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The (IMHO) really interesting discussions start about 30 paragraphs down: - "The EFF sees the tremendous scope and power of geofence warrants as a bug, not a f

The (IMHO) really interesting discussions start about 30 paragraphs down: - "The EFF sees the tremendous scope and power of geofence warrants as a bug, not a feature. “We believe that geofence warrants are unconstitutional because they don’t start with a suspect,” says Lynch. “They don’t rely on individualized suspicion, which is what’s required under the Fourth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution]."

specialist 4y ago
If surveillance capitalism continues, we'll need to rehash past legal compromises like probable cause, presumed innocence, and refusing to testify against oneself. With panopticon and big data, investigators can rule out everyone with an alibi, sifting thru mountains of data to reveal who must have committed a crime. I'm not arguing right or wrong, morally. Just what is.
- largepeepee 4y ago
  Looks like the US state power is now making an obvious push to follow the CCPs footsteps after quietly eroding people's rights for years. Hopefully the people will push back on it, can't say I have much hope since the political system is purposely broken. Feels like we are already living in a world where both superpowers nations are in agreement that surveillance capitalism and disinformation is the best way to control their local population.
gonzo41 4y ago
This argument doesn't make sense. That's like saying you cant review a security camera overlooking a carpark to see who was illegally using your carpark.
cushychicken 4y ago
I’m torn between the argument about individualized suspicion, which I find really compelling, and the fact that extreme circumstances demand some extreme measures. Leading with the capitol attack doesn’t highlight to me why wide scope of these powers is a problem. Tell me more about the civil rights campaigns that are being disrupted with these technologies and powers. It’s not helpful to highlight how it was used to arrest violent separatists. Tell me how it’s being used to punch down! Without an example like that, I’m inclined to say this is a time where the federal government’s reliance on norms is working. As in, they have the power to do these kinds of things, but they choose to apply that power pretty selectively.
- junofan 4y ago
  I don’t think that’s how constitutional challenges work. Sympathy isn’t a prerequisite.
- richardhod 4y ago
  Another issue here is there is a problem with laws which are broad enough that it requires selective enforcements for them to be available. Because then you can get a problematic force which then uses them selectively for political purposes. This indeed is how the Soviet state worked and indeed current Russian state works to quash dissent.
lkrubner 4y ago
That's aspirational rather than reality. The Supreme Court had no problem with the Patriot Act, which introduced extremely broad electronic searches. You could say the 4th Amendment should restrict searches to specific individuals, that might be a good idea, but for now the Supreme Court sees no need for that interpretation.
tzs 4y ago
> They don’t rely on individualized suspicion, which is what’s required under the Fourth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] That's definitely a "citation needed" statement. In Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) the Court upheld mandatory drug testing for railway employees involved in accidents or safety violations despite no probable cause or individualized suspicion. In Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) the Court upheld sobriety check points in which all cars are briefly stopped for questioning and observation. There's no individualized suspicion there. See also the cases involving border patrol checkpoints. A checkpoint 50 miles from the border doesn't involve any individualized suspicion. Individualized suspicion is required I believe to target an individual, but hasn't targeting a place where a crime has been committed to get more information to try to figure what individuals might be involved been standard, uncontroversial, police procedure in the United States for hundreds of years? E.g., if a clearly murdered body is found in a maid's closet at a hotel when the maids go to start their shift in the morning police are going to get a warrant to get the list of all staff and guests that were known to be in the hotel between the time the closet was last known to be dead body free and the time the body was discovered. That seems at least somewhat similar to a geofence warrant and has been pretty normal since basically forever.
- richardhod 4y ago
  Being 'normal' != is constitutional
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    Kind of, it's weird. There's "the Constitution" the document, which has some words in it. Then there's "the Constitution" the spirit, which is what the American public feels abut the document, irrespective of the words therein. The two are never quite the same, and the latter is often the deciding factor when it comes to writing laws. The former factor, carefully parsing the words in the context of laws, has been where the courts come in. But these days is seems the court's view on the Constitution is colored as much by their feelings about the words as the words taken literally themselves. For example, for decades one court can say that a right to privacy is implied by the Constitution, and then suddenly a new court can completely flip that. Despite the words in the Constitution remaining the same in the intervening period, the feelings of the court about the document changed, and so what is considered "Constitutional" under the law changed as well. In that sense, what is normal can in fact be Constitutional, as long as people with the right power say so, even if the document doesn't say as such in literal words.

