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Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#71

Post by jcrotor »

zubspace wrote: post #11

How can they refuse to provide the recordings in case of a warrant? It makes no sense. They even acknowledge that the device is not always-on and therefore probably not useful. Because of bad publicity? If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide? The recordings of the water meter is more interesting and the possible…

There are various tiers of customer information, specified by law that have different requirements legally to obtain. In many cases a broad search warrant doesn't justify the release of what would be considered sensitive data. The more sensitive the data is, the more difficult it is to obtain legally. I highly doubt Amazon is "refusing". They have a legal team and are simply enforcing the protections specified by law. If the Police can build a compelling case as to why they need the information and jump through the appropriate hoops, Amazon will turn it over. In many cases the Police just want the company to cooperate because there are many investigations, and only so many man hours to put towards each case. Amazon is doing the right thing here, and even if the suspect is guilty, I highly doubt his Amazon Echo recordings are going to be useful in the investigation. It is a no stone left unturned kind of thing though.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#72

Post by Anechoic »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #27
smileysteve wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Yes, if your legal team denies it as overly broad. They can also file an injunction. This is why you call a lawyer as soon as the police arrive w/ a warrant or ask you questions. > Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide? Yes. Because you value your privacy of hobbies and speech. > I have nothing to hide. The a…

> This is why you call a lawyer as soon as the police arrive w/ a warrant or ask you questions. Pragmatic question regarding this type of advice. It's easy to say "call a lawyer", sure, but like many Americans under age 35, I do not presently have a lawyer in a meaningful sense of the term. (I had one once, for a very specific matter regarding a visa for another country - it was four-figure expensive - that relations…

1.) Talk to the lawyer you previously had a relationship with (assuming you think he is competent) and ask him for recommendations for a criminal lawyer. Keep the name(s) handy.

2.) In a real pinch, call your local public defender. They likely will not be able to get someone out to your place ASAP but they may be able to offer some advice. You can always follow-up with private counsel later.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#73

Post by icebraining »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #58
misja111 wrote: post #38

I'm wondering, what if the suspect agreed with the request of the police to check the Echo recordings? Suppose the suspect is innocent and thinks that allowing access to the Echo recordings can only make his case stronger. Would Amazon then still refuse access?

Does Amazon not provide access to your recordings similar to how Google does with OK Google recordings? That seems easier.

The cops can't be certain if the suspect hasn't deleted incriminating recordings.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#74

Post by jmuguy »

Has anyone, Amazon or otherwise, clarified what the Echo is actually recording? If anything? My use of the Echo and my reading of the information available from Amazon indicated that nothing of any value was ever recorded/saved.

/edit

Ok, I'm an idiot. I see now that the app has a history of my commands and their audio recordings. Which is actually kind of creepy. But then I wonder why the police don't just check this guy's Alexa app on his phone. And maybe that's the real question - are they asking Amazon to provide some sort of recording of everything the device heard that night?

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#75

Post by droithomme »

The article title seems misleading. It says "Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings" and in the article says "Amazon has refused to hand over recordings from an Echo smart speaker to US police investigating a murder in Arkansas". However, the article then points out that the device only has an audio buffer of a few seconds and there are no such recordings: "the vast majority of the recordings it makes are not saved for longer than the few seconds it takes to determine if a pre-set “wake word” (usually “Alexa”) has been said. Only if that wake word has been heard does the device’s full complement of microphones come on and begin transmitting audio to Amazon."

So it would seem Amazon isn't "refusing" to hand over recordings. Amazon just doesn't have recordings of everything that is said around it retained long term.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#76

Post by wildmusings »

zubspace wrote: post #11

How can they refuse to provide the recordings in case of a warrant? It makes no sense. They even acknowledge that the device is not always-on and therefore probably not useful. Because of bad publicity? If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide? The recordings of the water meter is more interesting and the possible…

>If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide?

Contrary to what others on this thread are saying, no. You cannot deny them entry. At that point, in that situation, the police are authorized to use force to exercise that warrant and you have no recourse but to cooperate. I don't know where people get this silly idea that they can refuse. That's how you turn a peaceful affair into police busting down the door, legally shooting your alarmed dog, wrestling you into handcuffs, and executing the warrant by force. I wouldn't be surprised if your refusal to cooperate would be admissible as evidence of mens rea. Don't be stupid.

The kind of warrant that Amazon is contesting is different than the kind that police show up at your door with. They could get one of those for Amazon too: a warrant to enter Amazon's buildings and seize servers, hard drives, papers, etc. If Amazon itself, or its employees, was suspected of criminal wrongdoing, and being investigated by a police force with physical jurisdiction over the locations to be searched, that would happen. Businesses are searched this way all the time.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#77

Post by ben_w »

falcolas wrote: post #40
gm-conspiracy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or you live somewhere with glass windows. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone

Laser microphones at least require you to be targeted prior to the warrant, and typically require someone on the other end. They can't retroactively request data from a laser microphone attached to most US households.

Given the cost of laser diodes is now pennies, how much would it cost to target every window in a city?

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#78

Post by jasonkostempski »

kombucha2 wrote: post #66
scarygliders wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere, lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. That's obviously a slippery-slope argument, but it's not outwith the realms of possibility that if I can think of doing something like that, politicians (especially those!) can think of it as well.

> lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. ....phones?

That's at least voluntary. For now...

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#79

Post by chronial »

fixermark wrote: post #31

When Eric Schmidt said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," this is pretty much what he was talking about. We live in a society where passive, ubiquitous, voluntarily-accepted monitoring is becoming the norm because of the vast convenience it affords the users. The flip-side of that coin is of course breaks in your regular pattern of behavior…

> […] that if you're going to take up murder as a hobby […]

and right there is the problem. Nowhere in the article does it say that anybody has committed a murder.

You are not proposing to strip privacy away from a criminal, but from a person that is suspected of a crime and might just be completely innocent. That leads to stripping privacy away from everybody.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#80

Post by jankotek »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #54
jankotek wrote: post #42

Real WTF here is that Amazon is actually recording this. They break many laws by doing that. edit: Why downvotes? It is illegal to do voice recording without a consent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_recording_by_civil...

Can you clarify? It sounds like you're implying that Amazon is breaking the law by using the cloud for voice recognition?

Amazon would break the law, if their persisted data uploaded to their servers. Article implies they do that.

(I am not lawyer)

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