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The Almighty Buck The Courts Communications Government United States

It's Entirely Reasonable For Police To Swipe a Suspicious Gift Card, Says Court (arstechnica.com) 204

Posted by BeauHD from the insufficient-funds dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Ars Technica: A U.S. federal appeals court has found that law enforcement can, without a warrant, swipe credit cards and gift cards to reveal the information encoded on the magnetic stripe. It's the third such federal appellate court to reach this conclusion. Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the government in United States v. Turner, establishing that it was entirely reasonable for Texas police officers to scan approximately 100 gift cards found in a car that was pulled over at a traffic stop. Like the previous similar 8th Circuit case that Ars covered in June 2016, the defendants challenged the search of the gift cards as being unreasonable. (The second case was from the 3rd Circuit in July 2015, in a case known as U.S. v. Bah.) In this case, after pulling over the car and running the IDs of both men, police found that there was an outstanding warrant for the passenger, Courtland Turner. When Turner was told to get out of the car and was placed in the patrol car, the officer returned to the stopped car and noticed an "opaque plastic bag partially protruding from the front passenger seat," as if someone had tried to push it under the seat to keep it hidden. The cop then asked the driver, Broderick Henderson, what was in the bag. Henderson replied that they had bought gift cards. When the officer then asked if he had receipts for them, Henderson replied that they had "bought the gift cards from another individual who sells them to make money." Turner's lawyers later challenged the scanning, arguing that this "search" of these gift cards went against their client's "reasonable expectation of privacy," an argument that neither the district court nor the appellate court found convincing. The 5th Circuit summarized: "After conferring with other officers about past experiences with stolen gift cards, the officer seized the gift cards as evidence of suspected criminal activity. Henderson was ticketed for failing to display a driver's license and signed an inventory sheet that had an entry for 143 gift cards. Turner was arrested pursuant to his warrant. The officer, without obtaining a search warrant, swiped the gift cards with his in-car computer. Unable to make use of the information shown, the officer turned the gift cards over to the Secret Service. A subsequent scan of the gift cards revealed that at least forty-three were altered, meaning the numbers encoded in the card did not match the numbers printed on the card. The investigating officer also contacted the stores where the gift cards were purchased -- a grocery store and a Walmart in Bryan, Texas provided photos of Henderson and Turner purchasing gift cards."
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It's Entirely Reasonable For Police To Swipe a Suspicious Gift Card, Says Court More

It's Entirely Reasonable For Police To Swipe a Suspicious Gift Card, Says Court

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  • because everyone carries a bag of 100 gift cards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by known_coward_69 ( 4151743 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:25PM (#53096207)

    dumb criminal made the mistake of driving illegally with an outstanding warrant and had a bag of over 100 gift cards. nothing suspicious

  • Well, there goes the 4th Amendment again... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Marful ( 861873 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:32PM (#53096243)
    Is it a crime to be in possession of credit cards / gift cards? (No)

    Is the information contained in a credit card / gift card in plain view? (No).

    Does a LEO, without a warrant or probable cause, have the legal authority to open a container to peruse it's contents? (No)

    So why then can a LEO seize and search the contents of a CC / Gift Card without probable cause or a warrant, when they can't legally open closed (but unlocked) containers on a person's person and possession thereof are in-of-themselves perfectly legal?

    This is yet another bad case precedent eroding the very core of the 4th Amendment. There isn't even an attempt to reconcile it with constitutional law.

    • Re:Well, there goes the 4th Amendment again... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:47PM (#53096323)
      I am normally for extensive curtailing of search and aggressive interpretation of 4th amendment rights. But I do not see the problem here.

      In case you do not know the scam, you go buy low value gift cards and empty them. You then imprint them with the card data from stolen gift cards of the same brand. The scratch off pin is supposed to help prevent this but does not. The stolen numbers may come from skimmers or data breaches. Now you can spend the stolen numbers.

      In this situation, there was enough suspicion for probable cause to confiscate the cards. If the evidence is collected properly with PC or warrant, then it matters little if the officer can scan them or not. If he cannot complete an investigation on the materials with the tools at hand they will be sent for further analysis. This is no different than a white powder or green leafy substance on the dash. Maybe it is spilled and dried lettuce from a taco bell taco, maybe not (don't take that the wrong way, I think pot should be legal). However the same rules apply for any suspected illegal item that is confiscated legally.

