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Amazon Argues Alexa Speech Protected By First Amendment In Murder Trial Fight
- coldcode 10y agoIt was bound to happen. Next up, are robots people?
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoNo, but companies are (sigh). This is really an expression of Citizens United. Alexa and Siri use cute names to cover it, but "Ok Google" reveals what you're really interacting with for these sorts of tools: You're talking to a company.
- JBReefer 10y agoThis isn't really an HN quality comment. It's dismissive, you don't make a strong point, and it's not really interesting - this is just a rehashing of a common political opinion/disagreement with Citizens United. Please, please don't let HN become Reddit.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoI respectfully disagree. The parent comment was insinuating this was about bots or robots, which it really isn't. Chat-like interface aside, Alexa is no more a "robot" than Gmail or the Amazon.com homepage: It's just an interface to a company's web service. And while I added a (sigh) which indicates some disapproval for the Citizens United decision, my comment wasn't meant to start a conversation of the merits of that decision, but simply indicate that this was effectively a corporate personhood case. If anything, I added the (sigh) because of my concern that I would get downvoted into oblivion by other people who disagree with the Citizens United decision. :/ Please, please don't let HN become Reddit. Don't comment just to tell someone you think their comment is low quality and uninteresting.
- sheeshkebab 10y agoYes, and anything you say to that corporate electronic service can be used in the courts. (The murder in this case is disturbing though) Cloud AI and comm services are sure convenient, but private they are not. Although that's the Internet world we live in now...
- vanattab 10y agoCan we get the click bait title changed. Amazon is arguing that the consumer first amendment rights extend to alexa recordings.
- moron4hire 10y agoNo, they are also claiming it extends to Alexa's responses.
- jasonvorhe 10y agoSo much for the rhetoric of the malicious company that's putting 1984 devices into living rooms for the government.
- dovdovdov 10y agoHow do you know the exact number of devices, suspicious.
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoI think he meant the devices were first patented in 1984.
- q4814 10y agoAhem Orwell's 1984. It's a book.
- j_r_f 10y agoI can't tell if they are joking or really didn't pick up on this.
- ibgib 10y agoThat's part of why it's a good joke...or is it?
- zepto 10y agoI bought that as an ebook on Amazon but it got remotely deleted for 'copyright' reasons from my kindle so I never got to read it. Is there something about listening devices in it?
- unprepare 10y agoyou can read it online for free here http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/ http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/
- benmmurphy 10y agowhy isn't alexa scrubbing the data or anonymising it? presumably amazon is fighting this hard because they don't want it known that the government/amazon effectively has a listening device in your home
- Shivetya 10y agoapparently they give the ability to access your communication with Alexa with a phone app. So they put themselves in a box by having features in an app that prevent anonymization of the data. Going forward they may have to drop the app or limit its functionality. I don't have the app in question and am only extrapolating based on the text in the article. Does anyone here have the Alexa app? What are its features? So is law enforcement going to try to go with voluntarily allowing recording of oneself allows them access? Push a claim that Amazon has no standing in the case and cannot object?
- fmorel 10y agoWhen it's triggered, Amazon stores recordings of every command. You can then play that back, and tell Amazon whether it heard you correctly. I've used this several times to figure out items on my shopping list where it misheard me.
- milesdyson_phd 10y agoI have the app, it allows you to play back any prompt that Alexa was triggered with. For instance the maintenance people at my apartment complex decided to play with it and I can listen to them ask stupid stuff like: "how many apples are in a bushel"
- lawless123 10y agoWell how many are there?
- CapitalistCartr 10y ago~120.
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoSo, is there any coincidence that this is where Walmart HQ is located (some proxy battle)? Why has no other police department in the country attempted this?
- maxerickson 10y agoThe intersection of hard to prove murders and Alexa is going to be tiny.
- gm-conspiracy 10y agoI would guess tiny is > 1. This took place what, two year ago? 5 murders per 100,000 people (US average). 318 million people in the US, so 15,900 murder per year. Amazon has sold over 5 million echos in the last 2 years. So, Amazon would have to sell over 159 billion Echos, before a second murder overlap in the US? If we assume all are US based, that would be about 1.5% of the population has Echos?
- maxerickson 10y agoI think it is an important factor that many murders are quite straightforward, so it isn't just the overall rate, it's the rate where the Alexa evidence is important enough to pursue. I also wonder how many people own more than 1 echo (probably only hundreds of thousands so not all that important to estimating the number of homes being listened to. I guess Amazon could tell us how many users they have though).
- arca_vorago 10y agoI don't understand the use of the 1st amendment in this case, which is about free speech, but Amazon is trying to avoid giving data to the gov which would fall under the 4th and 5th amendments. Does anyone understand their reasoning for this approach? I would also like to add, And I said the same thing about Apple, this feels like public relations via the courtroom more than a genuine desire to protect data from the gov. Don't forget Jeff Bezos's CIA connections!
- baldfat 10y agoAs a non-lawyer and not legally trained it seems like 1st amendment has nothing to do with this but 4th and 5th has everything. This is scary. It means the 4th and 5th amendment has no power with these devices?
