Posted on 08/12/2024 3:01:34 PM PDT by Enterprise
In a major decision on Friday, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that geofence warrants are “categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.” Closely following arguments EFF has made in a number of cases, the court found that geofence warrants constitute the sort of “general, exploratory rummaging” that the drafters of the Fourth Amendment intended to outlaw. EFF applauds this decision because it is essential that every person feels like they can simply take their cell phone out into the world without the fear that they might end up a criminal suspect because their location data was swept up in open-ended digital dragnet.
“the quintessential problem with these warrants is that they never include a specific user to be identified, only a temporal and geographic location where any given user may turn up post-search. That is constitutionally insufficient.”
(Excerpt) Read more at eff.org ...
Bet a few thousdands British patriots wish they had this ruling (and an actual legit constitution and judiciary) in the UK right now, with Herr Starmer and his stormtroopers on the prowl.
I can’t disagree with the 5th circuit here, general warrants have always been prohibited.
Have we crossed over into another universe? I don’t even know what Geofence or EFF is...or why I should be concerned.
Cell phones—do leave home without them—or you have zero privacy.
Of course the Feds can still spy on you using everybody else’s cell phone.
If you want privacy go live in the woods and get a dog.
It works for me.
:-)
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The notion that the legal system is going to fix this is absurd.
I would not even begin to believe it possible until hundreds of Feds are sitting in prison for spying on innocent citizens.
Speaking of geofencing, whatever happened to the ballot stuffers in ‘2,000 Mules’?
You mean like the J-6 folks who got banged up in the basement for being in the same town that day?
They’re probably the reason the court ruled this way. Can’t be used as evidence against the mules.
I believe that it would be something like a warrant for the identity of everyone whose cell phone data identifies them as being within a certain distance of location X at a specific time.
It’s a blanket search warrant for EVERYONE in a given area of the government’s definition, for purposes of all electronic signals, messages, etc.
They don’t have a name to otherwise only request, so they include you, without your knowledge, and they know everything do did with your electronic stuff. Sent messages or went somewhere? They can now follow you around, like they did to Trump and his people.
A boon to all the J-6rs arrested because their phone was in the area of DC?
It means tracking whether or not your phone entered a zone of interest. (which they define when they are looking at movements of phones within their area of interest.)
For example, every out of area code number in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021.
Good news.
WOW! This seems huge - is it?
Hundreds?
The US geofence case and UK cases sound to me, a layman with no legal training, like the sort of general warrants that were outlawed in Great Britain in the 18th century in rulings in the cases brought against John Wilkes the English radical/reformer and member of Parliament.
I may be misunderstanding the issues, so....
In THAT case, geofencing was junk. When it’s used for J6 protestors, it’s the gold standard.
A boon to the one who sued. (Someone reported him being in the Capitol based on overhearing a conversation; he snitched on the J6er to the feds, who then found his cell phone number. They confirmed his cell phone was at the Capitol and furthermore, that it was inside the building. They found two locations where it was within close camera range and then asked the snitch for a description of the guy. With that description, they located a possible match and showed it to the snitch for confirmation. When he confirmed it, they made the arrest.)
That guy will probably walk. Anyone who was identified by pictures or FB posts will probably not be helped.
It’s the equivalent of the government having someone available to follow you around without a warrant, suspicion or justification simply because the cell phone tracking/location technology makes it easier than having someone trail everyone.
In many court cases, guilt is almost solely determined by the phone’s location. To me as a juror, the government would have put that phone in the defendant’s hand and PROVE it was there with the defendant all the time. No assumptions.
It does seem huge to me. But I have learned to temper my expectations to see how it plays out in the course of time.
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