      • I mostly agree, up to the point that they are considered evidence of a crime. Reasonable procedure might be to scan a random sampling of say 5 cards and use the results to obtain a warrant for the remaining cards.

        Without a warrant I don't understand how the evidence could be admissible.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        In this situation, there was enough suspicion for probable cause to confiscate the cards.

        Because (1) there was someone in the car with an outstanding warrant, or because (2) they tried to hide the bag, or because (3) the bag contained a lot of gift cards, or because (4) some of the cards had been re-encoded?

    • Re:Well, there goes the 4th Amendment again... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jittles ( 1613415 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:55PM (#53096355)

      Does a LEO, without a warrant or probable cause, have the legal authority to open a container to peruse it's contents? (No)

      These two individuals had 143 gift cards in their car. One of them had an outstanding warrant. Exactly how many gift cards would you consider to be an unreasonable amount? I write software for dealing with gift cards and credit cards and you want to know how many (test) cards I keep on my person? Less than half a dozen with my work stuff. So unless these two young outstanding citizens are going to give them to their 143 closest friends, I would say something is going on. Further more, the police asked them where they got the stack and the defendants indicated that they just bought the gift cards but didn't have a receipt.

      • Right. I used to work for a company that managed travel cards.

        I can think of a bunch of reasons for wanting 143 cards, but they all relate to breaking the law. For example:
        * You steal some credit card numbers and use them to rechard the cards. By the time the credit cards are invalidated it is too late, the money is safely on the card.
        * You steal/bully the cards knowing that you can spend the money before they're blacklisted
        * You have a friend that works at a dodgy retailer and recharge the cards knowing

        • Re:Well, there goes the 4th Amendment again... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @09:34PM (#53096821)

          why do you guys keep raising the issue of the AMOUNT of cards?

          did the judge declare that the 4th ammendment is null and void if you have 'too many' of something?

          now, go ahead: define EXACTLY what 'too many' is.

          THAT is my point.

          this is bullshit. the law was not followed and a new crap law was essentially created to help cops fuck people over at-will.

          carrying 'too many cards' is not a crime. it does not matter what the cards are or any other details.

          soon, carrying 'too much money' will be a crime. oops, forgot, they ALREADY declared that a crime ;(

          I weep for us all. we don't respect laws anymore; we seem to do anything to make authoritarians happier. citizens - they don't really matter anymore, do they?

          • This! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @09:42PM (#53096873)

            Everyone likes to claim that the Slippery Slope is an invalidation fallacy when in fact it's a warning of a potential outcome. If a person has in their possession a quantity of cards the Police suspects criminal, they are fully within their rights to request a warrant and detain the person until a Judge grants or denies the request. Courts in general do not take weeks or even days to file a warrant, and the detaining officer does not have to appear before the judge.

            There is a reason we have a codified due process in this country. Stop giving away your rights!

            • Getting warrents isn't exactly hard either. Some of the examples of how difficult it is include a judge that kept a pad of signed but otherwise blank warrants on his desk for the cops to just take when they wanted one without bothering him if he's not in his office. Which of course completely wipes out the oversight that judges are supposed to use on granting warrants, but that's how screwed up things can get.

          • ... and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath...

            I am raising the amount of cards because seeing them all would, in my opinion, immediately reach the bar for probable cause.

            Cop with a card reader sees a gift card
            Cop does _not_ have probable cause and cannot use the presence of a gift card to get a warrant.

            Cop with a card reader sees 143 gift cards
            Cop now has probable cause and I would expect to have no difficulty obtaining a warrant.

            If there were a bunch of legitimate reasons fo

          • why do you guys keep raising the issue of the AMOUNT of cards?

            did the judge declare that the 4th ammendment is null and void if you have 'too many' of something?

            now, go ahead: define EXACTLY what 'too many' is.

