Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Real Time Credit Card Activity 299
PatPending writes "A 10-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF) that security and privacy analyst Christopher Soghoian recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request to the Department of Justice reveals that law enforcement agencies routinely seek and obtain real-time surveillance of credit card transactions. The government's guidelines reveal that this surveillance often occurs with a simple subpoena, thus sidestepping any Fourth Amendment protections."
We are all suspects, welcome to the police state. (Score:3)
In the police state we are all potential terrorists. Just like this guy http://www.jbhfile.com/invest_beginnings.html [jbhfile.com]
Let it be a lesson, don't piss off the banks and financial institutions of America.
Re:We are all suspects, welcome to the police stat (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We are all suspects, welcome to the police stat (Score:4, Funny)
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I don't get the profit motive.
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Was her ex really short, bearded, and wearing a funny hat?
His ex dated Santa Claus?
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By his own words, that guy meets all the requirements for a paranoid schizophrenic diagnosis. I had a girlfriend once who complained that her ex used to break into her house on a regular basis and inventory her underwear drawer. Logic dictates that the costs/benefits of paying a staff to do 24/7 harassment of an ex-employee just don't make sense.
That depends on who you work for. I'm sure a bank or the feds would have the money to do 24/7 surveillance on anyone they choose. That includes you.
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You realize that site is either a fake or the work of a schizophrenic, right?
If you don't realize that, watch out. Because you're next.
Old news... (Score:3)
This first started online and realtime when First Data (whose CEO at the time was on the Council on Foreign Relations, I forget the twit's name) offered Bush administration that info for free (back in either 2001, but really around 2000).
Now First Data and TransUnion are government contractors, and together with 90 or so other private government contractors, the NSA, DIA, CIFA and NGA, make up the Total Information Awareness, actually begun under the auspices
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I don't know about you, but I try to make all large purchases with cash just for this reason. I'd rather not have any trail on such things. Let my trivial economic activity be logged, if they want to know I'm ordering aquarium thermometers from China or DVD players from Amazon so be it.
I always kind of assumed this data was available without a warrant, and getting a warrant isn't usually all that hard anyway.
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Actually it's a Republic. Bush did not win the popular vote.
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Pardoning people for something they did under the idiot who previously held the office is not proof that the thing is ongoing. Nor is continuing to litigae in the government's defense in cases brought by people who were wiretapped under said idiot.
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Independants/3rd party candidates are all but un-electable.
I mean sure, one or two slip in from time to time. But the majority of the time, by supporting a 3rd party candidate you are directly syphoning votes away from the person who is the "lesser of two evils" in your mind, making it easier for the "greater of two evils" to get the most votes.
Not to mention having many parties just fucks to hell with the vote. Here in Canada, a haven of multi-party politics, our last election the ruling party got 37% of
Re:We are all suspects, welcome to the police stat (Score:5, Interesting)
37%, 10%, 100%, completely irrelevant if elected officials actually did the things people want them to do. If someone wins with 37%, well that's great and all, but that doesn't mean that the other 63% are going to disagree with everything that person does. There is too much importance placed on the election, and very little importance placed on what the elected subsequently do.
I vote third party precisely because I want to siphon votes away from either a Demican or a Republocrat. There is no "lesser of two evils". They are both equally shitty.
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"Independants/3rd party candidates are all but un-electable."
If you really believe that then you get exactly what you deserve. Democracy dies when people stop believing in it and just do what they are told.
Imagine if everyone started voting by their conscience instead of blindly voting for a party or strategically.
You can get a multi-party system by just voting for a party and encouraging everyone to vote for the party that actually represents their desires.
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Independants/3rd party candidates are all but un-electable.
That's because you've been spoon-fed the lie that a vote for them is a wasted vote. If voting for a loser is a wasted vote, then all those people who voted for McCain wasted their votes.
If you gamble, hire hookers (or are one), or smoke pot, then a vote for a Democrat or a Republican is far worse than wasted -- they want you in jail. Better to vote for a losing Green or Libertarian who doesn't want you in prison.
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No, really. What's Santa bringing me this year, Rudolph?
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One need only attend Security conferences to know the hardware and software vendors are required to provide this sort of (audited mind you) access to LE. They can do pretty much whatever they want by contacting their internal liason. Do a little research on "lawful" interception.
Anyone is a potential terrorist, get used to it. (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't have privacy because we don't deserve it. We must accept that we are peasants to large financial institutions. They own our souls.
