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Wireless Firms Are Flooded by Requests to Aid Surveillance
- nodata 14y agoThe danger here is that surveillance becomes something that is the norm, that is not questioned.
- mtgx 14y agoCompletely agree. While the Government doing something wrong here is bad enough, what worries me most is the change in culture for both the authorities and the people. If the people start getting used to it, that means there could be decades of abuses until people decide that maybe accepting it wasn't such a good idea to begin with, and they need to reverse the trend (which could take another couple of decades).
- obituary_latte 14y agoIs anyone really surprised? When you agree to use a service, you agree to the service using you--regardless of tos. You become the commodity. There will always be concessions that need to be made in the name of convenience. It's natural. See power, telephony, medical and other technology for reference--should you need to.
- paulsutter 14y agoThe framers of the constitution would be surprised. The fourth amendment prohibits the government from fishing around in our private affairs without probable cause: "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."
- alttab 14y agoAgreed. A "is anyone really surprised?" attitude is not compatible with American values. As actors in the technology industry we should do more to protect the civil rights and privacy of our users. Compromising these ideals in my mind is weak behavior especially when used as part of a monetization strategy. Towing the line of your TOS should be iron-glad, especially in the face of government inquiries. Vigilance begets liberty. Liberty must always be defended or someone will easily take it away. Not to say that we haven't already lost a lot of ground, but giving up and saying "thats the way it is" is simply not an option for me as I am an American citizen. For those internationals, give in at your own peril.
- obituary_latte 14y ago"That's the way it is" is indeed unacceptable. What you have to consider, though, is the fact that many (read most) have no concept, no idea that there is another option. On a very base level, when you opt-in to a service of convenience, you are handing over your data--your information. As such, it should not be a surprise--given the current circumstances--when that data is used against you. I am not saying don't fight it--quite the contrary. But I question whether fighting it on this level is more or less productive than fighting the issue at root, whatever that is.
- alttab 14y agoTechnology that works to encrypt all data when it goes to the cloud and decrypt it when it comes back would be a big step in the right direction. Simply make it impossible to compromise your privacy without a warranty for the private key. Makes it much easier to tell overreaching governments to politely "go fuck themselves."
- pyre 14y agoUntil encryption gets classified as a munition again...
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- Zigurd 14y agoPrivacy standards are much higher when you rent a house. Why should they be lower when you rent some bits?
- einhverfr 14y agoBecause "A man's phone is his castle" doesn't have much of a ring to it.... Rights in renting a home are interesting though. In 1982, the Supreme Court decided the one and only 3rd Amendment case to come before it, where a state evicted striking prison guards and placed national guardsmen in their state-owned workforce apartments. The state lost.
- btilly 14y agoUm, nope. The state won on the fact that government bureaucrats are given an immunity if a "reasonable person would not have known" of the law that they were breaking. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey for verification.
- einhverfr 14y agoOk, so they lost on qualified immunity on remand, but I suppose if it ever happened again the state would lose.
- btilly 14y agoYou suppose wrong. The immunity was because a bureaucrat could not be expected to know about the 3rd amendment. Any future violation would be a decision made by a bureaucrat, the same immunity would apply, and the precedent would say that the state wins. For all intents at this point, the 3rd amendment is null and void.
- einhverfr 14y agoThat's not what qualified immunity does. Qualified immunity gives immunity to many government actors who violate Constitutional rights unintentionally, because the law is not clear at the time. Getting qualified immunity on remand is basically a one-time victory. If you win on qualified immunity because the rights are not clear, but at the same time hold that there are such rights, then that gives fair notice to government actors and they don't get to do it again. The idea is that you don't want to make the government too cautious because they might get sued if they arguably violate someone's rights so you give them the benefit of the doubt, until the law is clear enough and there is no more doubt. There was a recent case of a woman who was tazed in Seattle for refusing to sign a parking ticket. She lost on QI grounds, but they also held that it was excessive force. That basically establishes that if the police do it again, the next person can successfully sue. That doesn't mean the police are free to taze people for refusing to sign traffic tickets. It just means that the court says "this is your only warning" and lets that case go at that. This is different from absolute immunity, which means for example, you can never sue a prosecutor for unfair prosecution tactics used in the courtroom, and you can never sue a judge for ruling unfairly.
- einhverfr 14y agoThe Constitutional questions here are very interesting and rapidly evolving. For example, is requesting cell site location data like tracking a beeper in a can of ether on a public highway or like a pen register? Or is it more like a wiretap of a search of a building? What happens when GPS is turned on? There isn't a lot of case law here. In general though courts have expressed concern about the sorts of surveillance that are becoming possible. See, for example the cell site location arguments at the 3rd circuit appeals court or the opinions of Sotomayor and Alito in Jones v. United States last year (Alito's opinion concurring in judgement was joined by Kagan, Breyer, and Ginsberg. Sotomayor joined the majority of Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy as a narrow way to resolve the case, but she also went beyond that and endorsed Alito's logic as well, which complicates counting votes).
- jakewalker 14y agoI highly recommend Orin Kerr's article, The Case For The Third Party Doctrine, on this issue (available here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138128 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1138128). A much different constitutional analysis when the data is requested from a cellular service provider, versus when it is gathered directly by state actors (police). Kerr is simply fantastic on these issues. Worth reading more of his Fourth Amendment writing if you are interested.
- einhverfr 14y agoKerr is an important professor and author in this area. He has also been a staunch academic opponent to further Constitutional controls, which has made his writings on Jones v United States and the 3rd Circuit cell site location case interesting to read. Look up things he has written about "Matrix" theory of fourth amendment protections. I don't think Kerr really grasps the level of unease that the courts are developing regarding the capability of dragnet surveillance by the government of this sort. But definitely, anything he has written is pretty much a must-read in this field. Edit: Also Prof. Kerr blogs at http://www.volokh.com http://www.volokh.com and http://www.scotusblog.com http://www.scotusblog.com
- TheGateKeeper 14y agoMy question is: why are they storing the data anyways? Pass it along and don't keep it on the servers! Ignore all requests not authorized by a Warrant issued by a Judge.
- RKearney 14y agoOr maybe it's time for phones to adopt PGP for text messages? You could collect your friends or colleagues public keys and then the telephone companies haven't the slightest idea what you're texting back and forth. If you're using iMessage or BBM, they already can't provide any of that data to law enforcement. I'm not sure how Apple or RIM handles requests for users data from law enforcement though.
- uptown 14y agoA while back there was talk of BBM being banned in some countries (India was one of them) because of the problem of monitoring BBM messaging. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2009585,00.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2009585,00.htm... Miraculously, they were allowed to remain in service in those countries. It's safe to assume the nations didn't just give up on their quest to obtain access to the messaging data.
- ihsw 14y agoIt wasn't miraculous, RIM capitulated and provided the keys to the kingdom. BBM is vulnerable.
- yuhong 14y agoI would not go that far, but I'd do make the data retention and disclosure policy clear.
- TheGateKeeper 14y agoAnd why wouldn't you go that far? There's no reason for a third party THAT I PAY SERVICE FEES TO to save my conversation. Transmission of the material until it reaches its client is the limit. ONLY WHEN any agency gets a warrant from a judge should they be given LIMITED ACCESS to the CURRENT messages being transmitted. Not have the ability to peruse the history of.
- sanxiyn 14y agoI am actually surprised that this is the first public accounting of its kind in US. I live in South Korea, and Korea Communications Commission publishes these numbers broken down by request types in accordance with Electronic Communications Privacy Act. This has been the case since 2005.