For those of us with iPhones, there's an option in iTunes called "encryption". check this box, supply a password (be creative) and if you're foolish enough to hand over your phone without a warrant, let them try all they want and they won't get a thing without a password.
I know no one would ever do anything that would compromise the law, but I would also recommending a passcode for your phone.
Including geo-tags, text messages, as well as the usual information about your calls. The article says police in Michigan have been using it even for minor traffic stops.
The ACLU is challenging the use of the device, but their attempts to gain information about it are being thwarted by LE.
What this country really needs is a constitution to protect us from things like this. I wonder if anybody has ever considered writing one?
Good idea. Technology is moving much faster than legislators can keep up. A digital privacy act might be beneficial and in the spirit of the American concept of "freedom" or "liberty."
I'll raise the issue with my congressman and senators. All they can do is say "no" but you never know! There's a pretty strong popular movement to banish government from our lives at the moment, the time might be right for such an act.
The way I envision it is that any covert monitoring, accessing, collection of data from, viewing of data on or any technology that allows such actions to be required to have a Warranted Search. Of course, worded in no less than 5000 words in so much legalese that no mentally sane human being could read and understand it. Then have a clause in there that states that any other act of data collection is unconstitutional as it violates the 4th Amendment. (Freedom from Illegal Search and Seizure.)
It should also cover those d@mned traffic light cameras. My car is personal property and what I do inside my personal property should not be used against me without first attaining a warrant. IMHO. If LE sees me doing something illegal through my window with curtains drawn, they cannot use it against me, why should they be able to stare into my car? "Reasonable Expectation of Privacy." (Doors are closed, windows up, I don't care if I'm using Strawberry Jelly to masterbate with, it's my car, my private property and they shouldn't be able to look in without a warrant.)
Likewise, those radar guns should be gone. I, personally, believe that the significant increase in cancer is due to those guns! We know testicular cancer in police officers are linked to them, you think just because we're 15 feet away we're suddenly "safe?"
Okay, so I ranted...I have a lot of pent up aggression with LE. It's my personal belief that LE is there to prevent crimes that have victems and only crimes that have victems. Lieing, Stealing, Murdering, Damaging other People/Property, Evading Taxes, helping lost children, patrolling neighborhoods, helping little old ladies cross the street, etc. Heck, bet we could balance a lot of budgets if we limited the role of LE to investigating and preventing crimes that have victems only. No more speed traps... (I have to think the cost of the car, the insurance, the gas, the pay for the officer, maintenance on the gear and car, etc, etc, etc outweigh the amount collected in speeding tickets, even iwth the guilty until proven innocent environment of the court houses.)
Just because the technology exists to do something doesn't mean we should do it. The Constitution was intended to limit this sort of intrusion into our privacy. But a certain segment of society, including many activists judges, seem to think that if some digital devise that hadn't yet been invented, and therefore wasn't mentioned in the Constitution, then it must be OK. Well, that's BS!
Britain has only started to pull its head out of its ass and woken up to the fact that they created a police state while nobody was paying attention. With surveillance cameras able to track a citizen, oh, I mean subject, anywhere in all but the smallest towns, they've created the ultimate "Big Brother" society that their very own George Orwell warned them about before the technology even existed.
As if watching your every move wasn't enough, they also hand out speeding tickets if you exceeded the average speed limit between point A and B- nobody had to be there to see you do it. If you arrive too soon, you must have been speeding and you get a ticket.
We've become a nation of sheeple. We've given away our rights without a fight, hell, without even a raised voice. It's natural and understandable for LE to always want to use the latest technology to turn the country into a police state; after all, it makes less work for them. Just look at how orderly things ran under the Nazis since they didn't concern themselves with individual rights or freedoms.
But we have a Constitution intended to prevent LE or the government from becoming tyrants, because its framers foresaw how little it would take for those in authority to seek control of the individual if they weren't prevented from doing so. Technology increases the ease with which either group can violate our rights as American citizens, and if we don't wake up, we'll suddenly find ourselves in the situation they now have in Great Britain. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not ready to trade "citizen" for "subject"- royal or otherwise.
...and they don't even compensate us for providing them with all of this rich content.
Nice gig if you can get it.
I rent my car out to restaruants and local businesses anyway. Figure if I have to be stuck on the road for 3 hours, I may as well get paid for driving!
Look into it! I get $500/mo from 1 or 2 businesses a month to stick a magnet onto the side of my car with their business name and phone number.
Covers my hobby expenses easily, with enough left over to blow at the casino!
...you have nothing to worry about. Too bad EVERYONE has something to hide!
The application of laws is very subjective, and the framers of the constitution knew that.
Therefore, having been recently troubled by King George's tyrannies, they put in safeguards that prevent the State from investigating people based upon flimsy or invasive procedures.