            THAT is my point.

            this is bullshit. the law was not followed and a new crap law was essentially created to help cops fuck people over at-will.

            carrying 'too many cards' is not a crime. it does not matter what the cards are or any other details.

            soon, carrying 'too much money' will be a crime. oops, forgot, they ALREADY declared that a crime ;(

            I weep for us all. we don't respect laws anymore; we seem to do anything to make authoritarians happier. citizens - they don't really matter anymore, do they?

            The amount matters because the police are allowed to search the car and the gift cards with probable cause. The validity of the search is based on the sum total of things taking place at the time of the search. They arrested the passenger of the car for an outstanding warrant. As they arrested him, they noticed that it looked like he was trying to hide evidence of a further crime (bag partially hidden next to his seat). They pull out the card and see an extremely unusual number of gift cards. They ask

          • Re:Well, there goes the 4th Amendment again... (Score:5, Informative)

            by Nethead ( 1563 ) <joe@nethead.com> on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @01:57AM (#53097901) Homepage Journal
            Because of 18 USC 1029:

            (a) Whoever -
            (1) knowingly and with intent to defraud produces, uses, or traffics in one or more counterfeit access devices;
            (2) knowingly and with intent to defraud traffics in or uses one or more unauthorized access devices during any one-year period, and by such conduct obtains anything of value aggregating $1,000 or more during that period;
            (3) knowingly and with intent to defraud possesses fifteen or more devices which are counterfeit or unauthorized access devices;

            And yes, things with mag stripes are access devices as defined under this federal law. Having 143 access devices when a normal person may have at most half a dozen does raise concern that the person is committing a violation.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Marful ( 861873 )
              The problem here is one of the Chicken and the Egg. How do you know the cards are counterfeit without first searching them? How do you search them without first knowing they are counterfeit?

              Possessing a Gift Card is not a crime. How then does one articulate probable cause that any given Gift Card they come across might be a counterfeit one?

              Absent some other outside source of information, possession alone is not defacto Probable Cause.
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • This is one of those issues that "seems" like a good idea at first, but, has some negative implications.

        My wife worked as a fundraising coordinator and worked with different vendors to sell (or give away) gift cards to people. Since we share a car, there have been many times that I was driving around with a box of gift cards (100? 200? something like that) in the trunk, etc. I expect this situation happens quite a bit since many vendors work with fundraising coordinators to sell gift cards, etc to raise mon

        • This is one of those issues that "seems" like a good idea at first, but, has some negative implications.

          My wife worked as a fundraising coordinator and worked with different vendors to sell (or give away) gift cards to people. Since we share a car, there have been many times that I was driving around with a box of gift cards (100? 200? something like that) in the trunk, etc.

          You're looking at this rather myopically, as if it was just the gift cards that made the search reasonable. Already you've said - you have the gift cards in a box in the trunk. The passenger of the vehicle was being arrested for an outstanding warrant. As the officer was getting the passenger out of the vehicle he noticed a little bag that was partially hidden in the crevice between the center console and the car seat. That immediately looks like the passenger, who is lawfully under arrest, was trying t

    • Is it a crime to be in possession of credit cards / gift cards? (No)

      It's not a crime but having 143 is something that constitutes reasonable suspicion. [wikipedia.org]

      Is the information contained in a credit card / gift card in plain view? (No).

      Actually, it technically was. Hear me out: gift cards are based on a electromagnetic stripe because they are cheap and an electromagnetic stripe is charged in a way that can be inspected passively. The cards are effectively glowing in a spectrum we simply cannot see with our eyes. I know it's a technicality because I mentioned it when I started.

      Does a LEO, without a warrant or probable cause, have the legal authority to open a container to peruse it's contents? (No)

      A) IANAL but I believe reasonable suspicion qualifies.
      B) The cards were inspec

      • The courts have ruled that using an IR camera to search for grow ops is an illegal search. If you need special equipment to examine the cards then it's a search, not in plain sight.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rjh ( 40933 )

          Please, go read the opinion again. Particularly read Scalia's opinion, where he lays out the reasons why an infrared camera is an illegal search of a home. It has to do with the fact the home is the bastion of the Fourth Amendment. There is literally nowhere that receives more Fourth Amendment protections than the home.

