New Cellphone Surveillance Safeguards Imposed On Federal Law Enforcement 46
Earthquake Retrofit writes: The NPR website has an interesting story that the Justice Department says it will beef up legal requirements for using cell-site simulators. It includes a rare picture of the device and refers to them as dirt boxes. From the story: "Under the new policy, federal investigators will be required to get a warrant from a judge demonstrating probable cause, in most domestic criminal probes. Agents will need to explain to judges how the technology is being used. And they'll be directed to destroy volumes of bystanders' data 'no less than once daily.' 'This policy is really designed to ... try to promote transparency, consistency and accountability, all while being mindful of the public's privacy interest,' said Deputy U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates."
Re: Impossed? (Score:1)
Stingray is only useful for non permit cases. If you have a permit you can get the info from operator.
Frosty piss (Score:1, Insightful)
Is all law enforcement will give about these guidelines.
Re:Frosty piss (Score:5, Informative)
These regulations only apply to federal agencies. State and local police, who perform the vast majority of surveillance, are not bound by these rules.
Key Words & Tricky Phrases (Score:4, Interesting)
In this case, the word is "most"...
So, who wants to bet that in future the overwhelming majority of uses will, purely coincidentally, not fall into the area covered by "most"?
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, maybe I'm a cynic (realist?), but I can't help but think this will have a net-zero effect on the current surveillance state in which we are living.
Re: (Score:1)
Another keyword is "federal" agencies. No accounting for the state and local agencies that use the equipment.
captcha: declines
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Re:Key Words & Tricky Phrases (Score:5, Interesting)
To hell with the wording .. I simply refuse to believe they'll obey it.
They'll do what they want, and claim jurisdiction. The local cops will still do it. If they get told they can't do it they'll demand the phone company does it for them.
Unless you start putting these clowns in prison with the rest of the crooks, simply telling their obligation under the law will not do a damned thing. They no longer care what the law says, only what they feel they should be able to do.
So I'm going to say the wording is irrelevant in the face of agencies who will continue to say "don't give a fuck".
Yup (Score:5, Informative)
New window dressing gives the appearance of privac (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet this little dance does nothing but make it harder to prove your rights were ignored in pursuit of your conviction.
So what (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
...equivalent of a thousand angles dancing on the head of a pin.
I bet they're all acute too....
Re: So what (Score:1)
Don't be obtuse!
Re: (Score:2)
I bet they're all acute too....
to a certain degree, yes.
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
A source in the police department, in a reaction to this, stated: "Mouhahahahaha". After this our reporter was arrested on obstruction of justice charges. The police officer was laughing so hard while peeing on the constitution some of his urine missed his target. The police chief had the following to say when defending the bravery of his underlings: "Huh? wha? Peeing on the constitution in the line of brave police work should be praised or would you like your children be savaged by strangers! We do it for the children".
Still very much Unconstitutional... (Score:1)
Need a WARRANT for this shit. I don't give a damn what any of the Courts said on the subject, per Marbury v. Madison, they're to be ignored because their rulings are VOID. The Fourth Amendment's blindingly explicit and this shit? It violates it all to hell, just like the FISA court does. And it won't stop until people turn around and tell the fuckers "ENOUGH!"
Re: Still very much Unconstitutional... (Score:2)
Uh, the policy says they need a warrant and that it can't just be a rubber stamp "we're doing phone surveillance" warrant, but that they must explain what they are doing to the judge in detail. This should be the policy nationally and I for one plan to push my state Rep to make it law in my state.
Re: (Score:2)
Policy? No, it should not be a "policy", if they want any legitimacy at all it should be a FELONY to not do so. Policy doesn't cut it for this kind of power with such difficult or impossible real oversight.
Like "self regulating" industries (Score:5, Insightful)
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Thats not the whole story though. It depends on which regulatory regieme. When threatened by ONE, they may do this.
However, when they are threatened by many different ones simultaneously (say the individual states of the US) then they see an even bigger threat than regulation.... differing regulations. Nothing fucks up the bottom line like having to duplicate effort for incompatible procedures.
So they do that sure, but they also begind direct lobbying for higher level regulations, since they only want to ha
I wonder (Score:2)
Ugh. (Score:3)
How did we get from "the Constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government" to "we do whatever we want, unless and until we decide to invent our own rule telling ourselves not to" ?
Re: Ugh. (Score:1)
It all began at Runnymede in 1215 with the Magna Carta which was crafted to protect the rights of rebelling English barons and the Church from the tyranny of Crown. Archbishop Langton drafted it, and subsequently, the Pope Innocent III helped revoke it because no one followed it. The Baron's War ensued, and subsequent kings renewed a watered down version, in much the same way that the US Congress funds its budget with temporary resolutions.
The corrollary is FISA which came about after FBI's illegal post-WWI
Bystander Data? (Score:2)
Why does the bystander data need to be destroyed unless it was collected as allowed by the warrant? Are they issuing warrants to collect bystander data? What probable cause allows that?