- bbcbasic 10y agoBut there is a warrant: > The tech titan has filed a motion to quash the search warrant for recordings ps. Ianal
- maxerickson 10y agoIf that were the case Amazon would have provided the data rather than contesting the warrant the police issued to obtain the data.
- rayiner 10y agoThe 4th amendment and 5th amendment don't protect you from having to hand over incriminating evidence pursuant to a valid warrant. If the government suspects e.g. you're part of a criminal organization and have tapes with your co-conspirators (for future blackmail purposes) hidden in your house, it can get a warrant and get those tapes. It can play those tapes to the jury. The only thing the 5th amendment protects you from is the government making you testify against yourself.
- kevin_b_er 10y agoThose amendments only apply to the government. A corporation may arbitrarily restrict your rights and you have no recourse other than to avoid the corporation. This is why social media is a trap. It looks at first glance like a highly evolved town square but it is not. It is a private space masquerading as a town square, but one where you may be silenced for the wrong words. The same applies to the alexa device you chose to put in your living room. Your private life now belongs to Amazon. The 4th amendment does not apply. Your privacy is now the property of a corporation that may do what it pleases with the information from your previously private home life.
- lolc 10y agoI don't understand Amazon's position here. They're being asked for evidence in a murder investigation. I don't see how the first amendment could be construed to protect against this. The data being asked for concerns the two involved individuals and the request doesn't seem overly broad. What this case does show is that Amazon puts a listening device in your home which has a very acute understanding of your live. As they argue themselves.
- jitix 10y agoThey have very good business reasons to do this. If they do end up giving out the data they will most probably face a severe dip in sales as most people (even those who aren't that privacy focused) will be scared of buying it. I've been putting off buying one of these devices (Echo/Google Home, etc) just becasue I dont like someone listening to me all the time. But I'm usually a bit paranoid about privacy.
- pc86 10y agoI'm not sold on Alexa personally. I can guarantee with 100% certainty that if this case moves against Amazon I will never knowingly be in the vicinity of one of these devices. Not because I plan on killing someone, but because of the litany of privacy implications. If it goes the other way, I might get one because I think it would be useful but I'm still very worried about the privacy aspect, and I know my wife would be more lax than I - not to mention I don't want to have to be vigilant about every comment I make in my own home.
- ibgib 10y agoThe complexity of the issue concerns the specific use in this instance and its application to broader uses in other possible cases. I think they're fighting/trying to fight future fights with this approach. I say this because their current stance is relatively weak when regarding this case alone (IMO obviously). The guy was murdered, Alexa is a recording device, they want to see the recordings. This isn't overly broad in this case, but in the future it may be attempted to be applied to other cases walking down the proverbial slippery slope. This is of course in addition to them already fighting a technophobic AI battle in consumers' minds, gradually introducing AI functionality to the masses. This, I think, is largely why they are so reluctant to introduce push notifications even though so many fellow Alexa Skill developers would like it. In the end though, if I were murdered and Alexa was in the room - I'd want them to give them the darn recordings. Which makes me wonder, what does the family of the victim want?
- rebootthesystem 10y agoThis might be an important case for the future of robotics at home. Imagine a day when androids or highly capable home robots are inexpensive and commonplace. They will see and hear everything you do. Let's extend that to the same kinds of robots at work. Working alongside humans, participating in meetings, completing various tasks internal and external to the business. Maybe even interacting with similar robots at other companies, vendors, etc. Not sure any rights regarding these scenarios are well defined today.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoWhy would the situation be any different than a person or traditional recording equipment doing those things? If you want to live with observers, you have always had to accept that they can be used in court.
- rebootthesystem 10y agoI'll let an attorney answer this. I think there's a huge difference. Part of it being that, as far as I know, there's no case law for the scenario of a robot being a part of a person's daily life while recording data from an array of sensors, including vision and sound.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoBut how are robot sensors different than if I choose to have, eg security cameras around my house or a maid doing the cleaning? In fact, the robot sounds exactly like a live in maid, who can already be compelled to testify on my activities. Both the camera footage and maid testimony can be demanded by the courts, so why would a hybrid of the two be different?
- rebootthesystem 10y agoI think you might be confusing logical thinking with the way the legal system works. I hope an attorney on HN can comment on this. Happy to be wrong but I don't think I am, at least not massively wrong.
- Tloewald 10y agoThis is bonkers. The idea that someone hearing you and being required to testify against you violates the first amendment is ridiculous, so why should a device be different from a person?
- WorldMaker 10y agoMaybe it's more akin to the fifth amendment rights of a spouse/significant other/close family? I don't think Amazon would have an easy case in either direction, but at least to this layman it sounds more like a fifth amendment issue than a first amendment issue.
- WorldMaker 10y agoThis answers my question well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13714797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13714797
- tagawa 10y agoSlightly off-topic but could we encourage (or automate) using HTTPS story links when available?
- Oxitendwe 10y agoFor what purpose, exactly?