          A set of blank cards, which someone voluntarily gives to the police, receives far less protection. If a cop asks me for a birthday card I'm holding, and I voluntarily hand it over, and th

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Marful ( 861873 )
            The problem here is that you cannot actually read the contents of the card without:

            1.) Possession of the card,
            2.) A reader capable of reading the card's magnetic strip.


            In other words, it requires a tool to gain access to the contents.

            The argument for evidence in plain view, is specifically if you can observe the information, without disturbing the item. In the classic "Plain View" case that is often used as a reference, IIRC it involved a LEO physically lifting up a Stereo Receiver and turning

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rjh ( 40933 )

              Go read that opinion again. (It's another Scalia one.)

              In that case, the officer was (a) in a home and (b) did not have the homeowner's permission to take hold of anything. The home is what ramped the protections up to the max; the fact the homeowner did not consent to anything kept those protections in force.

              It's much different from the driver of a car giving evidence directly to a cop. The protections were lesser, and the driver waived them.

    • Not a biased result. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SeattleLawGuy ( 4561077 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @08:41PM (#53096569)

      ... There isn't even an attempt to reconcile it with constitutional law.

      Judges simply don't work that way. We may disagree with them, but by and large they are struggling to figure out the right answer according to constitutional precedent. The fact that multiple circuits of federal appeals judges have held that way emphasizes the fact that this is not some court going off the rails and neglecting the Constitution. Federal judges are much nicer, more thoughtful, and more considerate of the right result than the vast majority of people you meet in your everyday life.

      I haven't read the case, but could easily construct a Fourth Amendment argument here that favors the police ability to scan the card and contact the vendors. Most obviously, the pen register case (Maryland v. Smith, IIRC) and the thermal sensor case (Kylo, maybe?) apply. You are transmitting information about the gift card to a third party without privilege (the store), so obviously you are not expecting that its contents will be private and you do not have a reasonable expectation in privacy in it under Smith. Personally I might be willing to revisit Smith on the other side, because it was passed in an age when Supreme Court Justices grew up with party lines and no actual expectation of privacy on the phone, but there is still a strong chain of well-established precedent that is respected in a common-law system like ours and will convince most judges--even ones who disagree with it.

      Similarly, under the thermal sensor case, the fact that the tech for card reading is widely available in the civilian market means that the mere fact that you have to use tech doesn't help you.

      Also, your description fails to capture the fact that the guy was under arrest because of an open warrant. I could construct arguments on his behalf that would give him some chance of winning, but the precedent clearly disfavors him. Just because we disagree with the decision of a court doesn't mean it was wrong, or that the judges were not trying to follow precedent. Case law is reasoning by analogy. It's not engineering, and it's not neat. It gives you a probability distribution that good arguments can shift one way or the other as a series of people try to figure out what the best answer is.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Marful ( 861873 )
        Regardless of whether the contents are considered sealed/locked, they are not in plain view as it requires a specific device to gain access to them. Thus you cannot claim that the data "was in plain view". With possession alone, which is perfectly legal, not being enough to constitute probable cause, there is no grounds or cause for an officer to seize, scan (search) the cards

        This is simply a case of really lazy policing.

      • That is part of the reason the judge(s) in this case found that swiping of the magnetic strips was no a violation of the 4th amendment, since there was no reasonable of expectation to privacy regarding the contents of the magnetic stripes:

        http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/op... [uscourts.gov]
        ----
        Another Fourth Amendment consequence flows from the commercial
        purpose of gift cards. Unlike cell phones and computers, whose function of
        storing personal information often results in access being restricted by a
        password, the raison d

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      In general, I'm against police swiping gift/ATM/credit cards but in this case they DID obtain a search warrant first and having 143 gift cards is questionable, especially when combined with a criminal history and no good explanation.

    • As an abstract matter of law, I would take issue with it if the officer removed and opened the bag without consent. AFTER he saw there were over a hundred gift cards in there, I think that's reasonable suspicion.

