a doctor in California revealed that the FBI has been working for several years to cultivate informants in Best Buy’s national repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky, including reportedly paying eight Geek Squad employees as informants.

According to court records in the prosecution of the doctor, Mark Rettenmaier, the scheme would work as follows: Customers with computer problems would take their devices to the Geek Squad for repair. Once Geek Squad employees had the devices, they would surreptitiously search the unallocated storage space on the devices for evidence of suspected child porn images and then report any hits to the FBI for criminal prosecution.

Court records show that some Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI.

At no point did the FBI get warrants based on probable cause before Geek Squad informants conducted these searches. Nor are these cases the result of Best Buy employees happening across potential illegal content on a device and alerting authorities.

Rather, the FBI was apparently directing Geek Squad workers to conduct fishing expeditions on people’s devices to find evidence of criminal activity. Prosecutors would later argue, as they did in Rettenmaier’s case, that because private Geek Squad personnel conducted the searches, there was no Fourth Amendment violation.

The judge in Rettenmaier’s case appeared to agree with prosecutors, ruling earlier this month that because the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squad’s search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. The court, however, threw out other evidence against Rettenmaier after ruling that FBI agents misstated key facts in the application for a warrant to search his home and smartphone.

We disagree with the court’s ruling that Rettenmaier consented to a de-facto government search of his devices when he sought Best Buy's help to repair his computer. But the court's ruling demonstrates that law enforcement agents are potentially exploiting legal ambiguity about when private searches become government action that appears intentionally designed to try to avoid the Fourth Amendment.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/F ... Geek-Squad

Okay, so setting aside the obvious stupidity of calling the Geek Squad to fix your porn-laden computer, is what the FBI is accused of doing legit?

[de officiis]

California Senate Passes Surveillance Transparency Bill

A bill to shine light on law enforcement surveillance technology has passed out of the California State Senate. Now the battle begins in the California Assembly.

S.B. 21 would require all police surveillance technology purchases and policies to go through a public approval process. That means a city council or board of supervisors could veto a proposed technology or demand a change in policy, whether it be for drones, license plate readers, or face recognition. Under the bill, law enforcement agencies would also produce transparency reports every two years regarding the equipment they've acquired. . . .

More than 800 Californians sent emails to their state senators urging support for S.B. 21, and it paid off. The bill passed on a solid 21-15 margin.

[SuburbanFarmer]

California Senate Passes Surveillance Transparency Bill

A bill to shine light on law enforcement surveillance technology has passed out of the California State Senate. Now the battle begins in the California Assembly.

S.B. 21 would require all police surveillance technology purchases and policies to go through a public approval process. That means a city council or board of supervisors could veto a proposed technology or demand a change in policy, whether it be for drones, license plate readers, or face recognition. Under the bill, law enforcement agencies would also produce transparency reports every two years regarding the equipment they've acquired. . . .

More than 800 Californians sent emails to their state senators urging support for S.B. 21, and it paid off. The bill passed on a solid 21-15 margin.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn’t require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that’s apparently what’s been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.

We think the FBI’s use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search people’s computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent people’s constitutional rights. That’s why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people’s devices. ...

... The key question is at what point does a private person’s search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment. ...
...

A federal prosecution of a doctor in California revealed that the FBI has been working for several years to cultivate informants in Best Buy’s national repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky, including reportedly paying eight Geek Squad employees as informants.

According to court records in the prosecution of the doctor, Mark Rettenmaier, the scheme would work as follows: Customers with computer problems would take their devices to the Geek Squad for repair. Once Geek Squad employees had the devices, they would surreptitiously search the unallocated storage space on the devices for evidence of suspected child porn images and then report any hits to the FBI for criminal prosecution.

Court records show that some Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI.

At no point did the FBI get warrants based on probable cause before Geek Squad informants conducted these searches. Nor are these cases the result of Best Buy employees happening across potential illegal content on a device and alerting authorities.

Rather, the FBI was apparently directing Geek Squad workers to conduct fishing expeditions on people’s devices to find evidence of criminal activity. Prosecutors would later argue, as they did in Rettenmaier’s case, that because private Geek Squad personnel conducted the searches, there was no Fourth Amendment violation.

The judge in Rettenmaier’s case appeared to agree with prosecutors, ruling earlier this month that because the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squad’s search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. The court, however, threw out other evidence against Rettenmaier after ruling that FBI agents misstated key facts in the application for a warrant to search his home and smartphone.

We disagree with the court’s ruling that Rettenmaier consented to a de-facto government search of his devices when he sought Best Buy's help to repair his computer. But the court's ruling demonstrates that law enforcement agents are potentially exploiting legal ambiguity about when private searches become government action that appears intentionally designed to try to avoid the Fourth Amendment.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/F ... Geek-Squad

Okay, so setting aside the obvious stupidity of calling the Geek Squad to fix your porn-laden computer, is what the FBI is accused of doing legit?

How exactly would it be "legit" to pretend that you consented to a government search, by getting something repaired? That's like a squad of police searching your car, every time you get an oil change.