4th Amendment Thread

[de officiis]

Yahoo email scan shows U.S. spy push to recast constitutional privacy
Dec 21, 2016

Yahoo Inc's secret scanning of customer emails at the behest of a U.S. spy agency is part of a growing push by officials to loosen constitutional protections Americans have against arbitrary governmental searches, according to legal documents and people briefed on closed court hearings.

The order on Yahoo from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) last year resulted from the government's drive to change decades of interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment right of people to be secure against "unreasonable searches and seizures," intelligence officials and others familiar with the strategy told Reuters.

The unifying idea, they said, is to move the focus of U.S. courts away from what makes something a distinct search and toward what is "reasonable" overall.

The basis of the argument for change is that people are making much more digital data available about themselves to businesses, and that data can contain clues that would lead to authorities disrupting attacks in the United States or on U.S. interests abroad.

While it might technically count as a search if an automated program trawls through all the data, the thinking goes, there is no unreasonable harm unless a human being looks at the result of that search and orders more intrusive measures or an arrest, which even then could be reasonable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo ... SKBN14A25F

This makes me want to strangle someone.

[de officiis]

City Passes Ordinance Mandating CCTV Surveillance By Businesses, Including Doctors And Lawyers Offices

Another government has decided to "protect" local businesses by forcing them to install surveillance cameras.
All commercial businesses located here will now be required to install and maintain security cameras or face a fine or jail following passage of a new citywide ordinance by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen Tuesday night.

“A matter that has been of increasing concern to the board lately is keeping the citizens of Madison safe, as well as the people who come here to visit our stores, through the use of security cameras,” City Attorney John Hedglin said. “It’s very important to have a record of what happens in as many places as possible.”

...

"Here" is Madison, Mississippi, a city with some very low crime rates -- one frequently named to "safest cities" and "best towns for families" lists. Why it's suddenly concerned about business-focused criminal activity is unclear, but the city's government has decided it should be able to force businesses to install CCTV systems, whether or not they need them… or can even pay for them.

...
Existing businesses will have one year after the ordinance goes into effect to comply. Those that fail to comply may be subject to a $500 fine and/or up to 90 days in jail. Each day of noncompliance is a different violation.

...
... there are other privacy concerns to address. The city's attorney has stated that the ordinance covers businesses like doctor's offices and law offices -- places where patient/client confidentiality has long been assumed. . . . And this new collection of footage could be abused/misused to identify people who thought their requests for legal/medical assistance wouldn't be turned over to law enforcement.

Not just the Feds that you need to worry about...don't overlook your own hare-brained local government officials.

[de officiis]

Obama Updates C.I.A. Rules for Handling Americans’ Information

WASHINGTON — In its final week, the Obama administration has overhauled and lifted a veil of secrecy from rules governing the C.I.A.’s power to gather and use information about Americans, including setting new limits on what it may do with large sets of digital files that might contain private information.

The last time the government issued a comprehensive set of such rules — known as the Attorney General Guidelines because the Justice Department must sign off on them — was during the Reagan administration. They were classified, although some portions of them became public, as did parts of supplemental procedures added by subsequent administrations.

The Obama administration, after spending the last several years consolidating and rewriting the rules, has issued a new, comprehensive set, and it is making all 41 pages of the rules public.
...
The new guidelines do not impose any requirement that C.I.A. officials obtain a warrant before using an American’s identifier to pull up nonpublic communications to, from or about that American, a step some lawmakers have proposed.

[Okeefenokee]

City Passes Ordinance Mandating CCTV Surveillance By Businesses, Including Doctors And Lawyers Offices

Another government has decided to "protect" local businesses by forcing them to install surveillance cameras.
All commercial businesses located here will now be required to install and maintain security cameras or face a fine or jail following passage of a new citywide ordinance by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen Tuesday night.

“A matter that has been of increasing concern to the board lately is keeping the citizens of Madison safe, as well as the people who come here to visit our stores, through the use of security cameras,” City Attorney John Hedglin said. “It’s very important to have a record of what happens in as many places as possible.”

...

"Here" is Madison, Mississippi, a city with some very low crime rates -- one frequently named to "safest cities" and "best towns for families" lists. Why it's suddenly concerned about business-focused criminal activity is unclear, but the city's government has decided it should be able to force businesses to install CCTV systems, whether or not they need them… or can even pay for them.

...
Existing businesses will have one year after the ordinance goes into effect to comply. Those that fail to comply may be subject to a $500 fine and/or up to 90 days in jail. Each day of noncompliance is a different violation.

...
... there are other privacy concerns to address. The city's attorney has stated that the ordinance covers businesses like doctor's offices and law offices -- places where patient/client confidentiality has long been assumed. . . . And this new collection of footage could be abused/misused to identify people who thought their requests for legal/medical assistance wouldn't be turned over to law enforcement.

Not just the Feds that you need to worry about...don't overlook your own hare-brained local government officials.

Hmmmm, Mississippi.

"Here" is Madison, Mississippi, a city with some very low crime rates -- one frequently named to "safest cities" and "best towns for families" lists. Why it's suddenly concerned about business-focused criminal activity is unclear, but the city's government has decided it should be able to force businesses to install CCTV systems, whether or not they need them… or can even pay for them.

[TheReal_ND]

Jews.

[C-Mag]

Well, I didn't think I'd see anyone in Congress rolling this out. I'm happily surprised. Chaffetz needs a ton of support on this.

U.S. Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), on Wednesday morning announced plans to introduce two bills into Congress to limit federal law enforcement's use of cell tower simulators.

One bill would prohibited federal law enforcement agencies from using stingray technology unless they are investigating a specific person and can show probable cause. It would put an end to sweeping uses of cell tower simulators, as was done in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests in 2015, to collect information on all cellphones in a given area.

"To me, tracking everybody, especially suspicion-less Americans, that's a step too far," he said during a discussion of stingray technology at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. "Fundamentally, where I come from, I don't trust the federal government. That's my starting premise."

https://reason.com/blog/2017/02/15/chaf ... arrant-bef

[Okeefenokee]

Well, I didn't think I'd see anyone in Congress rolling this out. I'm happily surprised. Chaffetz needs a ton of support on this.

U.S. Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), on Wednesday morning announced plans to introduce two bills into Congress to limit federal law enforcement's use of cell tower simulators.

One bill would prohibited federal law enforcement agencies from using stingray technology unless they are investigating a specific person and can show probable cause. It would put an end to sweeping uses of cell tower simulators, as was done in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests in 2015, to collect information on all cellphones in a given area.

"To me, tracking everybody, especially suspicion-less Americans, that's a step too far," he said during a discussion of stingray technology at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. "Fundamentally, where I come from, I don't trust the federal government. That's my starting premise."

https://reason.com/blog/2017/02/15/chaf ... arrant-bef

Cool.

[de officiis]

I can get on board with that!

[SuburbanFarmer]

Wtf I love Chaffetz now.

[Okeefenokee]

Wtf I love Chaffetz now.

Chaffetz introduced similar bills in 2015, but they did not pass.

Today, Congressman Jason Chaffetz introduced bipartisan legislation limiting the use of cell-site simulators, commonly known as “Stingrays”. H.R. 3871, The Stingray Privacy Act, codifies recent guidance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department Homeland Security (DHS). This bill limits the use of cell site simulators by government agencies as well as state and local law enforcement.

http://chaffetz.house.gov/news/document ... mentID=442