4thamendment
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US intelligence wants to make a key foreign surveillance law permanent
The directors of America's federal intelligence agencies appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday in an effort to convince the governing body to permanently extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that enables the federal government to monitor the communications of non-US citizens on foreign soil who are communicating with Americans here in the United States regarding matters of national security. Essentially, it enabled the intelligence community to eavesdrop on conversations between suspected terrorists and their associates, even if some of them happen to be US citizens.
Confiscated data must be returned or deleted if it's not covered by a warrant
Picture a scenario where the government's accused you of a crime. During its investigation, law enforcement copies your computer's hard drive to look for evidence of your misdeeds (pursuant to a warrant, of course). Until today, it was unclear if law enforcement could hold onto copies of your data forever. A new Federal Court decision, however, has crystallized things for us all: the government can no longer keep that data indefinitely. United States v. Ganias is the name of the case in question, and the court held that indefinite retention of our digital files is an illegal seizure under the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Sixth Circuit rules that law enforcement doesn't need a warrant to track your phone
If you go through tin foil like there's no tomorrow (or because you think there's no tomorrow), you might want to head down the store. A recent 2 - 1 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that law enforcement agencies can obtain cellphone location data, without the need for a warrant. The decision comes after a defendant in a drug-related case claimed protection from his phone's GPS location data being used under the Fourth Amendment. Judge John Rogers stated that the defendant didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy for data given off by a voluntarily purchased phone, going on to state that if tools used in such crimes give off a trackable signal, police should be allowed to use it. Rogers likened it to the use of dogs tracking a scent, and criminals complaining they didn't know they were giving one off, or that the dog had picked it up. The use of technology in crime prevention, be it police tools, or that belonging to the greater population, has long been a source of complex discussion, and this latest development is unlikely to be the end of it. But for now, at least one guy is rueing his decision to get a better phone. Hit the source for the full case history.
