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This is the first time I've heard of a pen register, apparently somewhat broad, modern parlance for things that capture phone data. It seems pretty damning that
This is the first time I've heard of a pen register, apparently somewhat broad, modern parlance for things that capture phone data. It seems pretty damning that they spent the time to fax MetroPCS but couldn't, ya know, even get the pen register or ask a judge to ask if they thought it was a good idea.
Maybe the bad guys are really bad, but sometimes I hope that they get off just to make the point that the cops are suppose to do the "right thing", otherwise the cops really are the bad guys.
The term dates back to 19th-century telegraphy [1]. 18 U.S. Code § 3127 [2] defines them specifically:
the term “pen register” means a device or process which records or decodes
dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an
instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is
transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the
contents of any communication, but such term does not include any device or
process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication
service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing, for
communications services provided by such provider or any device or process
used by a provider or customer of a wire communication service for cost
accounting or other like purposes in the ordinary course of its business;
[1] https://nerdsincourt.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/on-prism-smith-and-pen-registers/ https://nerdsincourt.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/on-prism-smith...
[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3127 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3127
> Maybe the bad guys are really bad, but sometimes I hope that they get off just to make the point that the cops are suppose to do the "right thing", otherwise the cops really are the bad guys
The US way is to exclude evidence and protect the cops--the idea being that cops have no motive to cross lines if they can't use the evidence. More and more I'm leaning towards what I understand is the European way: let the evidence stand, but hold the cops accountable for their actions through parallel civil and criminal proceedings. The feedback for "cop behavior" is direct vs indirect.
For an excellent review of the nature of policing and wiretaps in particular, watch the TV show The Wire. On HBO now and Amazon Prime. (and I think the best TV show ever made.)
It's fictionalized but written by an ex-cop and covers the drug trade in Baltimore.
David Simon was a former reporter. His lectures -- look for "the audacity of despair" -- are excellent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw
(Long, poor audio, and lot of verbal ticks, but simply amazing.)
While I don't normally think in terms of slippery slope arguments, this would easily fall into such territory. After all how hard would it be to prosecute a cop whose illegal evidence goes a serial killer off the street? Give it a generation or two and we would end up with cops who only get convicted of the worst breaches, and effectively zero constitutional protection.
> Sometimes it's not only about the government. Sometimes victims of crime deserve justice, too.
When the power of the executive branch of government is being used as the means seek something, its always about the Constitutional limits on government. No matter what you feel you deserve, the Constitution is the deal by which the outer bounds of the scope of your privilege to have the coercive power of government deployed to get you what you deserve is limited.
Government shouldn't get to escape the Constitutional limits on its application of power against those subject to it because "think of the victims of crime", or "think of the children", or "think of..." whatever else.
Otherwise, we're tossing out the concept of limited government in favor of arbitrary power.
You can view government as an imperfect tool that attempts to achieve the impossible goal of justice, or your can view government as the definition of justice.
It's a question of whether to judge an imperfect tool based on details of how its mechanism works or whether to judge it based on how well it performs the tasks we ask of it.
I'm just saying that within this focus on microtransactions above all else the overall goals are lost and the balance of penalties is wrong. When the government goofs, we let the criminal go and deny the victims justice. The purpose of the justice system is justice. The focus on these microtransactions elevates government as the definition of justice which seems much more expansive than the alternative, IMHO.
> You can view government as an imperfect tool that attempts to achieve the goal of justice, or your can view government as the definition of justice.
You could also view "justice" in such a way that the claim that a victim of crime "deserves justices" is, to the extent that it is meaningful, completely inapplicable to the concept of criminal punishment.
> It's a question of whether to judge an imperfect tool based on its mechanism or whether to judge it based on how well it achieves the tasks we use it for.
No, even agreeing that government should be viewed as an imperfect tool for achieving justice, its a question of what "justice" means, and whether it can ever be consistent with violating the agreement by which persons are, under the guise of acting in the name of government, granted power over others.
Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust.
In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.
> Some would view such violations as, themselves, inherently and fundamentally unjust
Exactly. Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse, not accountable to itself.
> Which is why the government should be held accountable to the victims of that abuse
The exclusionary rule holds the government accountable to victims of abuse, by removing the value that the government sought to gain by the abuse and the expense of the victim (it is imperfect, of course, in that it fails where the abuse was targeted at some use other than criminal prosecution.)
Any mechanism that fails to prevent the government from getting what it seeks by the abuse fails to hold the government accountable to the victim of the abuse.
> In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.
Because not ignoring that knowledge enables the propagating of injustice. Fighting for justice is a futile effort if delivering justice also delivers one or more instances of injustice (it is a pyrrhic victory). This idea is the root of the biblical notion of "eye for an eye" (also part of a popular quote of Ghandi).
No, this is not dichotomous-- There are at least five parties experiencing various degrees of harm: victims of crime, law enforcement, actually guilty criminals, falsely accused criminals, and the general public.
The actually hard part is divining the difference between actually guilty criminals and falsely accused criminals. That's the only valid reason for the justice system to act in this space. And that's also exactly what this extra knowledge clarifies.
We can always go full-retard with the utilitarianism. If you're going to allow injustice to happen to the few to the benefit the many, why even bother prosecute anyone for anything? Shut the farce down.
Or perhaps we could remove the bubble wrap that we allow government to hide behind and hold law enforcement directly accountable for its harm to the public and to the falsely accused. We don't have to play moral dominoes.
>In the situation where knowledge of guilt has been found by unjust means, how does ignoring that knowledge promote justice.
By signalling to police that whatever sketchy things they did to obtain the knowledge won't be available to help them achieve their goal.
Example, police use defective probable cause to search a motorist's vehicle; and I don't just mean search, but really search, as in pull the carpets up, remove interior panels, remove all of the contents of the trunk, break down the tires and look inside; it is destructive. Although the car may be re-assembled, they never are returned to their pre-tossing state. The only thing preventing this from happening more often is the amount of labor involved in tearing the car up. Police (Feds sometimes do) don't have to pay for damaging someone's property when they do this. They don't even have to put it back together. Same goes for your home.