131–137 of 137 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, build it so that it responds to distance to tower. Send out an alert to the whole system. If the phone is within communications distance of the tower, switch off.
That's not how it works. You're arguing against a system that nobody is planning to build.
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The argument is that they would have to pass the law first to compel the manufacturers to implement the switch in every phone. Then any other agency outside that law's jurisdiction can take advantage of the presence of the switch with little oversight. It would still likely result in lawsuits anywhere it was used regardless of the law.
That doesn't explain why the bill includes all the restrictions on government, though. If the aim was to empower government, they could simply have been omitted.
The bill includes restrictions on the government at the level that falls within the jurisdiction of the law. The argument is what about jurisdictions that have no such law nor restrictions and take advantage of the existing hardware feature?
If we're talking Federal law then what you say makes sense, but as far as I know this is about a state law.
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Because prior judicial approval is the key check to preventing government abuse; if police want to shut down a protest a judge potentially telling them they went too far 6 hours later is not going to help.
And they're supposed to get prior judicial approval. It's only acceptable to file retroactively in cases where there is an imminent risk of death or great bodily harm, such as a hostage or barricade situation or other 'extreme emergency situation.' You're assuming the worst possible outcome (police overreach, court apathy) and using that as a justification to omit any mention of the copious rules limiting official us…
As a result of this, the police will feel justified claiming "imminent risk of death or great bodily harm" any time two or more #insert are together in one place.
Then you just do this often enough that the judges don't have time to review every case.
Don't dismiss as ridiculous what is simply an extrapolation from current practise.
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Apologies, I thought you were continuing the original discussion of how Airplane Mode could provide a loophole. Anyway, the system doesn't have to be perfect. If you significantly raise the barrier to turning stolen phones into cash, you'll significantly reduce the rate of theft.
Even if it were possible to raise the barrier on turning stolen phones into cash, it does not follow that it will reduce the rate of theft in the least. Do you think those that risk so much for so little are just going to roll over and die? Did you not learn the lesson of Whac-A-Mole? If you really care about the victims, you'd use the warrant not to attempt to render tools to trash dumps, but instead use the warrant…
The argument could be made that you'll merely shift theft into other areas rather than reducing it overall. But it's real hard to make the argument that making it hard to fence stolen cell phones won't reduce cell phone theft is a pretty hard sell, especially if a carnival game is the best argument you have.
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The problem is that "imminent risk" tends to creep downward over time, to the point that it becomes "imminent risk that a citizen unit will improperly fail to bow and scrape." If you're going to shut off several thousand cell phones, you can bloody well get a judge out of bed for that.
Perhaps, but I don't think it's fair to judge this bill on how legislators might amend it in future, or we'll never pass any laws at all.
For example, the police are only supposed to shoot people when there's imminent risk of death or great bodily harm. Yet there is routine, if not common, overreach there, including one notorious recent incident that people are currently protesting with great vigor.
If you can't reliably enforce the rule that police aren't supposed to kill people except in dire emergencies, how will you do it for cell phone kill switches?
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That would not be very effective for the kind of cover up you were speculating about (disabling phones so they can shoot protestors without it being widely recorded on video). First, they'd have to set up a Stingray. Then they'd have to get the phone numbers. Then for each number, they have to go to the appropriate company and ask that company to do the kill. Note this only works for smartphones. Feature phones are n…
1. Setting up a stingray takes very little time if it's already mounted on a truck or a trailer. 2. Phones and towers are constantly looking for one another so that phones are always connected. This is how you are able to talk while driving or moving. You might get all the phones in an area in a few seconds or minutes. 3. You make a good point about the per-phone nature of the thing. How long before law enforcement h…
I can't quite decide how serious I am.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that "imminent risk" tends to creep downward over time, to the point that it becomes "imminent risk that a citizen unit will improperly fail to bow and scrape." If you're going to shut off several thousand cell phones, you can bloody well get a judge out of bed for that.
Perhaps, but I don't think it's fair to judge this bill on how legislators might amend it in future, or we'll never pass any laws at all.