4 ms·

Here you go: "Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, sha

Here you go: "Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

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ukd1 5y ago
But, nothing is being searched or seized here; it seems like people gave up their personal data, ignored or didn't read a ToS, and companies are selling it - not being forced to give it up. I don't like it, but does it mean it's illegal?
- kiba 5y ago
  Nobody reads ToS. Doesn't mean people should give up their personal data. Maybe it should be illegal?
  - sumedh 5y ago
    > Maybe it should be illegal? Then Congress has to pass a law to make it illegal.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Data held by 3rd parties falls under "papers and effects".
  - coldacid 5y ago
    According to what law or precedent?
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    Not really. It’s the service’s papers and effects, which happen to contain information about you. There’s obviously something very wrong here, but it’s a dead end to say no one can sell the government info about people. Need a different approach in the vein of outlawing crazy TOSs, keeping user ownership of their data even if used to make a service operate, right to be forgotten, etc.
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      As far as I know, a warrant is required to tap a landline phone. I don't see how the principle behind that (reasonable) interpretation of the 4th amendment would not also apply to any kind of data (or metadata) from Internet traffic. Just because some 3rd party collected what is, by legal precedent, clearly considered personal effects and papers does not mean that 3rd party can grant absolution to the government in its need for a warrant to obtain that same data.
      - ethanbond 5y ago
        Telephones actually have a specific exemption to what’s called Third Party Doctrine: the government’s right to acquire information sans warrant when that information is lawfully held by a third party. Telcos are exempt for exactly the reason you mention: phones are really important to daily life and they collect tons of sensitive data as a side effect of normal use. IMO this is one of the more viable routes to getting this behavior changed: expand Third Party Doctrine exemptions to a lot more services, but to do that we’d have to confront just how much data we’re choosing to share, and whether we’re actually choosing to share it.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  The government purchasing this data is tantamount to a search. There's quite a bit of precedent on this, much of which was needed after telephones became ubiquitous. Just because the electrical signals carrying a private conversation pass through wires that are owned by a third party does not make the conversation public. Similarly, just because internet traffic is observable by anyone with a network tap does not mean that the government can passively collect this data "just in case". Purchasing the data from a third party does not magically absolve the government of its Constitutional duty to first obtain a warrant for the data.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > Just because the electrical signals carrying a private conversation pass through wires that are owned by a third party does not make the conversation public Without data protection laws that data isn't your private data, that data is the company's data. And you are free to do whatever you want with your data, and since the company owns this data the company can sell it to the government, it doesn't matter if you consider it to be your private data the company still owns it. Europe has GDPR which clarifies this, the data is yours even if it is stored on company servers, I'm not aware of USA having anything similar except for health data. So to me it sounds like you'd want USA to create something akin to GDPR.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      We have laws, though. The Fourth Amendment is a law, and it's reasonable to say that purchasing what is (arguably) the company's data is still tantamount to a search of our "effects". Or maybe it's not, and we need new legislation specifically targeting this. That's where the Supreme Court comes in: their raison d'être is to resolve ambiguities in existing law.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        > The Fourth Amendment is a law, and it's reasonable to say that purchasing what is (arguably) the company's data is still tantamount to a search of our "effects". Got any precedents for this? All examples given in this thread was about the government forcing companies to hand over data, not companies just plain selling it to the government. These companies are already selling this data to other companies, like credit score companies gets a lot of data from banks, so to them selling it to the government as well is just another buyer. Does the fourth amendment really apply to cases like this? My hunch is that it does not, and you wont find any such cases since it is so clear that it doesn't apply that it hasn't even reached a court.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  The USA definitely needs to pass a 'GDPR on steroids' law here to get the bored government agencies off our backs.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Amendment IV doesn't actually expressly include a warrant requirement for anything. It requires searches and seizures to be reasonable. It also creates requirements for the basis of any warrants that are issued. It is a series of Supreme Court rulings that infers a general warrant requirement with some exceptions from that text.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  The biggest weasel word of all time: "reasonable".
JasonFruit 5y ago
The fourth amendment doesn't address the case where people voluntarily provide information to a third party which contracts with the government to pass it on. It's indicative of the attitude we should have in the matter, but it's not basis enough for a legitimate Supreme Court opinion — not that that will prevent one being given, mind you. There really does need to be a law preventing government from contracting with private companies to provide confidential information without a warrant.
- pishpash 5y ago
  The ruling shouldn't be on the Fourth Amendment but on unenforceable blanket ToS's. It would require a law or another amendment though. Any information collection that is not affirmatively allowed by your actively posting it yourself, or that you allow on each individual instance should be illegal.
- RNCTX 5y ago
  The amendment doesn't say "secure from government" or "secure from law enforcement." It just says "secure." A person cannot sell themselves into slavery. Yet we allow the US government to endorse indentured servitude for immigrant labor, because corporations want indentured servitude. Nor can a US citizen sign away workplace safety rights, legally. Yet we allow US construction companies to rampantly hire off-the-books undocumented labor so that they can freely ignore workplace safety rights, since no one will exist to make claims against them. It would have been perfectly reasonable for a court to broadly ban surveillance of individuals by telecom companies back in the 1990s, based on the same principles that those courts have willfully violated on behalf of corporations in the other examples above.
  - pishpash 5y ago
    It doesn't bind private persons, but it can certainly be argued that by the government making a purchase, the collection (even if retroactive) is pursuant to government direction through the incentive or interest nexus, and therefore the collection itself should be unconstitutional as soon as the government makes one purchase.
  - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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ukd1 5y ago