      In this case,after arresting Turner on the outstanding warrant, the officer asked Henderson "what's in that bag?". Henderson responded by handing the bag to the officer. No Constitutional violation there, IMHO. n fact I'll ask you right now "what's in your pocket, Matful?" I don't think asking vi

      • PS the court ruled that reading the cards (Score:5, Interesting)

        by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @10:26PM (#53097123) Journal

        My above post covered looking inside the bag (Henderson handed the bag to the officer) and taking possession of the cards (143 gift cards in the possession of a habitual criminal is suspicious). The defendant didn't even argue the first point, because the bad guy did hand the bag to the officer. The defendant questioned the cops reading the stripes on the cards. The court's reasoning is interesting.

        In order for a fourth amendment l right of privacy to apply, the person must have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the item. That's two tests - an expectation of privacy must exist, and it must be *reasonable* to expect that the information will remain private. The court pointed out that people often store a lot of personal information on cell phones and computers and are often protect them with a password, so there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. On the other hand, the mag stripe on a Best Buy gift card has a small amount of information put there by Best Buy, so that Best Buy can read it back later. A consumer wouldn't store any personal information, or any information at all, on a Best Buy gift card, and they would fully expect Best Buy to read the mag stripe information. So there's no expectation of privacy - they intended to have the clerk at Best Buy read those cards and for Best Buy to store the info, and there was no personal information, the court ruled. No reasonable expectation of privacy means to fourth amendment violation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Marful ( 861873 )
        So, if I hand you a SD card or a Gift card, you can tell me what is exactly on them?

        Or do you need a device/tool to read what's on them?

        • Yes, if you hand me a Best Buy gift card, I know the magnetic stripe contains a Best Buy gift card number, placed there by Best Buy, for Best Buy to read back.

          An SD card may contain far more information, placed there by anyone (most likely whoever has it), and may well contain personal information. The court in this case pointed out the difference.

    • I don't know, they didn't take the cards until he had already been arrested. Is there really a problem with that?
    • I'm not a lawyer but I think this is how the reasoning goes: A bench warrant is actually broader than a search warrant. A judge has ordered the defendant be taken into custody. The cards were in the defendant's possession. The police have the authority to search anything in his possession while he is in custody. And yes, that would include opening a closed container to peruse it's contents. Probable cause is not required because the defendant is already in custody.

      • I've executed arrest warrants in the same town this occurred, I think I even arrested Broderick Henderson, the driver in this case. My understanding in the same - a warrant to arrest the person necessarily implies a "search incident to arrest" can be made. Having seen Broderick and Turner's criminal history, you damn sure better search them before you have them riding in the back seat of your car! However, search incident to arrest no longer allows you to search the car they were riding in, generally. Befor

    • without a warrant or probable cause

      Yeah except for the guy with an outstanding warrant in the car holding a bag that it every reasonable interpretation has evidence of money laundering and or some other form of card skimming.

      What next? Yes offer this 143kg of cocaine is just for personal use?

    • Is it a crime to be in possession of credit cards / gift cards? (No)

      Is it a crime to carry a crowbar and a bag of jewelry at night while wearing a black ski mask while a house alarm can be heard from down the street?

      No.

      Does it matter? Heck No!

      Because there is more than probable cause that this is the guy who just broke into that house!

      Is driving a guy with an outstanding warrant a hint to a crime going on? Yes, it's probable that the driver (without a license!) is helping that guy to evade arrest.

      Is the information contained in a credit card / gift card in plain view? (No).

      Well, the mag stripe should not contain any other data than printed on the fro

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Marful ( 861873 )
        Your argument is a good one, except that to make it fit lets remove the ski mask and the crowbar and the house alarm.

        Is it then a crime carry a bag of jewelry at night?

        If the suspect had card readers, or other paraphernalia present that would facilitate the reading/access/spoofing the of the cards, your analogy would be spot on and I would further argue that it was enough to constitute probable cause.

        But mere possession alone. Just that. Just possession of the cards, is not enough.

        • Your argument is a good one, except that to make it fit lets remove the ski mask and the crowbar and the house alarm.

          Is it then a crime carry a bag of jewelry at night?

          No.

          But is it probable cause to do so when there is a warrant out and you are wanted for jewelry theft?

          I should think so.

          If the suspect had card readers, or other paraphernalia present that would facilitate the reading/access/spoofing the of the cards, your analogy would be spot on and I would further argue that it was enough to constitute probable cause.
          But mere possession alone. Just that. Just possession of the cards, is not enough.

