Supreme Court Reviews Police Use of Cell Location Data To Find Criminals (nytimes.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: When the Call Federal Credit Union outside Richmond, Va., was robbed at gunpoint in 2019, the suspect took $195,000 from the bank's vault and fled before the police arrived. A detective interviewed witnesses and reviewed the bank's security footage. But with no leads, the officer relied on a so-called geofence warrant to sweep up location data from all the cellphones in the vicinity of the bank for the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. The data he gathered eventually led to the identification and conviction of Okello T. Chatrie, now 31, a Jamaican immigrant who came to the United States in 2017.
Geofence searches have become increasingly popular as a tool for law enforcement, but critics say they put at risk the personal data of everyday Americans and violate the Constitution. Mr. Chatrie challenged the use of a geofence warrant in his conviction, in a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices will examine how the Constitution's traditional protections apply to rapidly changing technology that has made it easier for the police to scoop up vast amounts of data to assemble a detailed look at a person's movements and activities.
It has been eight years since the court last took up a major Fourth Amendment case involving the expectations of privacy for the millions of people carrying cellphones in the digital age. In that 2018 case, the court ruled that the government generally needs a warrant to collect location data drawn from cell towers about the customers of cellphone companies. The court has also limited the government's ability to use GPS devices to track suspects' movements, and it has required that law enforcement get a warrant to search individual cellphones. In Mr. Chatrie's case, the government did obtain a warrant, but one that his legal team said was overly broad, violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Geofence searches have become increasingly popular as a tool for law enforcement, but critics say they put at risk the personal data of everyday Americans and violate the Constitution. Mr. Chatrie challenged the use of a geofence warrant in his conviction, in a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices will examine how the Constitution's traditional protections apply to rapidly changing technology that has made it easier for the police to scoop up vast amounts of data to assemble a detailed look at a person's movements and activities.
It has been eight years since the court last took up a major Fourth Amendment case involving the expectations of privacy for the millions of people carrying cellphones in the digital age. In that 2018 case, the court ruled that the government generally needs a warrant to collect location data drawn from cell towers about the customers of cellphone companies. The court has also limited the government's ability to use GPS devices to track suspects' movements, and it has required that law enforcement get a warrant to search individual cellphones. In Mr. Chatrie's case, the government did obtain a warrant, but one that his legal team said was overly broad, violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
But we still can't use cellphone data to find... (Score:4, Funny)
front page dupes. [slashdot.org]
Re:But we still can't use cellphone data to find.. (Score:5, Informative)
In Mr. Chatrie’s case, the government did obtain a warrant, but one that his legal team said was overly broad, violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. The Justice Department has insisted that a warrant was not needed to sift through anonymous location data. By the end of the Monday’s argument, it seemed likely that a majority of the court would reject that position and find that warrants are generally required for searches of location data. Several justices also suggested they might seek to provide some guidance for ensuring that such warrants are as narrow and specific as possible. It was not immediately clear what that outcome would mean for Mr. Chatrie’s case.
if they found evidence (Score:2)
Re:if they found evidence (Score:5, Informative)
But if it wasn't legal to obtain the cell phone data in the first place, then none of that is admissible as it's fruit of the poisonous tree [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3)
Re:if they found evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, many cultural norms are bull-shit, such as "innocent until proven guilty" and "the whole truth".
How do we know you're being "true"? The best example is the 'news' delivered by Fox News and more recently, by CNN and CBS: There's a reason why a certain word is in quotes. Do you know the reason?
Like any mid-level manager, the rules aren't there to protect the rich (despite recent court rulings to protect only the rich), they're there to protect the bullshit that makes jurisprudence (and the mid-level manager) valuable. The ruling that the cop decided it was allowed, so it must be allowed, is the exact opposite: The bottom-rung worker now decides what is legal. Given the racism, political partisanship and thuggery inside so many US police departments, that is a recipe for disaster.
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This case is the criminal's hail mary pass to get being caught red-handed thrown out of court.
If an illegal hop was made to find the bank robber, he gets to walk free. If police are permitted to do this style of search, the bank robber's guilty verdict is upheld.
The results have an important cascade through the criminal justice system.
Seems overly broad (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, if they had some other evidence, such as a tip, that Mr. X suddenly had a bunch of cash and was bragging about knocking off a bank, then getting a warrant to see of Mr. X's phone was in the bank that day seems much more appropriate for granting a warrant.
One is fishing, the other is following the evidence. I believe the Constitution protects from fishing expeditions.
Re: (Score:1)
Sadly, the make up of the current Supreme Court does not care what should or should not be constitutional. Instead, the majority protects vested interests. They will throw out precedent that they agreed was binding precedent during their confirmation. They won't go all the way back to the creation of the constitution, because what they are advocating won't fly in those times. Instead, they will choose a time that they like, and say it is a traditional view.
Re:Seems overly broad (Score:4, Interesting)
To expand on your analogy. Let's say that the police want to physically search and question every single person who attended a museum the week of a theft. They haul each person in for a full 36 hours of interrogation, tied to a chair, complete with waterboarding, and a nurse in goggles and leather apron, pulling on a thick latex glove with a *snap" as they let it go. That's pretty obviously unreasonably broad search and seizure.