But, nothing is being searched or seized here; it seems like people gave up their personal data, ignored or didn't read a ToS, and companies are selling it - not being forced to give it up. I don't like it, but does it mean it's illegal?

kiba 5y ago
Nobody reads ToS. Doesn't mean people should give up their personal data. Maybe it should be illegal?
- sumedh 5y ago
  > Maybe it should be illegal? Then Congress has to pass a law to make it illegal.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Data held by 3rd parties falls under "papers and effects".
- coldacid 5y ago
  According to what law or precedent?
- ethanbond 5y ago
  Not really. It’s the service’s papers and effects, which happen to contain information about you. There’s obviously something very wrong here, but it’s a dead end to say no one can sell the government info about people. Need a different approach in the vein of outlawing crazy TOSs, keeping user ownership of their data even if used to make a service operate, right to be forgotten, etc.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    As far as I know, a warrant is required to tap a landline phone. I don't see how the principle behind that (reasonable) interpretation of the 4th amendment would not also apply to any kind of data (or metadata) from Internet traffic. Just because some 3rd party collected what is, by legal precedent, clearly considered personal effects and papers does not mean that 3rd party can grant absolution to the government in its need for a warrant to obtain that same data.
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      Telephones actually have a specific exemption to what’s called Third Party Doctrine: the government’s right to acquire information sans warrant when that information is lawfully held by a third party. Telcos are exempt for exactly the reason you mention: phones are really important to daily life and they collect tons of sensitive data as a side effect of normal use. IMO this is one of the more viable routes to getting this behavior changed: expand Third Party Doctrine exemptions to a lot more services, but to do that we’d have to confront just how much data we’re choosing to share, and whether we’re actually choosing to share it.
jkhdigital 5y ago
The government purchasing this data is tantamount to a search. There's quite a bit of precedent on this, much of which was needed after telephones became ubiquitous. Just because the electrical signals carrying a private conversation pass through wires that are owned by a third party does not make the conversation public. Similarly, just because internet traffic is observable by anyone with a network tap does not mean that the government can passively collect this data "just in case". Purchasing the data from a third party does not magically absolve the government of its Constitutional duty to first obtain a warrant for the data.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > Just because the electrical signals carrying a private conversation pass through wires that are owned by a third party does not make the conversation public Without data protection laws that data isn't your private data, that data is the company's data. And you are free to do whatever you want with your data, and since the company owns this data the company can sell it to the government, it doesn't matter if you consider it to be your private data the company still owns it. Europe has GDPR which clarifies this, the data is yours even if it is stored on company servers, I'm not aware of USA having anything similar except for health data. So to me it sounds like you'd want USA to create something akin to GDPR.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    We have laws, though. The Fourth Amendment is a law, and it's reasonable to say that purchasing what is (arguably) the company's data is still tantamount to a search of our "effects". Or maybe it's not, and we need new legislation specifically targeting this. That's where the Supreme Court comes in: their raison d'être is to resolve ambiguities in existing law.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > The Fourth Amendment is a law, and it's reasonable to say that purchasing what is (arguably) the company's data is still tantamount to a search of our "effects". Got any precedents for this? All examples given in this thread was about the government forcing companies to hand over data, not companies just plain selling it to the government. These companies are already selling this data to other companies, like credit score companies gets a lot of data from banks, so to them selling it to the government as well is just another buyer. Does the fourth amendment really apply to cases like this? My hunch is that it does not, and you wont find any such cases since it is so clear that it doesn't apply that it hasn't even reached a court.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
The USA definitely needs to pass a 'GDPR on steroids' law here to get the bored government agencies off our backs.

dragonwriter 5y ago

Amendment IV doesn't actually expressly include a warrant requirement for anything. It requires searches and seizures to be reasonable. It also creates requirements for the basis of any warrants that are issued. It is a series of Supreme Court rulings that infers a general warrant requirement with some exceptions from that text.

inter_netuser 5y ago
The biggest weasel word of all time: "reasonable".

JasonFruit 5y ago

The fourth amendment doesn't address the case where people voluntarily provide information to a third party which contracts with the government to pass it on. It's indicative of the attitude we should have in the matter, but it's not basis enough for a legitimate Supreme Court opinion — not that that will prevent one being given, mind you. There really does need to be a law preventing government from contracting with private companies to provide confidential information without a warrant.

pishpash 5y ago
The ruling shouldn't be on the Fourth Amendment but on unenforceable blanket ToS's. It would require a law or another amendment though. Any information collection that is not affirmatively allowed by your actively posting it yourself, or that you allow on each individual instance should be illegal.
RNCTX 5y ago
The amendment doesn't say "secure from government" or "secure from law enforcement." It just says "secure." A person cannot sell themselves into slavery. Yet we allow the US government to endorse indentured servitude for immigrant labor, because corporations want indentured servitude. Nor can a US citizen sign away workplace safety rights, legally. Yet we allow US construction companies to rampantly hire off-the-books undocumented labor so that they can freely ignore workplace safety rights, since no one will exist to make claims against them. It would have been perfectly reasonable for a court to broadly ban surveillance of individuals by telecom companies back in the 1990s, based on the same principles that those courts have willfully violated on behalf of corporations in the other examples above.
- pishpash 5y ago
  It doesn't bind private persons, but it can certainly be argued that by the government making a purchase, the collection (even if retroactive) is pursuant to government direction through the incentive or interest nexus, and therefore the collection itself should be unconstitutional as soon as the government makes one purchase.
- 5y ago