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Tag: Fort Meade

Down with Big Brother: Supreme Court Rules Against Cell Phone Taps

wire_tappingIn another landmark decision, the Supreme Court issued a far-reaching defense of digital privacy by declaring that law enforcement officials are henceforth forbidden from searching cell phones without a warrant at the scene of an arrest or after. The decision was based on two cases in which police searches of mobile devices led to long prison sentences. This decision is just the latest nail in the coffin of warrantless surveillance, a battle that began over a decade ago and has persisted despite promises for change.

The ruling opinion notes that cell phones have in fact become tiny computers in Americans’ pockets teeming with highly private data, and that gaining access to them is now fundamentally different from rifling through someone’s pockets or purse. This contradicts the argument from U.S. prosecutors that a search of a cell phone should instead be treated “as materially indistinguishable” from a search of any other box or bag found on an arrestee’s body.

U.S. Supreme Court Hands Down Major Decisions On Last Day Of SessionThe Court ruling takes this into consideration, and asserted the counter-argument in the ruling opinion:

That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon. Modern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by a cigarette pack, a wallet or a purse… A decade ago officers might have occasionally stumbled across a highly personal item such as a diary, but today many of the more than 90% of American adults who own cell phones keep on their person a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives.

In one of the two cases at issue, a California man was charged with assault and attempted murder in relation to a street gang in which he was allegedly a member. The connection between his actions and gang activity were made when police searched his smartphone without a warrant and found videos and photos that prosecutors claimed demonstrated that he was associated with the “Bloods” gang. In short, the contents of his phone were used to put his crime into a context that carried with it a stiffer penalty.

warrantless_phonesearchesIn the second case, a Boston man had his cell phone searched when he was arrested after an apparent drug sale. By finding his home address on his flip phone, police were able search his home and find a larger stash of drugs. Both defendants argued that the warrantless searches violated the fourth amendment. The Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling sided with both defendants and declared that the searches were unconstitutional.

Privacy groups celebrated the ruling, with Hanni Fakhoury of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calling it a “bright line, uniform, pro-privacy standard.” The American Civil Liberties Union, the long-time champion of privacy rights and an opponent to all forms of warrantless surveillance, declared the decision “revolutionary.” As Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU’s national legal director, said in a statement:

By recognizing that the digital revolution has transformed our expectations of privacy, today’s decision…will help to protect the privacy rights of all Americans. We have entered a new world but, as the court today recognized, our old values still apply and limit the government’s ability to rummage through the intimate details of our private lives.

domestic_surveillanceIn its ruling, the court also rejected prosecutors’ notion that the ability to remotely wipe or lock a phone required police to search the devices immediately upon arrest before evidence could be destroyed. The court responded that police can easily prevent evidence from being remotely destroyed by turning the phone off or removing its battery, or putting it into a Faraday cage that blocks radio waves until a search warrant can be obtained.

But perhaps the most remarkable portion of the ruling was its recognition of the unique nature of modern smartphones as personal objects. Even calling them mere “cell phones” is a misnomer. As the ruling reads:

The term ‘cell phone’ is itself misleading shorthand. Many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps or newspapers.

warrantless_phonesearches1The EFF’s Fakhoury pointed to language in the ruling about how the sheer volume of data stored on cell phones makes them fundamentally different from other personal objects that might contain private information. This statement that the quantity of information searched matters – rather than merely the kind of information – might influence other privacy cases. As Fakhoury stated, this could have implications for other NSA data-collection programs:

The court recognizes that two pictures reveal something limited but a thousand reveals something very different. Does it mean something different when you’re collecting one person’s phone calls versus collecting everyone’s phone calls over five years? Technology allows the government to see things in quantities they couldn’t see otherwise.

Granted, the court did provide for some exceptions, but only in cases of extraordinary and specific danger – like child abduction or the threat of a terrorist attack. But such specifications require that police establish that an emergency exists before taking drastic action. Occurring on the heels of the Supreme Court decision that outlawed the use of cell phones to track people’s movements, this latest decision is another victory in the battle of privacy versus state security.

And given the precedent it has set, perhaps we can look forward to some meaningful ruling against everything the NSA has been doing in Fort Meade for the past few years. One can always hope, can’t one?

