Live data from Hacker News

US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

theguardian.com

101–110 of 311 posts

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#101

IANAL, what are the practical implications of this? I assume the outcome is police would first need probable cause to suspect a specific person of a crime, and then get a warrant for that person's location. Am I wrong?

It's mostly punting on the issue. They determined that it was a "search" under the 4th amendment but made no ruling on whether or not it was "reasonable". It's back to lower courts to decide on that.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#102

I always like to mention how Paula Broadwell was identified as David Petraeus' mistress as it's a good example of how even without a phone you can still be identified. - FBI had three distinct IPs linked to emails - They geolocated those back to 3 different hotels - They pulled the guest list from each of the hotels - Did a "join" on them and the only guest at all 3 was Broadwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_B…

It's also a good demonstration how probable cause is supposed to work. In this case, the subpoena probably looked something like "this email must have been sent by one of your guests, so give us the guest list and we'll cross check and find the guy". Contrast with the geofence subpoena. "Hey maybe some small % of people carry a phone that might send its location to you, can we check if they did?" It's ludicrous.

> give us the guest list and we'll cross check and find the guy

An entire guest list is still a broader fishing expedition than should normally be permitted. Warrants should be much more targeted than that. (Of course, many companies seem happy to give overly broad information without even requiring a warrant...)

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#103
post #74

If it is reasonable to have your privacy in a public place, does this mean that products like Flock which indiscriminately violate your privacy would now require a warrant for law enforcement to access (currently they do not)?

> If it is reasonable to have your privacy in a public place I don't think it's reasonable to have privacy in a public place. All other arguments follow from there. What do you think should be "private" when you step outside your home?

> I don't think it's reasonable to have privacy in a public place. All other arguments follow from there.

- United states v Jones

- Carpenter v United States

- florida v jardines

- kyllo v united states

All affirm some level of expectation of privacy in public.

ALPR's, facial recognition, drone surveillance are going to get challenged at some point. GORSUCH in this opinion pontificated on Katz v United States. Highly recommend reading his opinion

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#104
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of the more fun things I learned during criminal court in Texas is that the absence of forensic evidence cannot exonerate an individual. The prosecutor and the judge covered that despite not having any forensic evidence, the jury would still be expected to be able to convict the defendant. If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.

They are trying to avoid a situation where you end up with one juror who watches a lot of CSI and insists that they need forensic evidence to convict, despite having a dozen eye-witnesses. If a juror cannot imagine a circumstance where the evidence could be beyond a reasonable doubt based on non-forensic evidence, then they aren't suitable to be a juror.

For example, if you're sitting in your living room with a bunch of other people, many of whom know each other, and two people start fighting, you are all witnessing a crime and you can also all identify the two people fighting. It would be ridiculous to require DNA evidence in that situation.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#105

I always like to mention how Paula Broadwell was identified as David Petraeus' mistress as it's a good example of how even without a phone you can still be identified. - FBI had three distinct IPs linked to emails - They geolocated those back to 3 different hotels - They pulled the guest list from each of the hotels - Did a "join" on them and the only guest at all 3 was Broadwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_B…

The whole Petraeus affair[1] is a wiki 'telenovela'. The only things missing are references to Corintian leather. I will share gossip tomorrow, even if old news.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect and force you spend a bunch of money defending yourself. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike... Hopefully rulings like this make that scenario a little less likely to happen, but it doesn't stop it…

There's no indication that this guy had to hire a lawyer or actually do anything. The same location data that put him near the scene/time of the crime would also absolve him. I guess it's sad that he felt the need to pay for a lawyer.

Google told him that he would have to go to court to block the release of his identifying data to the police. He was not told what the request was about. At that time, he could only guess that it was related to the break in that happened near his home almost a year ago.

A lawyer at that point was a very good idea. Especially since all it takes is an arrest to cause you to lose your job and make it very difficult to get another one. It wasn't until after his lawyer got involved that the state attorney’s office contacted the police and told them this guy wasn't a likely suspect.

He would have used the same data Google already gave the police to win his case in court anyway, but it's a very good thing he managed to avoid having to deal with any of that before things went any farther.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a good demonstration how probable cause is supposed to work. In this case, the subpoena probably looked something like "this email must have been sent by one of your guests, so give us the guest list and we'll cross check and find the guy". Contrast with the geofence subpoena. "Hey maybe some small % of people carry a phone that might send its location to you, can we check if they did?" It's ludicrous.

> give us the guest list and we'll cross check and find the guy An entire guest list is still a broader fishing expedition than should normally be permitted. Warrants should be much more targeted than that. (Of course, many companies seem happy to give overly broad information without even requiring a warrant...)

A guest list on a single day seems pretty fine grained if you looking for someone who was there on that day.

Im not sure how they would get much more fine grained than that without already knowing the answer ahead of time.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. They have repeatedly reduced Congressional powers, including today, where they basically said Congress can't setup genuinely independent agencies (in Slaughter). Or when they kneecapped the VRA. Some of them likely subscribe privately to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory .

> can't setup genuinely independent agencies The US constitution lays out three AND ONLY three branches of government. The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment. If they create an agency in the executive branch, by definition it reports to the head of the executive.

> The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment.

Sure. So explain the results of Trump v. Cook, which involve exactly that.

The same justice, on the same day, issued one opinion that says Congress can't put limits on firing FTC chairs, and another that Congress can put limits on firing Fed board members.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I run into someone at the grocery store, I can remember "oh I saw them yesterday" if the Police interview me. If I start writing down/logging every time I saw that person at the grocery store and plotting it out, I would consider that "crossing the line". A Flock camera that receives BOLO's for known-criminals and immediately flags captures in real-time is different than tracking every person going everywhere with…

What if the grocery store has a security camera pointed at the door that records 24/7? Should they not be allowed to do that?

I think they should be allowed to point it at places inside their store, with prominent disclosure to people entering.

I don't think they should be allowed to point it at the public sidewalk.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#110

> Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google “location history” feature that documented his location every few minutes. Google removed this feature last year because they were tired of dealing with these warrants. Now (Google says) your devices each store their own location history without centralisation.

Fantastic. One step closer to making holding personal data a liability.
Post reply on HN