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We don't have privacy because we don't deserve it.
We don't have privacy because we don't fight for it. Subtle difference. In this political climate, speaking out against the government gets you on the list. Going to a protest gets you on another. Flying a plane, depositing your pay check (if it's too big, or on the wrong date), going to the pharmacy to get cold medication -- you're on a list. buy your groceries? List. Subscribe to a magazine or newspaper? List. check out subversive books at the library? List. Use facebook? Download porn? Check your email?
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We are moving into a world in which being a statistical anomaly is a criminal offense.
We already live in a world in which being a statistical minority is a criminal offense.
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Julian Assange is fighting against the government's privacy, not ours. The difference? Unlike individual private citizens, the government doesn't deserve privacy!
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Julian Assange is fighting against the government's privacy, not ours. The difference? Unlike individual private citizens, the government doesn't deserve privacy!
Where is this in the Constitution? Where does our Constitution compel the Federal Government to be fully transparent?
States protecting their secrets is old as dirt.
http://suntzusaid.com/book/13 [suntzusaid.com]
Secrets are important for national security, PERIOD, END OF LINE
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Where is this in the Constitution? Where does our Constitution compel the Federal Government to be fully transparent?
That's a silly thing to say. Where in the constitution is your right to privacy described? Nowhere, but the Supremes ruled that you had to have privacy to have any of those other rights which aren't supposed to be a strict enumeration of your rights anyway, so now you have a constitutional right to privacy! Isn't that neat? By the same token, you can't verify your democracy is operating democratically unless you have a certain amount of openness. As it turns out from the leaks we've received, it is telling
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Good argument, if this were a democracy. But, it is a republic. Therefore, technically, only our elected representatives require the government to be transparent to them.
As long as they keep crowing about how democratic it all is (I do definitely appreciate and understand the difference! Athens was a republic too!) then I reserve the right to complain about how open it isn't.
I do believe that we need to have one vote for one [wo]man. I also believe that we should end the disenfranchisement of felons. Unfortunately, the people who most agree with me can't vote.
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That's part of the mechanism to create a permanent underclass. Add that to the social conditioning that felons can no longer be forgiven, and they become un-hirable, have more trouble finding places to live, cannot advance... which of course leads them to the (correct) conclusion that the only way to actually get ahead is crime.
One of the nasty facets of this is that many "felons" were only guilty of consensual "crimes"; they really were zer
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The government has no "rights" and thus no right to privacy. There are some areas where secrets are justified. When they aren't justified, the freedom of speech of the employees exceeds all the "rights" of the government.
Tracking leads to trouble (Score:4, Interesting)
Step 1: Buy a bottle of original NyQuil from a pharmacy
Step 2: Drive across town.
Step 3: Buy another bottle of original NyQuil from different pharmacy
Step 4: Learn how it hurts you
The answer, to save you the trouble, is you get arrested, you pay bail (if you can), you pay lawyers (if you can... if you can't, you're going to jail for a long time, because you're now an easy notch on some prosecutor's stick.) You meth-head, you.
"Oh, but I would never do that"
There are other things, and combinations of things, that can get you a serious, guns-pulled, door-breaking visit from your local gendarmes. Even trying to buy an Erlenmeyer flask or glass tubing can do it in some jurisdictions. Odds are hugely in favor of you having done these things innocently. That won't reduce your legal bills, though.
It's worth looking into.
Re:Anyone is a potential terrorist, get used to it (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It is a falsehood to claim that because bad situation A is worse than unrelated bad situation B, that B is therefore acceptable. As you would be well aware if you had been falsely accused of anything.
Re:Anyone is a potential terrorist, get used to it (Score:5, Informative)
You can have privacy, it's just getting a lot more expensive to do so.
Here are some steps for you.
1 - cash only. Yes kiddies, saving for and buying your item.
2 - Used only. This one works really well. Buying used from a private party leaves no paper trail.
3 - when presed for information give randomized false information. Giving the same false info builds a profile. Use incredibly common names, large apartment complexes as address, etc..
4 - Dress to blend in. Honestly, you need to be forgettable and blend in. You cant have a 4 foot tall bright red mohawk and expect privacy.
5 - Keep your mouth shut. Loose lips sink ships and give away your information.
6 - reassess and reevaluate your practices regularly. Keeps you from getting sloppy.
Is it easy? not a chance, it sucks. But it also works if you want to be "invisible". And that is exactly what you need to do. Live as if you are on the run and need to hide.