          It's definitely not enough to be considered a crime.

          But definitely enough for reasonable suspicion. Reasonable enough to ask for an at least possible legit reason. Even if they made up a threadbare story about prizes for an orphanage fund raiser raffle on the spot, that may have been something worthy of discussing if the LEO still had probable cause, but here nothing was presented to dispe

    • The probable cause is the presence of a person with a warrant for their arrest. Try reading before you post stupid shit on the Internet.

    • Courtland was arrested on an outstanding warrant. If this were a regular traffic stop then I might have a problem with it. But it wasn't---not after the ID check hit on his warrant.

      Since they were arresting Courtland, they are clear to search him and his immediate area.

      The bag of cards was halfway under the seat, apparently "hidden" by the arrestee.

      Since the arrestee was the passenger, they could search around his seat---no problem at all in this situation, anything within arm's reach counts as the immediat

  • why do cops have a Credit Card reader in their squad car? I'd heard stories of some cops taking payment for tickets when they pull you over and threatening jail time if you don't pay then and there...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Etcetera ( 14711 )

      why do cops have a Credit Card reader in their squad car? I'd heard stories of some cops taking payment for tickets when they pull you over and threatening jail time if you don't pay then and there...

      It's not a credit card reader per se, just a magnetic stripe reader. The *vast* majority of magnetic cards of any type have their data encoded in one of only a few different ISO standard formats. Anything can read them, although they may or may not be able to make sense of the data encoded on them.

      • And they'll dump the data out as keyboard output, if you like. We used to use them at the university I work at to do pay for printing. You'd swipe your student ID which would feed the info to the print program that could then contact the card office database and look up your account. Same idea as a credit card terminal, but just for printing (Pharos, if you are wondering).

        We also used them just to let students register for events. When they'd come to an open house they'd sign in, which in the past meant wri

    • why do cops have a Credit Card reader in their squad car? I'd heard stories of some cops taking payment for tickets when they pull you over and threatening jail time if you don't pay then and there...

      Doesn't the back of your drivers license have a magnetic stripe on it? Every state license I have had for the last 10+ years has had one. The data is typically Latin-1 ASCII encoded binary data across multiple magnetic tracks. The data was probably readable on the card, the officer just didn't understand what it meant.

      • Doesn't the back of your drivers license have a magnetic stripe on it?

        No. Oregon has an optical PDF_417 text data block and a CODE_128 barcode on the back.

      • why do cops have a Credit Card reader in their squad car? I'd heard stories of some cops taking payment for tickets when they pull you over and threatening jail time if you don't pay then and there...

        Doesn't the back of your drivers license have a magnetic stripe on it? Every state license I have had for the last 10+ years has had one. The data is typically Latin-1 ASCII encoded binary data across multiple magnetic tracks. The data was probably readable on the card, the officer just didn't understand what it meant.

        Washington State does not

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      More that is different contractors offering city, state, state task forces with federal funding a wide range of devices read such any and all such cards encounter.
      As the cards change every few years, so does the hardware and support to read them. A nice long term contract.
      Constant "no bid" software updates might be all thats needed on some easy to cary or existing hardware.
      The press could ask to see budgets per state in paper. Paper budget records in the US usually a walk in and ask protected under
  • Gift cards use such a bad hash algorithm that you can guess the numbers to rewrite them with, and have them actually work? Seems like 99% of the time you'd be guessing a number that had never been activated or had already been used up, unless these things are much stupider than I think they are.

    • The scam a few years ago was to go in, grab some gift cards, record the numbers, and check every so often to see if they'd been activated. That is why gift cards now come in "peek proof" containers instead of just being rubber cemented to a piece of card stock.

    • Gift cards use such a bad hash algorithm that you can guess the numbers to rewrite them with, and have them actually work? Seems like 99% of the time you'd be guessing a number that had never been activated or had already been used up, unless these things are much stupider than I think they are.

      If I was designing gift cards, I'd just encode a GUID onto each one. The chances for a duplicate are rather astronomical.

