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i think I find your reasoning flawed, as a matter of personal opinion at least. > Who you called, who called you, how long you talked - this stuff, which is ot

by bmelton 13y ago

i think I find your reasoning flawed, as a matter of personal opinion at least. > Who you called, who called you, how long you talked - this stuff, which is otherwise known as call detail records it available to nearly everyone who works for the telco and is not really what I would consider private. I see what you're saying, as applied by the Smith v MD, that the information in a PEN register is fair game, but even in Smith, the collection of records had to be manual, which prevented its collection and use en masse, meaning that its application was self-limiting. Sure, the police could probably collect all the PEN registers, but as most of it would be useless, why would they? Regarding your earlier statement though, for some perspective, had the British been able to keep tabs on the metadata of the populace, our founding fathers would have all been hanged for treason, and America would never have declared independence. I don't mean to suggest that being subjects of Britain would be necessarily bad, but I think it's fair to suggest that our founding fathers considered their actions just, and as a matter of course, would have likely considered actions that would have resulted in their death equally unjust. If you agree, I think that should have some bearing on your interpretation of the fourth amendment.

Aloha 13y ago
The collection of records has not been manual since sometime in the 80's - the switch can generate a report of all this data. But I get the point. I think metadata alone is useless - it gives you associations, not content, you could be calling someone not very nice to talk about the fact that they owe you money for work you did on their car - or about blowing something up. All this metadata is useful for is generating leads for traditional police work (aka shoe leather) to follow up on and dig up information the old fashioned way.
- bmelton 13y ago
  I'm confused as to why you'd be against the collection of GPS metadata then. GPS data is, effectively, only associative metadata. It can tell you where you were, and when you were there, but not what you were doing. That's why I'm having a hard time finding consistency in your position. That isn't meant as judgement of you, by any means... the entire issue is a morass. We want law enforcement agencies to be effective (assuming that we're not acting criminally), but we don't want them to be overseers. I personally think that the precedent is for us to err on the side of liberty over justice, and I think that in the spirit of presumption of innocence and all that, but that's influenced by confirmation bias, at the least.
  - Aloha 13y ago
    It depends on the KIND of GPS metadata - the GPS that is generated when I call happens is attached to the call metadata. The Metadata that is generated just by having your phone on is not. I'm ok with things attached to calls, I'm not OK with blanket tracking of peoples locations. The standard that I use is what information would you have gotten from a pen register in say 1973 or at least inferred from other sources of data, which is, calling party, called party, duration of conversation, location of parties in call, and really nothing more. Which leave out whole hosts of other kinds of data, like e911 pings, and tower data (showing all the users on the tower) and so on. Because much of this data is compelled to be kept by the government beyond what would be needed for engineering purposes (or in the case of e911 data generated by order of the government) it most certainly shouldn't be available without a warrant.
    - dalke 13y ago
      I find your argument, which is based on what the government compels others to do, to be oddly limited. You often focus on the phone call aspect of a phone, and compare it to a 1970s pen register. But that doesn't fit with modern phones. An SMS message, or a smart phone check for new messages or to get map data, would under the 1970s technology parallel be implemented as a phone call. Under your logic, law enforcement would get all this information as well, no? If so, most smart phones positively leak information. (Note that according to Judge Leon's opinion, it's not known if the metadata we're talking about includes data related to text messages. See p52, footnote 56. If not, why not? Also, the current system captures more information than a 1970s pen register. As footnote 57 points out, the pen register in the 1970s Smith decision did not keep track of if the phone call went through, nor the length of the call. It then points out the difference between building location from the 1970s, and caller location from mobile phones, with reference to New Jersey vs. Earls. 'the New Jersey high court found that "cell-phone location information, which users must provide to receive service, can reveal a great deal of personal information about an individual."' So at least in New Jersey there is a distinction between the two. The point in Judge Leon's opinion is that "This rapid and monumental shift towards a cellphone-centric culture means that the metadata from each person's phone "reflects a wealth of detail about her ... associations" ... that could not have been gleaned from a data collection in 1979." (page 54). While you are entitled to your beliefs, I would enjoy it if you compared your beliefs to the actual opinion under discussion.

by bmelton 13y ago

Aloha 13y ago

The collection of records has not been manual since sometime in the 80's - the switch can generate a report of all this data. But I get the point. I think metadata alone is useless - it gives you associations, not content, you could be calling someone not very nice to talk about the fact that they owe you money for work you did on their car - or about blowing something up. All this metadata is useful for is generating leads for traditional police work (aka shoe leather) to follow up on and dig up information the old fashioned way.

bmelton 13y ago
I'm confused as to why you'd be against the collection of GPS metadata then. GPS data is, effectively, only associative metadata. It can tell you where you were, and when you were there, but not what you were doing. That's why I'm having a hard time finding consistency in your position. That isn't meant as judgement of you, by any means... the entire issue is a morass. We want law enforcement agencies to be effective (assuming that we're not acting criminally), but we don't want them to be overseers. I personally think that the precedent is for us to err on the side of liberty over justice, and I think that in the spirit of presumption of innocence and all that, but that's influenced by confirmation bias, at the least.
- Aloha 13y ago
  It depends on the KIND of GPS metadata - the GPS that is generated when I call happens is attached to the call metadata. The Metadata that is generated just by having your phone on is not. I'm ok with things attached to calls, I'm not OK with blanket tracking of peoples locations. The standard that I use is what information would you have gotten from a pen register in say 1973 or at least inferred from other sources of data, which is, calling party, called party, duration of conversation, location of parties in call, and really nothing more. Which leave out whole hosts of other kinds of data, like e911 pings, and tower data (showing all the users on the tower) and so on. Because much of this data is compelled to be kept by the government beyond what would be needed for engineering purposes (or in the case of e911 data generated by order of the government) it most certainly shouldn't be available without a warrant.
  - dalke 13y ago
    I find your argument, which is based on what the government compels others to do, to be oddly limited. You often focus on the phone call aspect of a phone, and compare it to a 1970s pen register. But that doesn't fit with modern phones. An SMS message, or a smart phone check for new messages or to get map data, would under the 1970s technology parallel be implemented as a phone call. Under your logic, law enforcement would get all this information as well, no? If so, most smart phones positively leak information. (Note that according to Judge Leon's opinion, it's not known if the metadata we're talking about includes data related to text messages. See p52, footnote 56. If not, why not? Also, the current system captures more information than a 1970s pen register. As footnote 57 points out, the pen register in the 1970s Smith decision did not keep track of if the phone call went through, nor the length of the call. It then points out the difference between building location from the 1970s, and caller location from mobile phones, with reference to New Jersey vs. Earls. 'the New Jersey high court found that "cell-phone location information, which users must provide to receive service, can reveal a great deal of personal information about an individual."' So at least in New Jersey there is a distinction between the two. The point in Judge Leon's opinion is that "This rapid and monumental shift towards a cellphone-centric culture means that the metadata from each person's phone "reflects a wealth of detail about her ... associations" ... that could not have been gleaned from a data collection in 1979." (page 54). While you are entitled to your beliefs, I would enjoy it if you compared your beliefs to the actual opinion under discussion.