4 ms·

> I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because tha

> I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect and force you spend a bunch of money defending yourself. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike... Hopefully rulings like this make that scenario a little less likely to happen, but it doesn't stop it entirely, it just means that the police need to spend 15 minutes to get a rubber-stamped warrant before they turn everyone within a few miles of crime into a suspect.

bombcar 3mo ago
I mean in this case it would also have helped not to have $100k in cash from a bank robbery laying around.
jotux 3mo ago
>You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect Proximity to a crime makes you a suspect even without the phone, right?
- autoexec 3mo ago
  Only if it's known that you were ever there in the first place, and people that typically wouldn't ever be considered, like someone who is quietly visiting in the living room of someone who lives nearby, will fall under scrutiny when police are just getting the data of everyone in a certain radius.
- kube-system 3mo ago
  A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by cornfields? sure. A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by high-rises and public transit? no.
  - stinkbeetle 3mo ago
    I think you might be confusing what the issue is. As we see in this case, the (likely) person in this case was actually found from the relatively small number of people who fit this criteria, so police were (likely) right to suspect these people. The issue is not who the police may or may not suspect. it is about reasonable expectation of privacy. If they had obtained this exact same list of people who were near that bank for that time by a means that did not violate their reasonable expectation of privacy, then the evidence couldn't be challenged on that basis.
    - ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
      > reasonable expectation of privacy That cracks me up honestly. Imagine in the 1980s if every citizen was compelled to carry a ghetto blaster with 100W amplifier and speakers that relentlessly blared our SSN, phone number, home address and bank accounts. In biblical times, of course, lepers were legally compelled to identify themselves and warn others with analogous methods. Now today we all voluntarily carry around radio transceivers that loudly blare unique identifiers, perpetually, omnidirectionally, to anyone and anything that will listen. Wired connections are so aggressively deprecated that we’re also perpetually exchanging every private conversation, and every secret SMS MFA code, and every DNS lookup, over public airwaves. It’s not our fault and it’s beyond our control, but if you carry such a ghetto blaster, don’t cry to us about expecting privacy.
    - kube-system 3mo ago
      I’m fully aware of the privacy concerns here; but that wasn’t the topic I was engaging in. I’m saying that practically, being within a radius as the bird flies does not make you functionally “within the area” when there’s a huge z axis in a city. When someone robs the retail of the ground floor of a high rise, there are many people who were right on top of the crime scene measured by lat/lon but were actually 10 minutes away by foot, hundreds of feet away in actual distance, and in no way aware it was even happening.
  - cucumber3732842 3mo ago
    >A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by high-rises and public transit? no. Two weeks of no leads and that no is gonna start looking an awful lot like a yes.
sidewndr46 3mo ago
one of the more fun things I learned during criminal court in Texas is that the absence of forensic evidence cannot exonerate an individual. The prosecutor and the judge covered that despite not having any forensic evidence, the jury would still be expected to be able to convict the defendant. If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.
- alwa 3mo ago
  Was your prior assumption that forensic evidence must exist in every case—and that if it doesn’t, then there’s no way to convince a jury of someone’s guilt? As in, as long as I clean up really well afterward, I can pretty much do what I want?
  - sidewndr46 3mo ago
    I think you're missing the slippery slope that this goes down. The criminal charges were way too low, given the alleged actions. The state admitted it had absolutely no forensic evidence. The judge was perfectly fine with this and selecting a jury that was OK convicting in this circumstance. This pretty quickly pretty us down a path of "you're guilty of at least one crime since you've been indicted, maybe a more serious one if we have some evidence".
    - brookst 3mo ago
      Does that mean that every single conviction from before the days of forensic evidence is necessarily invalid? If the argument is that forensic evidence decreases uncertainty, well, it certainly doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. Convicting anyone of anything is a slippery slope. The only way to be truly sure is to never do it, ever.
      - sidewndr46 3mo ago
        The case was a shooting. It seemed remarkable they had neither a gun, spent cartridge cases, blood, flesh, wounds, or anything in the way of physical evidence.
IncreasePosts 3mo ago
There's no indication that this guy had to hire a lawyer or actually do anything. The same location data that put him near the scene/time of the crime would also absolve him. I guess it's sad that he felt the need to pay for a lawyer.
- autoexec 3mo ago
  Google told him that he would have to go to court to block the release of his identifying data to the police. He was not told what the request was about. At that time, he could only guess that it was related to the break in that happened near his home almost a year ago. A lawyer at that point was a very good idea. Especially since all it takes is an arrest to cause you to lose your job and make it very difficult to get another one. It wasn't until after his lawyer got involved that the state attorney’s office contacted the police and told them this guy wasn't a likely suspect. He would have used the same data Google already gave the police to win his case in court anyway, but it's a very good thing he managed to avoid having to deal with any of that before things went any farther.
  - IncreasePosts 3mo ago
    Wouldn't the police have just looked at his location data and see that he lived nearby and rode his bike by often, and that he never stopped at the house?
    - autoexec 3mo ago
      The absolutely should have, but they didn't bother. They didn't even need to go back to review his history to figure out his patterns of activity. At the day of the crime he never stopped at the house and was in continuous motion.
__MatrixMan__ 3mo ago
I've been just leaving my phone at home lately. I recommend it.