Sources: cnet.com, wired.com, time.com

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By storiesbywilliamsin Issues, News, TechnologyJune 26, 2014June 26, 2014936 WordsLeave a comment

February 11th – The Day We Fight Back

government-surveillanceGood morning all! For those who are unaware, as I was until very recently, this February 11th marks a special day, one which may become a regular thing for people in this day and age. It’s known as “The Day We Fight Back”, an international movement that embraces 360 organizations in 70 countries that are dedicated to ending mass surveillance, like that conducted by the NSA.

At the heart of this cause is the Thirteen Principles, a series of human rights obligations designed to compel all states to stop the mass spying, be it through direct observation with cameras and drones, to digital surveillance involving metadata-mining algorithms. The Principles are already being used in national campaigns and international pressure to reign in organizations like the NSA.

nsasecurity_primary-100041064-largeThese principles include:

1. Legality: In the absence of legislation, no violation of privacy should be considered permissible and this legislative process must meet a standard of clarity and precision that is sufficient to ensure that individuals have advance notice of and can foresee its application. Also, these laws should be subject to period review.

2. Legitimate Aim: No security measures or surveillance should be conducted on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

3. Necessity: Laws which permit surveillance should be limited to that which can be shown to be permissible by, and consistent with, a legitimate security aim. It should also only be permitted when no other means exist.

4. Adequacy: Any instance of communications surveillance authorized by law must be appropriate to fulfill the specific legitimate aim identified.

gavel5. Proportionality: Decisions about communications surveillance must be made by weighing the benefit of that surveillance against the potential for harm that would be caused to the individual’s or others rights, and then demonstrating the benefit-cost ratio is favorable and justifiable.

6. Competent Judicial Authority: Decisions relating to the authorization of communication surveillance must be made by an independent and impartial judicial authority.

7. Due Process: The State must ensure that lawful procedures that govern any interference with human rights are properly enumerated in law. This means that, except in cases of emergency, every individual is entitled to legislative process by an independent judiciary.

8. User Notification: With few exceptions, individuals should be notified of a decision authorizing communications surveillance with enough time and information to enable them to appeal the decision, and should have access to the materials presented in support of the application for authorization.

9. Transparency: Where applied, the State – and those service providers involved – should provide individuals with sufficient information to enable them to fully comprehend the scope, nature and application of the laws permitting communications surveillance.

cyber_security10. Public Oversight: States should establish independent oversight mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability and these mechanisms should have the authority to access all potentially relevant information about actions taken in order to assess their legitimacy.

11. Integrity of communications and systems: States should not compel service providers, hardware or software vendors to build surveillance or monitoring capability into their systems, or to collect or retain particular information purely for State surveillance purposes.

12. Safeguards for international cooperation: The mutual legal assistance treaties (MLATs) and other agreements entered into by states should ensure that, where the laws of more than one state could apply to communications surveillance, the available standard with the higher level of protection for individual rights is applied.

13. Safeguards against illegitimate access: States should enact legislation that provides significant civil and criminal penalties for public and private organizations that conduct illegal communications surveillance, as well as legal protection for whistle blowers, and avenues for redress by affected individuals.

hackers_securityAll of these principles speak directly to the recent revelations made about domestic and online surveillance by the NSA and other security agencies in the past decade or so. They also embrace numerous suggestions that have been made since the issue first broke in the mid 2000’s about way it could be redressed. These have only become more relevant since, thanks to the expansions that have taken place.

Already, many of them are being seriously considered by the Obama administration as a means of making PRISM and other NSA surveillance programs acceptable. By spelling them out to this degree, the public has the opportunity to make it clear that any surveillance is conditional, and until such time as these conditions are met, the issue will not be closed. I have signed on, and hope that others will as well.

If there’s one thing I have learned in the course of Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance, and the nature of what Keith Alexander and his minions do over at Fort Meade, it is that cyber surveillance is this age is an evolving thing. If the law is expected to evolve with it, and we are to avoid passive acceptance of these intrusions in our lives, then we must play an active role in how that law is written and implemented.

Click on the image below to find out more about this campaign, or to sign on:

TDWFB2

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By storiesbywilliamsin Issues, News, TechnologyFebruary 11, 2014837 Words1 Comment
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