CrayonMaster

Cross posted from: https://midwest.social/post/6593381

Criminal suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police under the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, according to a unanimous ruling issued today by Utah's state Supreme Court. The questions addressed in the ruling could eventually be taken up by the US Supreme Court, whether through review of this case or a similar one.

The state argued "that, even if providing a passcode could be considered testimonial, the only meaningful information it would have conveyed here was that Valdez knew the passcode to the phone," the court said. Because police already knew the phone belonged to Valdez and that he would know his own passcode, the state contended that "this information would not convey anything new to law enforcement" and that it thus "triggers the foregone conclusion exception."

There is a difference between communicating a passcode to police and physically providing an unlocked phone to police, the court said. Though these two acts "may be functionally equivalent in many respects, this functional equivalency is not dispositive under current Fifth Amendment jurisprudence," the court said. "We conclude that the act-of-production analytical framework makes sense only where law enforcement compels someone to perform an act to unlock an electronic device."

The FBI investigated a man who allegedly posed as a police officer in emails and phone calls to trick Verizon to hand over phone data belonging to a specific person

Despite the relatively unconvincing cover story concocted by the suspect ... Verizon handed over the victim’s data to the alleged stalker, including their address and phone logs. The stalker then went on to threaten the victim and ended up driving to where he believed the victim lived while armed with a knife

Version Security Assistance Team–Court Order Compliance Team (or VSAT CCT) received an email from [email protected].“Here is the pdf file for search warrant,” Glauner, allegedly pretending to be a police detective, wrote in the email. “We are in need if the this [sic] cell phone data as soon as possible to locate and apprehend this suspect. We also need the full name of this Verizon subscriber and the new phone number that has been assigned to her. Thank you.”

Verizon is not the only telecom that has failed to properly verify requests like this. In a somewhat similar case, I spoke to a victim who was stalked after someone posing as a U.S. Marshal tricked T-Mobile into handing over her phone’s location data.

"Unless your data is fully encrypted or stored locally by you, the government often can get it from a communications or computing company.

Traditionally, that required a court order. But increasingly, the government just buys it from data brokers who bought it from the adtech industry."

"this corporate-government surveillance partnership has mostly evaded judicial review."

"Police can also track people whose devices have been inside an immigration attorney’s office, a reproductive health clinic, or a mental health facility"

"The Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act is bipartisan, commonsense law that would ban the U.S. government from purchasing data it would otherwise need a warrant to acquire. Moreover, with the invasive surveillance law Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire in December 2023, Congress has a chance to include a databroker limits in any bill that seeks to renew it."

Network neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services

The FCC will meet on October 19th to vote on proposing Title II reclassification that would support accompanying net neutrality protections