Did Feds' Use of Fake Cell Tower Constitute a Search? 191
hessian writes with this story in Wired: "Federal authorities used a fake Verizon cellphone tower to zero in on a suspect's wireless card, and say they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even without a warrant. But the feds don't seem to want that legal logic challenged in court by the alleged identity thief they nabbed using the spoofing device, known generically as a stingray. So the government is telling a court for the first time that spoofing a legitimate wireless tower in order to conduct surveillance could be considered a search under the Fourth Amendment in this particular case, and that its use was legal, thanks to a court order and warrant that investigators used to get similar location data from Verizon's own towers."
It is unquestionably a wiretap (Score:5, Insightful)
As they are intercepting communications, it is unquestionably a wiretap.
Whether the courts are still legitimate enough to declare that remains to be seen.
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:5, Insightful)
Suspected criminal...
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:3, Insightful)
For the same reason we defend innocents. It's because you don't know who is a criminal and who is innocent, until after you have played the defense. If we knew who the criminals were prior to trials, we wouldn't have trials and courts, or even cops. Most of the Bill of Rights wouldn't exist, or if you take everything to its extreme conclusion, we wouldn't even have governments.
Ultimately, if you are against suspected criminals having trials, you are an anarchist. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Re:It is unquestionably a wiretap (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether the courts are still legitimate enough to declare that remains to be seen.
You have a lot more faith in the government to do the right thing than I do.
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:5, Insightful)
Because criminals are entitled to a complete and proper defense?
When it comes to privacy, every inch we give results in another mile taken by the government. Consider how the Patriot act evolved from where it began back in 2001 to where it is today, the way the TSA began and the way it is being pushed out beyond it's original boundaries with people advocating and supporting random vehicle searches on Interstates, shipping, busing, backscatter X-ray being used for major sporting events which will eventually trickle down to every public building and who knows how far beyond that...
The Fourth Amendment exists because privacy is necessary for liberty and a free society.
Re:It is unquestionably a wiretap (Score:5, Insightful)
a court order and warrant that investigators used to get similar location data from Verizonâ(TM)s own towers.
I'm really surprised again by Wired. The government got a warrant -- the same level of scrutiny they need to search your house or haul your ass to a concrete room. What more can they do to conduct a lawful investigation? The purpose of the warrant requirement is to make sure that probable cause is evaluated by a neutral and detached magistrate, not to bar all searches and make it impossible to catch identity thieves.
I'm firmly for electronic privacy but I think it's patently absurd to say there should be a higher standard for getting cell-phone data than physically entering a person's home or arresting him.
Re:The Feds agreed it was a search (Score:5, Insightful)
IF they have a warrant for a targeted wiretap why not go to verizon??? This device exists so they can avoid having to get warrants all the paperwork etc that verizon might require. The FCC should come down on them hard unless for impersonating a cell tower they did not have the rights to use those frequencies. It sounds like they are trying to use there few legit cases to justify them having and using these devices.
How long before the real criminals figure out how to use encrypted voip? I already have this on my phone connecting me to the office pbx.
Liars vs Constitutional Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
It's obvious the government is lying about what it's doing so it can violate our privacy rights. The purpose of a judge is to be a reasonable human who can see that the government is lying, and stop the government. Judges who don't see through these lies are obviously either stupid, corrupt or both.
We need a Constitutional Amendment that simply says
Because over the years stupidity and corruption have allowed the Fourth Amendment [cornell.edu] to fail to protect our privacy, when that is the right it instructs the government to protect:
Even stupid and corrupt judges, to say nothing of stupid and corrupt congressmembers and police, will have a harder time using the government to damage our rights instead of protecting them.
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:5, Insightful)
Because criminals are entitled to a complete and proper defense?
Not really. It's because it takes a complete and proper defense to be (fairly) certain that the defendant is in fact a criminal.
Re:Criminals were captured (Score:5, Insightful)
United States v. Jones will be argued in the Supreme Court this week, on whether warrantless tracking of a drug dealer by putting a GPS tracker on his car requires a warrant on the fourth Amendment.
An idiot would think that we were arguing that case in the Supreme Court to defend drug dealers. Maybe the guy actually arguing it is--but the reason that we are considering it as a society, the reason we care about these things, is because of the risk of it being done to innocent people. The risk of government tracking everyone as part of its standard law enforcement duties. (I'm not saying NSA doesn't do that now, but law enforcement doesn't usually.) There should be some limit on the power of the people acting for the state--Something that at least requires a police officer to say "there is probable cause to search this person and here's why..."
Re:It is unquestionably a wiretap (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a lot more faith in the government to do the right thing than I do.
You're supposed to be able to have faith in the government to do the right thing. That's what they're supposed to do. That's why we have them. If they don't act accordingly, that's when you know there's a serious problem that needs to be addressed. So how do we reform the government is the issue we should be looking at instead of firing off quips.
Re:Liars vs Constitutional Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Your wording does no better. Indeed the problem is that once you start down the road of trying to form the perfectly worded genie wish, you've already lost. English isn't a programming language, and concepts are broader than can be expressed likewise anyway.
Even with your privacy wording, the sentence will be twisted to mean something absurd, in part because the courts love making absurd rulings, presumably as a motivator to legislatures to play the genie wish game with progressively more wordy and less understandable documents. I suppose we'll always need lawyers, but at the same time, the existence of lawyers only exacerbates the problem, not only by breeding complacency by partially alleviating the issue through careful research, but also by arguing the very absurd interpretations that are sometimes accepted by the courts!
A Search (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't what we traditionally think of as a search, but it should, at the least, be considered a warrantless wiretap. Basically, anything that intercepts communication data is a wiretap. Be it listening in to their handheld radios or putting a recording device on their phone line or otherwise doing the fandango with data from their cell phone. All forms of wiretapping.
This would be just the same as them setting up an overpowering fake cordless phone base station and using it to listen in to their phone calls, and then arguing that it doesn't constitute wiretapping because they didn't have to go through the phone company to do it. No, sorry feds, you can't argue for spirit of the law in one case and then turn around and say that only the letter of the law matters in another case.
The whole point behind needing a warrant to wiretap is that people should be secure in their homes and have a reasonable expectation to privacy. You can't just go about using technical means to violate that spirit of the law, while your other arm turns around and arrests someone for 'inciting riots' because they posted in support of Occupy Wall Street.
we had a good run (Score:3, Insightful)
FTA:
"As such, the government has maintained that the device is the equivalent of devices designed to
capture routing and header data on e-mail and other internet communications, and therefore does not
require a search warrant."
LOL so we should all have cell phone jammers, the equivalent of a door.
Folks we had a good run, it's over. Everything now however illegal is being justified
"National security". Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has had enough, being blocked
with that iron door to his lawsuit.
http://news.yahoo.com/ventura-miffed-court-says-hes-off-mexico-174718110.html [yahoo.com]
I watch the local TV broadcast and commercials of "see something, say something"
and think of the tales taught me about the Nazi's and how neighbors told on neighbors
till nobody trusted anyone. Godwin's law does not apply, this was taught me in school
and how Hitler came to power; through old reel to reel's of "You are there"'s
by Walter Cronkite.
Of course building a cell phone tower to capture a persons cell info is illegal.
That it's even questioned is a red flag.