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The Stored Communications Act makes disclosing the contents of messages without a search warrant unlawful
by gnopgnip 5y ago
The Stored Communications Act makes disclosing the contents of messages without a search warrant unlawful
- jc01480 5y agoYou are correct. There’s also varying 2-party/1-party consent required depending on the state in the absence of a warrant. But unless you’re targeting the devices, you will not get much at all from service providers. They simply don’t keep it contrary to what I read here.
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoThe people responsible for investigating and prosecuting such crimes have some not so great incentives to avoid doing so and keep the whole thing secret though, don't they? And then when they get caught, they do this: https://cdt.org/insights/the-truth-about-telecom-immunity/ https://cdt.org/insights/the-truth-about-telecom-immunity/
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoSounds like an easy way to have your case tossed out in court. It's funny how much this differs from my own personal experience with law enforcement. The friends I know are timid as hell and don't do anything without a warrant just to stay on the safe side- even if they probably don't need one.
- heavyset_go 5y agoLet's be honest, how often do people share with their pals about how they commit crimes, or are less than scrupulous, at work, assuming their pals aren't criminals, as well? People tend to keep things like that a secret, even from people that are close to them.
- op00to 5y agoThe really smart cops get the tips using “less than legal” means, then walk back and reconstruct using legal evidence.
- a4isms 5y ago“Parallel Construction:” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- marricks 5y agoI'm just glad you're here to stick up for your friends without any corroboration or linking story. It's just a good thing to do.
- jdavis703 5y agoBeing charitable, let’s assume his friends work as homicide or theft detectives. If so, they need a high standard for admissible evidence to build their case. If on the other hand his friends are street cops tasked with clearing a corner of drug dealers because some neighbor complained to their council person who complained to the police chief then those cops don’t necessarily care about extrajudicial activities. Having been harassed by street cops and interacted with homicide detectives, I can tell you they vary tremendously in professionalism.
- xanaxagoras 5y agoThey definitely need a high standard for admissible evidence, that doesn't stop them from purchasing large amounts of data from all-too-willing communications companies and using parallel construction to build their case once they find out what happened via warantless spying.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoCybercrime. Lots of scams and child abuse.
- intricatedetail 5y agoThey can also query these messages to see if there is something on the dealers they get paid from and then warn them if something comes up. It works both ways, no?
- kingcharles 5y agoGood luck with that. In my case there was a ton of violations of the SCA. Violations of the SCA are only actionable if they are "constitutional" in nature. (That essentially means that if the government indict you based on information they illegally gathered through violating the SCA but the information did not belong to you - say it belonged your wife or business partner - then you can't get the information suppressed/excluded in court) In my case the government did violate the SCA and my constitutional rights, but two judges have looked at it and both stated the same answer - the police must be allowed to commit crimes to gather evidence. Next stop: appeal courts.
- giantg2 5y agoYep, the courts side with law enforcement. The whole 'truth comes out in a fair fight' is completely undermined by this. The system protects itself above all else. I was involved with a case that sounds similar - the judges don't care about your rights and blatantly missapply the law. Also, magistrates are also complete BS, and don't even know basic legal stuff. I had one think I called him prejudice when requesting a case be dismissed with prejudice... Complaints do nothing. There's no real oversight, leading to a completely incompetent system.
- heavyset_go 5y ago> There's no real oversight, leading to a completely incompetent system. It's the system working as intended. If you want something that looks like justice, you'll need substantial wealth to get it.
- giantg2 5y ago"Sounds like an easy way to have your case tossed out in court." This is terribly naive in my experience.
- King-Aaron 5y agoImagine a world where the entire law enforcement complex followed the law. What a world.
- danShumway 5y agoYou have to generally assume that the FBI and other government agencies are competent. My baseline, starting assumption is that if everyone in the US was too scared to use programs like PRISM, they wouldn't have been built. So these kinds of claims just don't make any sense in a world where we know that government has conducted surveillance without a warrant, and where we know that the FBI has built entire programs designed to make it easier for them to conduct surveillance without a warrant. From the article posted that you're replying to: > What Administration officials tend to obscure is that what they seek is not immunity for future cooperation with lawful surveillance, but rather telecom immunity for assisting with unlawful surveillance conducted from October 2001 through January 17, 2007, as part of the warrantless wiretap program initiated by the White House. I'm not sure I understand what your implication is. I don't understand how it's possible to respond to an article that is about telecoms seeking immunity for previous unlawful actions by saying, "the government/businesses would be way too scared to do anything unlawful." I mean... obviously not, they sought immunity for it. They wouldn't just randomly do that, the most likely explanation is that they made immunity a pressing issue because they thought they needed it. It does not seem to me that the optimistic world you describe and the observable actions and lobbying efforts of companies/administrations line up with each other.
- jfrunyon 5y agoThe reality is that many times the only barrier to sensitive information is a shared login which many people know and a statement that users represent that they have legal authority to access that info.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoEO12333 makes it lawful without a warrant.
- gnopgnip 5y ago> EO12333 An EO making it lawful for a federal agency to collect doesn't mean it is lawful for a private company to disclose, it doesn't change when a company is permitted to disclose the content of messages under the SCA
- giantg2 5y agoI mean, this whole discussion is moot since nobody will enforce things like this, especially against themselves.
- freeflight 5y agoJust like the NSA spying on Americans is unlawful [0] the FBI terrorizing political movements is unlawful [1] or the CIA operating in the US is unlawful [2] Yet, I'm pretty sure all these are still happening, to a certain degree, to this day. [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying-idUSKBN25T3CK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nsa-spying-idUSKBN25T... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHAOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHAOS
- nikcub 5y agoLarger point would be if it's obtained unlawfully it can't be used in a court of law against you. Recent cases: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkppqk/court-throws-out-messages-from-anom-finland-spain https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkppqk/court-throws-out-mess... https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252503524/Berlin-court-finds-EncroChat-intercept-evidence-cannot-be-used-in-criminal-trials https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252503524/Berlin-court-f...
- the_optimist 5y agoThat is little consolation in the court of public opinion, where FBI management and the Justice Department have demonstrated willingness and capability to hold mob court and manipulate public opinion outside the formal legal system. They will SWAT you themselves if they like, on live TV.
- dwiel 5y agoParallel Construction makes this a technicality/nuisance, not a show stopper.
- yownie 5y agocame here to say this.
- filoeleven 5y agoGenerally only if you have the means to hire a good lawyer.
- grouphugs 5y agothis guy, lmfao, completely fucking clueless to what policing is
- JohnWhigham 5y agoTell that to the FAANG companies that provide white glove access to authorities any time they ask.