4 ms·

They probably have a method to trace message metadata using the application provider's infrastructure. It's sort of like a home phone. Law enforcement official

by _wldu 5y ago

They probably have a method to trace message metadata using the application provider's infrastructure. It's sort of like a home phone. Law enforcement officials can contact Verizon to learn who you called and who called you, what time, duration of the call, etc.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago
You mean with a warrant right?
- pdpi 5y ago
  Hopefully yes, but that's a separate matter. The important part is that it's technically feasible and you can then use whatever legal (or otherwise) mechanisms to get the metadata.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Warrants have legal meaning but little practical impact. They can be requested and granted very easily. The process offers very little protection. If the cops ask for warrant to request the list of numbers called, they will get it. That said, warrants are not always needed. The logic goes that the phone company already knows who you have called. They needed that information when they connected the calls. They store that information for billing purposes. So connection/metadata isn't private because you have already shared it with the phone company. In many countries that is sufficient to moot the entire warrant debate. (This logic then extends to other data used to make connections and route internet traffic such as IP addresses.) And if the phone company/ISP is a state-owned/backed/licensed enterprise there is little privacy left to argue over.
  - clucas 5y ago
    > Warrants have legal meaning but little practical impact. They can be requested and granted very easily. The process offers very little protection. If the cops ask for warrant to request the list of numbers called, they will get it. What are you basing this on? Warrants require probable cause (in the US at least). Are you saying that that the probable cause requirement still allows warrants to be granted very easily? Or that the probable cause requirement is not being followed?
    - vngzs 5y ago
      > Are you saying that that the probable cause requirement still allows warrants to be granted very easily? Or that the probably cause requirement is not being followed? Well, both. Warrants may be granted very easily via the FISA courts [0]. They are unenforced in the warrantless wiretap programs [1]. If your wiretap happened to be illegal, and you want to work around this to win the court case anyway, you use parallel construction to build a case that does not rely on the secret wiretap [2]: > Because the SOD's work is classified, DEA cases that began as NSA leads can't be seen to have originated from a NSA source. > So what does the DEA do? It makes up the story of how the agency really came to the case in a process known as "parallel construction." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%932007)#Technical_and_operational_details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05...
      - clucas 5y ago
        You are talking about a particular type of warrant. I don't think the average local police force is getting FISA warrants for their day-to-day police work (maybe I'm wrong? I would like to see numbers on that before I change my mind though), and OP did not limit their statment to FISA warrants.
        vngzs 5y ago
        The news sources I've encountered seem to imply otherwise. The linked Washington Post article was an early hint at this, and built on original material from [0]. Now we have other sources backing this up, such as [1], and detailed breakdowns of this practice with lots of evidence as seen in [2]. Just search for the word "local" or "state" in [2] if you need the details. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-directs-agents-to-cover-up-program-used-to-investigate-americans-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-dir... [1]: https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... [2]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origins-evidence-us-criminal-cases https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origi...
- sp332 5y ago
  In the USA, the Stored Communication Act lets law enforcement pull call records without a warrant, if that's what you were asking?
- vel0city 5y ago
  Third-party doctrine had eroded the need for warrants for a long time. Luckily there's been progress in slowly clawing back our rights in the last decade or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Yes, a perfectly valid legally issued warrant for any and all details about all messages the officer wants.

by _wldu 5y ago

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

You mean with a warrant right?

pdpi 5y ago
Hopefully yes, but that's a separate matter. The important part is that it's technically feasible and you can then use whatever legal (or otherwise) mechanisms to get the metadata.
sandworm101 5y ago
Warrants have legal meaning but little practical impact. They can be requested and granted very easily. The process offers very little protection. If the cops ask for warrant to request the list of numbers called, they will get it. That said, warrants are not always needed. The logic goes that the phone company already knows who you have called. They needed that information when they connected the calls. They store that information for billing purposes. So connection/metadata isn't private because you have already shared it with the phone company. In many countries that is sufficient to moot the entire warrant debate. (This logic then extends to other data used to make connections and route internet traffic such as IP addresses.) And if the phone company/ISP is a state-owned/backed/licensed enterprise there is little privacy left to argue over.
- clucas 5y ago
  > Warrants have legal meaning but little practical impact. They can be requested and granted very easily. The process offers very little protection. If the cops ask for warrant to request the list of numbers called, they will get it. What are you basing this on? Warrants require probable cause (in the US at least). Are you saying that that the probable cause requirement still allows warrants to be granted very easily? Or that the probable cause requirement is not being followed?
  - vngzs 5y ago
    > Are you saying that that the probable cause requirement still allows warrants to be granted very easily? Or that the probably cause requirement is not being followed? Well, both. Warrants may be granted very easily via the FISA courts [0]. They are unenforced in the warrantless wiretap programs [1]. If your wiretap happened to be illegal, and you want to work around this to win the court case anyway, you use parallel construction to build a case that does not rely on the secret wiretap [2]: > Because the SOD's work is classified, DEA cases that began as NSA leads can't be seen to have originated from a NSA source. > So what does the DEA do? It makes up the story of how the agency really came to the case in a process known as "parallel construction." [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%932007)#Technical_and_operational_details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05...
    - clucas 5y ago
      You are talking about a particular type of warrant. I don't think the average local police force is getting FISA warrants for their day-to-day police work (maybe I'm wrong? I would like to see numbers on that before I change my mind though), and OP did not limit their statment to FISA warrants.
      - vngzs 5y ago
        The news sources I've encountered seem to imply otherwise. The linked Washington Post article was an early hint at this, and built on original material from [0]. Now we have other sources backing this up, such as [1], and detailed breakdowns of this practice with lots of evidence as seen in [2]. Just search for the word "local" or "state" in [2] if you need the details. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-directs-agents-to-cover-up-program-used-to-investigate-americans-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-dir... [1]: https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illegal-searches-secret-evidence/ https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega... [2]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origins-evidence-us-criminal-cases https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origi...
sp332 5y ago
In the USA, the Stored Communication Act lets law enforcement pull call records without a warrant, if that's what you were asking?
vel0city 5y ago
Third-party doctrine had eroded the need for warrants for a long time. Luckily there's been progress in slowly clawing back our rights in the last decade or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
tinus_hn 5y ago
Yes, a perfectly valid legally issued warrant for any and all details about all messages the officer wants.