Posted on 02/11/2010 8:58:30 AM PST by Cheap_Hessian
Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.
FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.
Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
That's interesting. I would like to look around for it. Do you have an idea about a time-frame for the case? Was it recent - within this decade, or something from the '90s.
"...effectively waiving any expectation of privacy they might have enjoyed."
Obama should have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” when it comes to his birth certificate, school records, etc, since he does claim to be eligible for the highest office in the land.
They had to look at everyone's phone records to connect those dots. It's a world of difference to listening in on someone stateside in an international call with a member of Al Qaeda.
The press had journalists who WERE communicating directly with AQ. This is the reason for the big stink. Has to be. Time Magazine was one such publication with these contacts.
As Rush pointed out, you can’t take the battery out of an iphone.
More undeniable proof that Orwell wasn't a novelist, he was an oracle who wrote in novel format!:
“As Rush pointed out, you cant take the battery out of an iphone.”
Then criminals won’t use i-phones.
EGGSactly Batman!
('cept the proper term is "proles"...)
An almost unknown fact- some phones will still ping the last SIM code for hours after the battery and SIM is gone. Impossible to tell exactly which ones without dissecting them or scanning for a ping.
It's "for the children", of course.
Until then:
High Power Portable Jammer
Introducing the most sophisticated digital cell phone jammer of its class; a mobile device to help circumvent disturbances or noise from cellular phone calls - a high-power hand-held cell phone jammer with an internal, high-capacity battery, universally compatible with UMTS / 3G / CDMA / GSM / PCS networks.
Right, since everyone has a cell phone they’ll just club people, take their cellphones and then pitch them. Great. And all the Lefty org’s that bashed W. over privacy concerns will A) Scream B) Engage in constructive challenging dialogue with O C) Sit Down and STFU.
No need to answer.
Bush couldn’t get away with this.
Old news.
I believe it was this decade.
Or the internet.
Those crazy Amish again.
> Clearly the author thought that some invasions of privacy are unreasonable and some are reasonable.
I interpret the Warrants section to imply that even when a search is reasonable, a warrant is needed with specifics.
I suspect the courts interpret the Warrants section the opposite way: When a search is reasonable no warrant is necessary. And only when a search is unreasonable is a warrant necessary. But regardless of the interpretation, the crucial point is a definition of reasonable. If an male 6' 6' with dred locks and "black" features robs a bank it is not reasonable to put out an APB for a Black man. But it might be reasonable to put out an APB with the full description.
If a website is heavy with child porn, it might be reasoable to check out all visitors to that website. But it would not be reasonable to check all visitors to google or yahoo to find the child porn violator among that group that is overwhelmingly not into child porn.
Is there a way to define unreasonable that is not based on anecdotal examples?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.