Thus the term in the Constitution "..secure in their homes...", which is the bedrock of the right to privacy we should (but often don't) enjoy.
What we need to worry about should not be what we have to worry about if the State is being too nosy. What we need to worry about is the State's nosiness.
(still not a Constitutional lawyer)
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
the cops can and will violate them and if you don't object to it, it's not up to the courts to object for you.
i came across a case recently where a drug dealer stated that taking his phone was a violation of privacy because it was a smartphone and had personal data in it.
the court disagreed and said the police would not need a search warrant to confiscate smartphones.
Related Link: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/215836/search_ruling_makes_smartphone_security_more_crucial.html
The ACLU is challenging the use of the device, but their attempts to gain information about it are being thwarted by LE.
What this country really needs is a constitution to protect us from things like this. I wonder if anybody has ever considered writing one?
Exactly, exercise your right to be secure from unreasonable searches ans seizures -- put a security code on your phone and you clearly have a reasonable expectation of privacy. LEO cannot just seize private data.
lets police search your phone without a warrant, back in January 2011. Link included.
I travel to CA a lot for business, so I have been watching the development concerning warrant-less searches.
What I am worried about is not that they can find out that I use escorts (that is another phone), but the kind of information I store on my business smart phone. Also, now they have the capability of retrieving call logs, and encrypted contact information, so how we are supposed to protect our private information? What ever happened to the protection of the 4th Amendment, and the due process clause of the 14th? Do they even apply in these situations?
Since I read that article, I have moved all of my sensitive contact info from my phone to my laptop, and double encrypted them. But I still have to use my phone to make calls, and if some of these phone records falls into the wrong hands, or made public, well, my career will surely be over.
I had an incident a few months back at Dulles airport, where a TSA agent asked me to unlock my phone, so he can check it, and when I refused, he called his supervisor over, where he spewed a list of penalties, and charges I would face for not complying. We went to a semi-private screening area, where I explained to him the reasons I refused the search. He was very understanding after I explained that my phone contains sensitive and privileged information, but still insisted on searching the phone; long story short, we reach an understanding where he would only look, but not record any info from the phone. I sill do not know why, and what they were searching for.
So, what is the solution? Do I refuse to submit my phone, or person to a warrant-less search? But without a doubt I would be arrested, and my phone, and person would still be searched. Right?
So, again I ask, what is the legal remedy? Is there any?
This are truly scary trends, especially when viewed in their totality.
I guess I disagree with some of the posters that say it's up to us and our attorney's to fight for our rights. Maybe technically yes, but we shouldn't have to spend our individual fortunes and ruin our lives and careers in protracted legal actions, just to get the government to respect our rights as spelled out in the Constitution.
Maybe I'm naive, but I thought the Constitution existed to guarantee those rights to ALL citizens, not on an exception basis, and not just to people with a few million dollars in the bank and a lawyer willing to spend it for them.
I'm still stuck in reality and here, the cops will do whatever the hell they want and if you let them, they can. A judge doesnt look at a case and say "well this evidence wasn't properly obtained so we're going to throw it out" .... you or your attorney has to object to the evidence and then the judge agrees or disagrees..
nobody is looking out for your rights but you and maybe your attorney (doubtful)
I don't agree with it either but that is just the way it is.
undercover cops arent like other cops...they are thugs with badges and a license to commit crime.
they don't care about your life.
normal cops are mostly respectful of the law.
I guess I disagree with some of the posters that say it's up to us and our attorney's to fight for our rights. Maybe technically yes, but we shouldn't have to spend our individual fortunes and ruin our lives and careers in protracted legal actions, just to get the government to respect our rights as spelled out in the Constitution.
Maybe I'm naive, but I thought the Constitution existed to guarantee those rights to ALL citizens, not on an exception basis, and not just to people with a few million dollars in the bank and a lawyer willing to spend it for them.
...and you'll be much happier. Welcome to Amerika, where the times are gettin tough and the state is gettin even tougher.
For those of us with iPhones, there's an option in iTunes called "encryption". check this box, supply a password (be creative) and if you're foolish enough to hand over your phone without a warrant, let them try all they want and they won't get a thing without a password.
I know no one would ever do anything that would compromise the law, but I would also recommending a passcode for your phone.
Encryption does not preclude the authorities from reading the data embedded withing the phone.
In fact, the file LE is looking for is not encrypted.
If LE asks you to turn this over along with your license, registration, and insurance card during a routine traffic stop, politely decline. Unless they have a warrant, or they arrest you, you can say "NO". Stand up for your yourself!
I agree. Whenever they ask you for evidence to incriminate you, it's better to decline, if possible, much the way you would not talk and remain silent. Maybe the other option would be to destroy the phone by smashing it to the ground. Of course they would use that information about the arrest and if the stop was just for speeding, they would then become even more suspisious, and you'd feel like a clown.