That said, I know people that live that way, but most of them are nutty.
Re:Anyone is a potential terrorist, get used to it (Score:4, Insightful)
And sadly none of that should have to be the norm for living free, and living in a country founded on liberty and privacy and mutual respect.
In another note, we've traced you through our subpoena to /. message databases, and we found your IP. I'd watch what you download, if I were you.
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Found my IP of my VPN service overseas.... :Luckily I paid them with a prepaid credit card that is not attached to my real name or address..
Muahahaha.... Oh crap, I just gave all that away...
DAMMIT!
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And you used your 5-digit /. account #. Wait, ok, we have you now. You should wear pants when you post and turn your cam off.
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Cash? More than $10k and you've got a paper/electron trail. Good luck buying a house or anything more than a quite old or very basic car.
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Bet you $10,000 I can get $100,000 without a paper trail.
Does money when in a large enough pile suddenly call home? nope.
In fact I could carry around $20,000,000 and the feds not know about it.
What you need to say is ,"withdraw from a bank more than $10,000 and you have a trail." and this is still incorrect. My sister who works at a ban says they report transactions over $2500.00
Quite old car? I can buy a 2007 car right now for less than $10,000.
Home? what idiot would buy a home? that guarantees you ge
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That's about 440 lbs of paper. Aside from the great difficulty of getting that much cash together, I do not think you could carry that around at all, let alone without the feds knowing about it.
Re:Anyone is a potential terrorist, get used to it (Score:3)
You don't have privacy because you agreed to the terms and conditions when you accepted the credit card offer from the "large financial institution.". They didn't have to give you credit, and you didn't have to take it when they offered. It was your choice.
Similarly, you don't have privacy at the grocery store because you accepted the terms and conditions of that "clu
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So feel secure, cash your check and shut the fuck up.
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Duh!! We don't own the data (Score:3, Informative)
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More than that, this is potentially a good thing if it is being done in the right way. It would make it much easier, for example, to detect somebody currently off the grid who decides to buy the materials needed to make a bomb. As long as the tracking is being done in a non-prejudicial way, as long as the banks work together to create a unique cardholder ID to mask the identity of the person in question (but with that ID shared across all cards that the person holds from all banks), as long as the card co
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Exactly. Someone not on the feds' radar screen who may or may not be smart enough to stay that way.
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it's better not to piss of the legal authorities either
Generally when the legal authorities aren't supposed to force you to do something, they're not supposed to coerce you into doing it either.
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The government's guidelines reveal that this surveillance often occurs with a simple subpoena
It not coercion. This is how the legal system has always made a request official. Don't like it, or don't want to cooperate? Get a lawyer and see of you can get it quashed. Coercion is where they make an informal request and offer to arrest you if you don't cooperate. Force is when a warrant is issued.
Re:Duh!! We don't own the data (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the email log at my email provider is also owned by my email provider, not me. But I certainly consider the contents as private information.
And why do you think the AOL search scandal a scandal? The data was owned by AOL, but they still need to handle it confidentially.
Same with credit card transactions. I am pretty sure that they are private here in Denmark. I remember asking my bank about a transaction, and being told that the employees could only see the amount of the transactions, not the accompanying text.
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It goes deeper than that.
While your email resides on the mail server of your email provider, the message itself belongs to them. Even if you download your messages and delete them from the server every second, for the brief time they reside on the mail server, they belong to the provider. A brief time is all that is necessary to copy them to another location where they are now permanent property of the provider.
When it absolutely, positively must be secured, host your own mail server.
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They might not want to piss us off, but it's better not to piss off [Big Brother].
I'm usually against the FTFY thing, but in this case I think that it really gives clarity to what you are saying.
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As a result they are more than welcome to give it to the govt., police, or any party they like.
But are they giving it voluntarily? The article is not clear on this but suggests they are in fact being ordered to give up the information, which is completely different, and absolutely not OK.
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Your local high street bank's financial information about you is also on their systems, it doesn't make it "their" information. The government needs WARRANTS for financial information.
Your medical records are on a bunch of corporate owned systems. It doesn't give them the right to divulge it either.
Talk about rolling over and lubricating your own anal cavity. With people like you we don't even need tyrants. You take it upon yourself to tell other people to roll over for t
I write my own, thank you (Score:2)
Write your own subpoena - now legal in all 50 states!