Cell phone records don't feel the same to me. This is gonna get me downmodded instantly, but, to me, cell phone records just don't seem like "special information". I signed up for the cell phone plan. I voluntarily carried my phone that day in a public place. I could have turned it off and put it in an aluminum pouch, but I didn't. I walked around broadcasting data across a full gigahertz of spectrum to every cell tower within range. The data gets collected by at least a dozen data aggregators, who go on to sell it to hundreds of other companies. Which means that my cell phone records are probably for sale to literally anyone on the planet who goes to the effort of calling up a data aggregator and writing a check.
But, for some reason, the police can't get the same data because it's "unreasonable"? To me, that just doesn't pass the sniff test. When I walk out my front door with a modern smartphone in my pocket, I'm basically screaming my data to the rest of the world.
This sounds like that South Park bit "Meghan and Harry World Privacy Tour".
Downmod in 3,2,1
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The fact that it would be easy for criminals to evade detection (it's extremely obvious that you wouldn't bring your phone to a bank robbery) is irrelevant, because the vast majority of criminals do stupid things. As in this case, for example.
Either you're willing to not catch tons of catchable criminals to protect public privacy, or you're willing to give up privacy to catch them. A dream world where criminals make good decisions so that there's no issue isn't an option.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Seems overly broad (Score:5, Interesting)
The data gets collected by at least a dozen data aggregators, who go on to sell it to hundreds of other companies. Which means that my cell phone records are probably for sale to literally anyone on the planet who goes to the effort of calling up a data aggregator and writing a check.
True, and I'm opposed to this too, but it is irrelevant when it comes to the constitutionality of a search for a criminal case. For example, Lowe's may have records that I bought a shovel last year, and they may have even sold that info to a company that markets for fence installers. But that doesn't give the government the right to browse through those data to try to find suspects for a round of recent grave robberies, even if they purchase it from Lowe's.
And if they are allowed to search your cell phone records, why not your email? Your email is routed to your "voluntary" cell phone, too. Your text messages? All other phone app activity? It's all being broadcast in the open, from your phone, too, no? (Maybe it is encrypted, but why can't the government just have an encryption key, too? It's only going to target criminals, right?)
Re:Seems overly broad (Score:5, Interesting)
But, let's take your shovel analogy. When I buy the shovel, my cell phone transmits that data to at least a dozen places, which then sell that info to a hundred other places, which inundate me with ads for other garden tools for the next 5 years. I see this play out on my cell phone constantly.
So, it's not just one or two companies that know about my shovel purchase. It's literally every company on the planet that has an interest in me and is willing to spend the 0.000001$ required to buy my info. If the info is that widely available, I would argue that it's not "unreasonable" for the government to have access as well.
I also understand that this idea could be extended to the point of absurdity, and that there's a legit societal debate to be had about privacy versus security versus freedom.
However, this guy's court case is basically "the government isn't allowed to know I was driving on a public road because my iphone is sacrosanct like my immortal soul". Sorry, that simply doesn't pass the sniff test.
Re: (Score:2)
See, I disagree with you. Let's use the example from a well know movie, Heat. At the beginning of the movie, Val Kilmer goes and buys a shape charge that can blow the door off the back of the armored truck. The police realize that's what they used, so it seems reason enough to go looking for possibly suspects that bought this device and are also in Los Angeles during the crime. It didn't pan out for them, since it was to easy to get that explosive device in NV or AZ with a simple ID, but the idea behind it
When Supreme Court... (Score:2)
Already solved (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just an FYI (Score:2)
Aggregate Telemetry first, then isolate identity (Score:2)
The summary said they have a warrant (Score:2)
If the police have a warrant to search through the cellphone data, then I'm not seeing the problem here. Now if there was no warrant, that would be different, though not all that much. Your cellphone location isn't your data, it's the cellphone carriers. So if the carrier wants to provide the police with the data upon request, sounds fine to me.
Maybe the fucking retard should have left his cellphone at home when he was going to go rob the bank. I don't know about you, but I WANT bank robbers to go to jail.
Re: (Score:3)
The issue is whether the (geofence)warrant was valid.
The defendant's position is geofence warrants violate the 4th amendment. The 4th Amendment requires that warrants "particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Geofence warrants are "reverse searches." Instead of identifying a suspect and searching their location, police identify a location and search for every "suspect" (device) inside it.
Privacy advocates and several high-ranking judges argue that geofence warr
Can't speak for the judges (Score:2)
Honestly, once one realizes that the constitution was written even before electricity, I think I can easily argue that the geofence describes it.
The trick is to realize that "particularly" does not mean "specifically" really. A warrant can be rather vague on what is to be seized, like "money", "documents", "drugs", etc...
In this case the location is rather specific in location and time: The vicinity of the Bank during the robbery.
Things to be seized: Digital data stretches this a bit, but "phone number an
Bank robbing with a telephone (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
People are so used to hauling their phone everywhere today, without realizing that it is essentially a continuously active tracking device.
Being realistic (Score:2)
I assume the interested parties are doing what they wish and scooping up everything in some form.
regardless of law or warrant, inadmissible or not.
Whatever they haven't been able to index and archive is considered a fault to be remedied.
The law is just an impediment if a case reaches the courts.
I wouldn't show up on one of these (Score:2)
I walk around with a cell phone, but I'm not careless enough to let it tell Google where I am.