  • They may have the right to swipe them... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But did the Appeals court consider if they have the right to *drain* them and take all the money left on their balances?

    https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]

  • Experts disagree ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @07:57PM (#53096363)

    Prof. Orin Kerr, a noted expert on the 4th Amendment and on computer crime law posted his negative reaction [washingtonpost.com] to this ruling; he has a longer commentary on this issue here [washingtonpost.com]

    According to Prof. Kerr this is the third court of appeals to rule that that reading the stripes is "not a search", and that this runs counter to Supreme Court precedent such as Arizona v. Hicks [google.com].

  • What's not reasonable is purchasing one of these gift cards. Who the hell wants to lock their money into a specific company?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re 'Who the hell wants to lock their money into a specific company?"
      Having clean people get a gift and a later refund given some really friendly return policy?
      Even if having to show ID to get a refund on a big cash and gift card mixed sale gets the cash back out of the gift card.
      Do that in the another state over days and it slowly adds up. Finding people with issues to work off who have no law enforcement record to buy and refund is not hard.
      A plate scan of the car park would not find any issues wit

    • Groupon used to do buy one get one free coupons for gift cards. So, by paying $20, I receive $40 I can spend at that retailer. These are limited time offers but the resulting gift cards have no expiration. I have been in possession of up to 10 of these gift cards at any given moment.

      I actually could imagine a scenario where someone games such deals and banks a few hundred of these, then sells them for 75% face value. Everyone wins, reseller and second buyer each get a 25% RoI.

  • Just trying to pay the IRS (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArtemaOne ( 1300025 ) on Monday October 17, 2016 @08:23PM (#53096483)
    This gift card is one I just purchased to pay the IRS. They called me and said I'd be arrested if I didn't!
  • Once the chips become prolific enough might as well just use a magnet to wipe the strips and stick to using the chips. That is until the cops get chip readers in their vehicles as well.

  • Put it in perspective. (Score:3)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday October 17, 2016 @09:54PM (#53096947)

    Alice and Bob are driving down the road when they're pulled over by cops. Alice is driving. Bob gets arrested on an outstanding warrant. As Bob's getting out of the car, the cops see a black plastic bag underneath Bob's seat. They ask Alice about the bag. She says, "This? Oh, it's just oregano, officers. A lot of oregano. No, we don't have receipts for it, and, uh, we bought it at ... err, from some guy. But it's just oregano. See?", and gives it to the cop. The cop, upon opening the baggie, sees what looks like oregano. But the volume of the oregano is much more than you'd need for a pizza, so the cop figures it might be marijuana and decides to run a field test on it. Ultimately this field test is turned over to the State Police, which are able to conclusively say it's marijuana. Bob is now facing marijuana possession charges and complains his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.

    That's exactly what happened here. The defendant was arrested on an outstanding warrant, the arresting officer asked what was in the bag, the driver gave the bag over and said he and the defendant bought 143 gift cards from "someone", but couldn't identify whom, nor provide any receipts, and their business plan was to "resell" these cards for a profit. Put all that together and it's on the same level as telling the cop your weed is oregano -- it's a lie that's completely transparent.

    Since the cops were given the evidence, they did not seize it illegally. Since the cops had an incriminating statement from one of the participants, they had probable cause to check for illegality. Legal seizure plus probable cause equals go directly to jail, do not collect a $200 gift card.

    This Slashdot headline is misleading to the point of being journalistic malpractice.

  • I typically have 0 of these cards. After Christmas I've had as many as 6. So, what's the threshold for letting the cops scan my gift cards without a warrant? 1? 5? 99?

    IMHO this is the slippery slope argument. I'll agree 99+ is questionable as hell, but if you let them do a warrantless search for 99 cards they'll cite that case to let them do a warrantless search for 1.

    Reminds me of a decade or two back when they decided anyone carrying more than $10k in cash was a drug dealer and could confisca

  • This is equivalent to getting out a blacklight and looking for bloodstains. As far as I'm aware it does not require a warrant to check an individuals belongings for marks invisible to the naked eye.

    While I am, in general, against the significant overreach of police powers without a corresponding increase in their accountability, I don't think this is an example of that. This is simple application of existing laws in a new context. I don't think playing a CD or cassette tape counts as 'search' either.

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