Re:I write my own, thank you (Score:5, Informative)
It always was. A subpoena is a demand for a witness to appear or for the delivery of records. If it's for a witness the court doesn't get involved before the subpoena is served. If it's for records from someone who isn't a party to the case the court issues the subpoena.
You are protected by the 4th amendment. Information other people have about you, who aren't your lawyer or your immedate family, is not.
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It's funny, our founding fathers put massive amounts of effort and intellectual practice into drafting a fantastic document that protects the people from the government. It's too bad none of them thought to draft up the same type of document to protect the people from large social entities like corporations,
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What's all this talk about Agents and Feds?
Watch any TV show and you can see it only takes a suggestion by the Star detective to have all the credit card records tracked in real time. And that DNA will be analyzed before they can get back with the records, not to mention all of the semen spewed all over the room, and the blood spatter found on the building across the street from the crime scene.
I assume everything I do is tracked (Score:5, Insightful)
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By the government, commercial data mining firms, and my employer. As Zuckerberg said, "There is no privacy in the modern world, Learn to live with it."
It is tracked, then it's sold to China so the Chinese workers and business owners can have the edge.
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Zuckerberg and co. can't seem to manage a website properly. Are we really supposed to take (self-serving) privacy advice from them?
I like to think of myself as a reasonable person, and as such, I try not to put anything on the Internet that might embarrass me (now or later on). Having said that, accepting the premise that your actions on the Internet are inevitably going to be seen by other people doesn't mean it's okay for just anyone to see them. To put it bluntly, I see no reason to lube up and hand
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You misspelled "Scott McNealy", and he said it in January of 1999 when Zuckerberg was still in High School.
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
How does this violate the 4th? (Score:4, Insightful)
How does a subpoena violate the 4th amendment? Subpoenas are granted by a judge - that's exactly what the 4th amendment is meant to require.
Re:How does this violate the 4th? (Score:4, Informative)
A subpoena is not a warrant. The 4th amendment requires warrants issued with probable cause.
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A subpoena isn't a search. It's an order to produce documents. No searching is involved. A search warrant would be inappropriate in this situation, because there isn't any doubt that the credit card companies have kept this information.
And has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, the card holder's rights to privacy aren't being violated any way you slice it, because it's not the card holder's records that are being examined. It's the credit card company's.
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it's not the card holder's records that are being examined. It's the credit card company's.
Ahh, so, that means that the doctors examine their medical records, not mine? You might want to work on your powers of deductive reasoning... I assert ownership of all information related to myself, and my rights to information about myself supersede anyone else, even if they collected that information.
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You can assert anything you like. That doesn't make it so. The record of your credit card purchases is kept by your credit card company to do business. It's theirs. Medical records are protected by doctor-patient privilege, and by other privacy regulations (e.g., HIPAA). You can read more about that here [epic.org].
Life is a little bit more complicated than you seem to believe.
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That seems like a dangerous loophole since almost any information would fall under that. It seems like we are saying the data isn't protected, it is the records themselves.
Suppose a customer uses a backup service that has a privacy policy saying they won't give away the customer data. I think you are saying the service can release the files because it isn't the customer's files that are being examined, it is the backup service's files.
Or am I misapplying the reasoning?
Re:How does this violate the 4th? (Score:4, Informative)
That seems like a dangerous loophole since almost any information would fall under that. It seems like we are saying the data isn't protected, it is the records themselves.
If I go to your store and buy something from you, you're going to keep track of that transaction. You'll note down that you sold some item for some amount of money. This is your data, not mine. You use it to keep track of your inventory and balance your books and whatever else.
If you get subpoenaed for all your records pertaining to a certain date, my privacy isn't being violated. Even if I bought something on that date. They're your records, not mine. You may have recorded some data about me... But that's still your data. Not mine.
This is the same thing, only larger.
These aren't your records, they belong to the banks and credit card companies and whoever else. They keep these records to make sure that everybody gets paid/charged the right amount.
You buy something at a store with a credit card - that credit card company needs to keep track of it. Not for your sake, but for theirs. They need to know that $X was paid to this store, in your name, and you now need to pay back $Y on your next bill. This information is necessary for the credit card company to stay in business. If they don't track it, they don't know where their money is going, or who owes them money.
It is data about your actions... But it isn't your data. It belongs to the credit card company. They're the ones generating it and maintaining it for their own purposes. And when you use their credit card you agree to let them generate and use this data, because the credit card wouldn't function without it.
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"It is data about your actions... But it isn't your data. It belongs to the credit card company."