bombcar 3mo ago

I mean in this case it would also have helped not to have $100k in cash from a bank robbery laying around.

jotux 3mo ago

>You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect Proximity to a crime makes you a suspect even without the phone, right?

autoexec 3mo ago
Only if it's known that you were ever there in the first place, and people that typically wouldn't ever be considered, like someone who is quietly visiting in the living room of someone who lives nearby, will fall under scrutiny when police are just getting the data of everyone in a certain radius.
kube-system 3mo ago
A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by cornfields? sure. A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by high-rises and public transit? no.
- stinkbeetle 3mo ago
  I think you might be confusing what the issue is. As we see in this case, the (likely) person in this case was actually found from the relatively small number of people who fit this criteria, so police were (likely) right to suspect these people. The issue is not who the police may or may not suspect. it is about reasonable expectation of privacy. If they had obtained this exact same list of people who were near that bank for that time by a means that did not violate their reasonable expectation of privacy, then the evidence couldn't be challenged on that basis.
  - ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
    > reasonable expectation of privacy That cracks me up honestly. Imagine in the 1980s if every citizen was compelled to carry a ghetto blaster with 100W amplifier and speakers that relentlessly blared our SSN, phone number, home address and bank accounts. In biblical times, of course, lepers were legally compelled to identify themselves and warn others with analogous methods. Now today we all voluntarily carry around radio transceivers that loudly blare unique identifiers, perpetually, omnidirectionally, to anyone and anything that will listen. Wired connections are so aggressively deprecated that we’re also perpetually exchanging every private conversation, and every secret SMS MFA code, and every DNS lookup, over public airwaves. It’s not our fault and it’s beyond our control, but if you carry such a ghetto blaster, don’t cry to us about expecting privacy.
  - kube-system 3mo ago
    I’m fully aware of the privacy concerns here; but that wasn’t the topic I was engaging in. I’m saying that practically, being within a radius as the bird flies does not make you functionally “within the area” when there’s a huge z axis in a city. When someone robs the retail of the ground floor of a high rise, there are many people who were right on top of the crime scene measured by lat/lon but were actually 10 minutes away by foot, hundreds of feet away in actual distance, and in no way aware it was even happening.
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago
  >A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by high-rises and public transit? no. Two weeks of no leads and that no is gonna start looking an awful lot like a yes.

sidewndr46 3mo ago

one of the more fun things I learned during criminal court in Texas is that the absence of forensic evidence cannot exonerate an individual. The prosecutor and the judge covered that despite not having any forensic evidence, the jury would still be expected to be able to convict the defendant. If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.

alwa 3mo ago
Was your prior assumption that forensic evidence must exist in every case—and that if it doesn’t, then there’s no way to convince a jury of someone’s guilt? As in, as long as I clean up really well afterward, I can pretty much do what I want?
- sidewndr46 3mo ago
  I think you're missing the slippery slope that this goes down. The criminal charges were way too low, given the alleged actions. The state admitted it had absolutely no forensic evidence. The judge was perfectly fine with this and selecting a jury that was OK convicting in this circumstance. This pretty quickly pretty us down a path of "you're guilty of at least one crime since you've been indicted, maybe a more serious one if we have some evidence".
  - brookst 3mo ago
    Does that mean that every single conviction from before the days of forensic evidence is necessarily invalid? If the argument is that forensic evidence decreases uncertainty, well, it certainly doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. Convicting anyone of anything is a slippery slope. The only way to be truly sure is to never do it, ever.
    - sidewndr46 3mo ago
      The case was a shooting. It seemed remarkable they had neither a gun, spent cartridge cases, blood, flesh, wounds, or anything in the way of physical evidence.

IncreasePosts 3mo ago

There's no indication that this guy had to hire a lawyer or actually do anything. The same location data that put him near the scene/time of the crime would also absolve him. I guess it's sad that he felt the need to pay for a lawyer.

autoexec 3mo ago
Google told him that he would have to go to court to block the release of his identifying data to the police. He was not told what the request was about. At that time, he could only guess that it was related to the break in that happened near his home almost a year ago. A lawyer at that point was a very good idea. Especially since all it takes is an arrest to cause you to lose your job and make it very difficult to get another one. It wasn't until after his lawyer got involved that the state attorney’s office contacted the police and told them this guy wasn't a likely suspect. He would have used the same data Google already gave the police to win his case in court anyway, but it's a very good thing he managed to avoid having to deal with any of that before things went any farther.
- IncreasePosts 3mo ago
  Wouldn't the police have just looked at his location data and see that he lived nearby and rode his bike by often, and that he never stopped at the house?
  - autoexec 3mo ago
    The absolutely should have, but they didn't bother. They didn't even need to go back to review his history to figure out his patterns of activity. At the day of the crime he never stopped at the house and was in continuous motion.

__MatrixMan__ 3mo ago

I've been just leaving my phone at home lately. I recommend it.