specialist 4y ago

If surveillance capitalism continues, we'll need to rehash past legal compromises like probable cause, presumed innocence, and refusing to testify against oneself. With panopticon and big data, investigators can rule out everyone with an alibi, sifting thru mountains of data to reveal who must have committed a crime. I'm not arguing right or wrong, morally. Just what is.

largepeepee 4y ago
Looks like the US state power is now making an obvious push to follow the CCPs footsteps after quietly eroding people's rights for years. Hopefully the people will push back on it, can't say I have much hope since the political system is purposely broken. Feels like we are already living in a world where both superpowers nations are in agreement that surveillance capitalism and disinformation is the best way to control their local population.

gonzo41 4y ago

This argument doesn't make sense. That's like saying you cant review a security camera overlooking a carpark to see who was illegally using your carpark.

cushychicken 4y ago

I’m torn between the argument about individualized suspicion, which I find really compelling, and the fact that extreme circumstances demand some extreme measures. Leading with the capitol attack doesn’t highlight to me why wide scope of these powers is a problem. Tell me more about the civil rights campaigns that are being disrupted with these technologies and powers. It’s not helpful to highlight how it was used to arrest violent separatists. Tell me how it’s being used to punch down! Without an example like that, I’m inclined to say this is a time where the federal government’s reliance on norms is working. As in, they have the power to do these kinds of things, but they choose to apply that power pretty selectively.

junofan 4y ago
I don’t think that’s how constitutional challenges work. Sympathy isn’t a prerequisite.
richardhod 4y ago
Another issue here is there is a problem with laws which are broad enough that it requires selective enforcements for them to be available. Because then you can get a problematic force which then uses them selectively for political purposes. This indeed is how the Soviet state worked and indeed current Russian state works to quash dissent.

lkrubner 4y ago

That's aspirational rather than reality. The Supreme Court had no problem with the Patriot Act, which introduced extremely broad electronic searches. You could say the 4th Amendment should restrict searches to specific individuals, that might be a good idea, but for now the Supreme Court sees no need for that interpretation.

tzs 4y ago

> They don’t rely on individualized suspicion, which is what’s required under the Fourth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] That's definitely a "citation needed" statement. In Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602 (1989) the Court upheld mandatory drug testing for railway employees involved in accidents or safety violations despite no probable cause or individualized suspicion. In Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) the Court upheld sobriety check points in which all cars are briefly stopped for questioning and observation. There's no individualized suspicion there. See also the cases involving border patrol checkpoints. A checkpoint 50 miles from the border doesn't involve any individualized suspicion. Individualized suspicion is required I believe to target an individual, but hasn't targeting a place where a crime has been committed to get more information to try to figure what individuals might be involved been standard, uncontroversial, police procedure in the United States for hundreds of years? E.g., if a clearly murdered body is found in a maid's closet at a hotel when the maids go to start their shift in the morning police are going to get a warrant to get the list of all staff and guests that were known to be in the hotel between the time the closet was last known to be dead body free and the time the body was discovered. That seems at least somewhat similar to a geofence warrant and has been pretty normal since basically forever.

richardhod 4y ago
Being 'normal' != is constitutional
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Kind of, it's weird. There's "the Constitution" the document, which has some words in it. Then there's "the Constitution" the spirit, which is what the American public feels abut the document, irrespective of the words therein. The two are never quite the same, and the latter is often the deciding factor when it comes to writing laws. The former factor, carefully parsing the words in the context of laws, has been where the courts come in. But these days is seems the court's view on the Constitution is colored as much by their feelings about the words as the words taken literally themselves. For example, for decades one court can say that a right to privacy is implied by the Constitution, and then suddenly a new court can completely flip that. Despite the words in the Constitution remaining the same in the intervening period, the feelings of the court about the document changed, and so what is considered "Constitutional" under the law changed as well. In that sense, what is normal can in fact be Constitutional, as long as people with the right power say so, even if the document doesn't say as such in literal words.