I think you are exactly correct! However, I must inject some common sense here: if the Feds are using a variety of data sources to track ME specifically, then the issue is sneaking into 4th amendment territory. For example, a reasonable person would object if a policeman followed them all day long noting what purchases they made. This is the virtual equivalent. Yes? No? Maybe?
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I think that is a great analogy and explains why this smells wrong, even if taken individually it doesn't sound too bad. I'm still curious about the backup example though. Perhaps they could subpoena what was uploaded and when, but no the contents without warrant?
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If you videotaped me and my hypothetical wife out in public, it is your data. No argument there. The violation would come if you videotaped us in private. If you did that, you'd be recording our actions, which by definition, aren't yours. That's why there are laws against surreptitious video recording. The credit card companies aren't surreptitiously recording your purchases. They're doing it as part of the business practice you agreed to when you signed up for the card. Moreover, they're doing it as
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If you use a data service to backup your files, they're still your files -- your data. They're just being held by another company. That other company didn't generate the data. They're just storing it. (Indeed, most companies I know of that have backup services allow you to encrypt the data so they can't even get to it.)
If you wanted to challenge the court about access to your data, you certainly could. You'd have standing in that case, because it is your data. They'd probably (although I'm not a lawye
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A search warrant would be inappropriate in this situation, because there isn't any doubt that the credit card companies have kept this information.
Unless the subpeona lists the credit card account number and name on the account, then the request should be refused without a warrant, because it's a search.
In other words, if a credit card company gets a request for "all credit card transactions for John Doe", that's a search, because the requestor isn't even sure if John Doe has a credit card with that company.
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Oh. I didn't think "writing their own subpoena" meant that no judge was involved. All I know comes from Slashdot + wikipedia. :-(
A records subpoena is a court order. (Score:5, Informative)
Business records are not your personal "papers and effects", so they don't really live under the 4th amendment, but even if they did they're covered because subpoenas of records are issued by the court; they're merely requested by the prosecutor. This is a non-issue.
Re:A records subpoena is a court order. (Score:5, Insightful)
Business records aren't "papers"? Are you clinically retarded or just a Big Brother Lover? Business records is exactly the kind of thing the Founding Fathers were thinking about, not your collection of Japanese scat porn.
The records detailing the service provided by your credit card provider/bank should be just as private as the records of a business you run. The whole point of the 4th amendment is to stop Government fishing expeditions (by requiring evidence of probable cause) which is exactly what this is.
The only way you can defend this is if you are a short sighted fool who thinks unlimited surveillance by the Government is the only way to stop the terrorists taking your freedoms (at least this objective would be achieved as the terrorists wouldn't want your freedoms after the Government has left muddy boot prints all over them).
Also get back to me when politicians, police, and prosecutors give disclosure of their business records on request so the public can be sure they aren't taking money from criminal activity. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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Your creditor's business records aren't your papers, and thus you don't have a Fourth Amendment right to protect them.
While the creditor whose records are sought may or may not have a Fourth Amendment right protecting them from seizure without a warrant, they generally have no incentive to assert any such right.
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Business records aren't your papers.
The only interpersonal information that is protected is your communications with your lawyer and your doctor and your immediate family.
I can defend this just by saying that I believe in justice and the Constitution.
You can request anyone's credit records by filling out a form to get a subpoena. Many government officials are required by law to regularly file statements as to their financial activities. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out how to access them
Re:A records subpoena is a court order. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that a law enforcement officer can, with NO search warrant, and with no intervention whatsoever by a court:
- Track every credit card purchase that I've ever made up to the present moment ...
- Search through the history of transactions I've made at my local library
- See records of all of my telephone calls
- view my accountant's copy of all of my tax records
- review any and all personal correspondences that I've sent to friends
- see my complete transaction history at my bank
- review all of the stock/bond transactions that I've made with my broker.
I certainly hope that no court would subscribe to your bizarre interpretation of the Fourth Amendement.
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I'm saying if you don't know where your rights end and the law starts, and you exhibit traces of believing your rights are more expansive than they are, there is a significant chance you will end up a defendant for something you will argue you had a right to do. But, as they say, ignorance is not an excuse.
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They're "papers", but that's not what he said. He said, "business records are not your personal papers and effects". That is, business records maintained by a business B concerning that business's dealings with person P are the property of the business. They are not the personal papers of person P. Now, the person's business records of their dealings with the business B are P's property.
