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Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#81

Post by DannyBee »

linuxhansl wrote: post #72
DannyBee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fifth amendment was only ever intended to be dealing with testimony - you couldn't be called as a witness against yourself (the history of why it exists makes this clear). That is, you literally can not be asked to testify against yourself, in a custodial interrogation, court, or other setting where it could be used as evidence against you in a criminal trial. It was never intended to prevent evidence you were st…

At least that means that I would not need to help them searching my phone. Is that correct? My phone needs a pass code to allow any interaction and I could conceivably encrypt data on it. What if I get arrested, but on grounds of the 4th amendment won't reveal the pass code? Oops. Meant to reply to cgshaw, the child comment.

"At least that means that I would not need to help them searching my phone. Is that correct? "

This varies right now. Essentially, it depends on whether your giving the password would tell them something they can't otherwise prove, and that thing is testimonial in nature: That you maintain ownership of the item, etc.

Basically, if they can authenticate the existence of what information is on the phone, and can authenticate your ownership, you may very well be compelled to give the password. That said, they are very fact specific inquiries, and, AFAIK, the world is still up in the air here.

See U.S. v. Boucher, United States v. Fricosu, United States v. Kirschner, etc.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#84

Post by tedunangst »

ndesaulniers wrote: post #71

Article by Timothy B. Lee, as in Sir Tim Berners-Lee father of the WWW??? :P

You can click on the author's name to read his bio. Well, you could on the normal web version, anyway, instead of the print version that HN links to.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#86

Post by harshreality »

jemeshsu wrote: post #85

Obama administration == US government. True or false? Are they the same?

Are you trying to start a semantic debate about what the U.S. Government is? One possible definition of government is the executive branch, and the Obama administration, currently, is (close to) the least abstract definition of the executive branch of government. Equivalence relations are not defined with respect to things like the Obama administration and the U.S. Govt.

In other words, your question is inadequately specified.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#87

Post by fetbaffe »

[deleted] wrote: post #43
acheron wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who gets "inspired" by politicians is dangerous. A politician should cause mild disgust, at best.

[deleted]

The difference would have been that then everyone had rallied against the evil Republican. Now instead you are called a racist for even implying that Obama is an authoritarian statist. Look what happened to the rodeo clown.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#88

Post by nitrogen »

DannyBee wrote: post #67
nitrogen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could read it out of people's brains, harmlessly, painlessly, etc, i think that would be fine. I must state that this sentiment sickens me slightly. I sincerely hope that this interpretation is absolutely unthinkable by the time technology reaches that point. I don't believe that any world in which one's thoughts and memories are not private can ever be free.

Sorry, I should have been clear: I meant fine legally, in the context of the fifth amendment. It is not a statement of what I believe the social view/norm/etc should be, or whether it should be allowed. Only an objective assessment of whether it would fall within the context of what was currently protected and the intent of protecting that. Personally, I would find it abhorrent, but that is not particularly relevant…

I think this is one of the sources of abrasion between lawyers and hackers on HN -- the distinction between "legal" and "ethical" is not always made clear. Sometimes you'll see a hacker post that things must be one way, while a lawyer replies that, no, in fact, they are completely the opposite (the hacker invariably reads "you imbecile" after this, even though it's not actually typed ;-) ).

In reality, the hacker may have a perfect understanding of the current law, but disagree with it vehemently, while the lawyer's personal philosophy is actually in agreement with the hacker's statement.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#89

Post by coldtea »

diminoten wrote: post #62
danenania wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If your suggestion is voting for an independent, is there a realistic scenario where an independent candidate could get elected in the United States?" How about a scenario in which all the people who claim to be voting for the lesser of two evils reevaluate their own defeatist attitude? If the only thing stopping a significant enough percentage of people from voting for a 3rd party is the perceived inability to win,…

I substitute "lesser of two evils" with "neither of two evils" but it ends at the same place. I believe any rational actor would behave as Bush and Obama have during their terms in office. For this reason I can't justify voting for a third party candidate, either, because I still believe they'd act similarly, and with less inherent power, they'd be more easily swayed into acting irrationally (being president helps a…

>I believe any rational actor would behave as Bush and Obama have during their terms in office.

Citations needed. Politicians have had widely varying behavior in the past. It depends on what the climate created by the citizenry is.

Re: Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

#90

Post by DannyBee »

nitrogen wrote: post #88
DannyBee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I should have been clear: I meant fine legally, in the context of the fifth amendment. It is not a statement of what I believe the social view/norm/etc should be, or whether it should be allowed. Only an objective assessment of whether it would fall within the context of what was currently protected and the intent of protecting that. Personally, I would find it abhorrent, but that is not particularly relevant…

I think this is one of the sources of abrasion between lawyers and hackers on HN -- the distinction between "legal" and "ethical" is not always made clear. Sometimes you'll see a hacker post that things must be one way, while a lawyer replies that, no, in fact, they are completely the opposite (the hacker invariably reads "you imbecile" after this, even though it's not actually typed ;-) ). In reality, the hacker may…

"In reality, the hacker may have a perfect understanding of the current law"

Maybe? I find engineers, like a lot of intelligent people, read a lot and think this means they understand things. If they spend their time starting by reading and learning fundamentals, i'd agree with you. Instead, a lot of the time, IMHO, they read and understand particular cases in particular jurisdictions, and then take that as a truth that applies elsewhere, when it doesn't. Maybe someday i'll make a law for hackers course as a MOOC.

They also want the law to be logical, and present logical extensions of arguments (IE they want the law to be an entirely rule based system, where if all rules are memorized, all outcomes are clear) . It's certainly a necessity to be able to reason logically, but the problem is, at its core, the law is about people and situations, and not logic. Logic is just a method that is used to come up with some possible solutions to these problems, and to determine possible outcomes. It is not a god that must be followed at all costs.

IE Judges are not going to do things just because they are logical, because they are people, and not logical reasoning automatons. The law's goal is to serve a societal need, not to be theoretically sound in all cases.

This often grates on most engineers, who want bright lines and definite answers.

Anyway, this is my experience having been a "real" engineer for 15 years before/during/after becoming a lawyer, and talking to an ungodly number of engineers over the years about things.

It could be my view is skewed because of the career path i've taken :)

I do agree that there is tension between lawyers and engineers on HN, but IMHO, this is due in large part to most lawyers being able to objectively detach their feelings from their legal analysis of a situation (something one is trained to do in law school), and forgetting to mention they are doing this.

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