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This is a REAL issue. The 4th amendment implies protection of *all* of your data, not just that sitting in your night table. The founding fathers had no clue your personal information could be virtualized and quickly copied, but the protection is there in the 4th amendment. Somehow, law enforcement (and the public) has construed the boundary of your rights to end at your front door.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Even your persons (i.e. your body) are protected from warrant-less searches. Now, that doesn't stop law enforcement from v
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You're all confused.
Of course the founding fathers knew that business records could be kept in locations other than your own house and by people other than yourself. Business and business law and prosecutorial procedure weren't brand-new to them. They didn't invent the idea of a warrant.
The point of the 4th Amendment is to protect your person and your home from fishing expeditions, not to prevent the gathering of evidence. If your evidence is in someone else's hands, all they have to do is ask for it. I
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Everyone writes their own subpoena. For record subpoenas the court vets it and authorizes it before it's served. For witness subpoenas the court doesn't have to get involved until the witness doesn't show up to be deposed.
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This is a non-issue.
Medical records were a "non-issue" too, but then we passed a law saying that doctors can't just pass the photos of my surgery around their friends to have a good laugh.
If we don't like this, we can certainly press for the same level of legal protection for credit card records.
what do you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
when you use an electronic network, your default assumption should be that anything communicated on it will be snooped on, backed up as data, and exploited. this applies to the internet as much as using your credit card
if you don't like that, use cash
but don't depend upon the government... to protect you from the government. that's absurd. besides, its not only the government that does this, all sorts of unscrupulous activity goes on with your data outside their purview. and i'm not talking about hackers and criminals and mafia. i'm talking about the merchants themselves: they freely offer your info up for advertising and data mining and targeted offers and other intrusive purposes. you know this already. facebook does the same thing. you are basically giving facebook the means to exploit you when you use facebook
there's money to be made in taking advantage of your data. so why do you think rules will ever be passed against the exploitation of your data, and even if there were rules made about that, why do you expect the players to respect those rules? so don't feed your data to the beast
don't depend upon the government to protect you from the government
don't depend upon corporations to protect you from corporations
depend upon YOURSELF and alter your own behavior
use cash. and stop blabbing about your social life to a beast which exists for the expressed business purpose to take your info and use it to market, track, and otherwise deny you your privacy. if you continue to use facebook, and you know that, THEN YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME
but if it's too inconvenient for you to stop using facebook and credit cards, then stop complaining, because that lack of effort on your part reveals how unimportant to you these concerns really are to you. sure, you'll cry high holy indignation here on slashdot, but you won't change your behavior will you? lots of people talk a good game, and back it up with no action whatsoever
so either you are horrified that the feds know what you buy at the grocery store, or you don't. put your money where your mouth is, and take responsibility for your privacy. if you put it on a network, whether facebook, or using your credit card, you WILL be violated and exploited. now you know. so choose. its as simple as that
but don't look at the exploiters as your protectors or express surprise when they do what already know they will do. it's absurd to expect privacy on a network. so stop being surprised when you find out you don't have any
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You can't use cash only. Trying buying car that way, anything over 10k means traceable forms when you get it out and when you make your purchase. If the cops stop you on the way expect to have your money seized since only criminals carry that much cash.
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well then stop caring if the government knows you bought extra small condoms at the pharmacy. or continue using cash FOR SMALL INCIDENTAL PURCHASES that you are actually interested in keeping secret. large transactions are always traceable, cash or no cash
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Yup.
Nothing new here.
You don't want a record of your spending habits? Use cash.
It isn't that complicated.
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Uh oh, shouldn't have just ordered fertilizer (Score:2)
Well, I live in alabama. I have a garden. I have a good excuse to order 50 lbs of fertizlier.
Now what was really probably a bad idea was just now before I started writing this, I just looked up fertilizer bomb on google, then read about it on wikipedia.
Let me just add a few keywords here to make this a complete post.. I can see their sensors going crazy now.
goverment
explosion
christians
islam
jihad
(disclaimer: I have no intention of creating any sort of explosion, doing anything terrorist, hurting anyone. I
and they call Assange a criminal?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Domestically, you can carry as much cash around as you want anyways. No reporting requirement, not illegal.
Civil forfeiture, look it up some time. Sure, you can do the spastic pedant dance and yap about how it's not "illegal", but when the cops can just seize your money and hold it for you forever, it's functionally illegal to carry large amounts of money around.
Of course, separate from that is when the cops actually charge your money with a crime, in which case it's "illegal money" http://en.wikipedia.org [wikipedia.org]