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posted by azrael on Wednesday October 22 2014, @11:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the clawing-the-rights-back-one-by-one dept.

Ars has a story that has civil liberties implications galore. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear another Fourth Amendment privacy case, this one related to a Los Angeles ordinance which requires hotels to surrender guest registries to the police upon request without a warrant. From the article:

The justices agreed Monday to hear Los Angeles' appeal of a lower court that ruled 7-4 that the law—meant to combat prostitution, gambling, and even terrorism—was unconstitutional. The law (PDF) requires hotels to provide the information—including guests' credit card number, home address, driver's license information, and vehicle license number—at a moment's notice. Several dozen cities, from Atlanta to Seattle, have similar ordinances. [...]

The appeal is the third high-profile Fourth Amendment case the justices have taken in three years.

In 2012, the justices ruled that authorities generally need search warrants when they affix GPS devices to a vehicle. And earlier this year, the Supreme Court said that the authorities need warrants to peek into the mobile phones of suspects they arrest.

In the latest case, Los Angeles motel owners sued, claiming that the law was a violation of their rights. The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the motel owners in December and said the only documents they must disclose include a hotel's proprietary pricing and occupancy information.

What I find disappointed and depressing about the city of Los Angeles's arguments in this case is this sentence quoted from their petition:

"These laws expressly help police investigate crimes such as prostitution and gambling, capture dangerous fugitives and even authorize federal law enforcement to examine these registers, an authorization which can be vital in the immediate aftermath of a homeland terrorist attack." [emphasis added]

The government yet again brings out the terrorism boogeyman as an excuse to decimate our civil liberties.

Surely the outcome of this case must have some effect upon the pending cases against the NSA regarding its telephone metadata collection activities. In the past, a court has said that a search warrant is not necessary to obtain business records such as cellphone logs, although more recently another court has said that that warrantless collection of cell tower data is unconstitutional. The metadata the NSA was collecting and a hotel register are business records. Stay tuned to this channel, folks. This will be an interesting case to watch.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Wednesday October 22 2014, @11:50PM

    by tathra (3367) on Wednesday October 22 2014, @11:50PM (#108954)

    whatever happened to presumption of innocence (eg, innocent until proven guilty)? this case should be a slam dunk because its basically a witch hunt; they've already decided that everyone is guilty, so they're digging around until they can find something to use as "proof". the whole purpose of the 4th amendment is to prevent exactly this kind of oppression. if there is actual wrongdoing occurring, warrants are easy to get. these seditionists need to be locked up before the people decide their social contract with police forces in general has been nulled and take justice into their own hands.

    presumption of innocence is a basic human right, as declared by the UN. so along with being a country that tortures, if the supreme court decides to further erode the 4th, we'll be a country that doesn't respect human basic rights either.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 23 2014, @01:47AM

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday October 23 2014, @01:47AM (#108980)

      This one is more complicated than that. The anti-terrorism argument is obviously bogus (if there were real terrorism going on, as you say a warrant would be easy to come by), but there are other issues that at least make a case out of it:

      1. I have no expectation of privacy when I book a hotel room, and there's no particular reason I should have that expectation. It's not like it would be impossible for someone to tail me as I'm driving around town and take note of which hotel I walk into at night and leave first thing in the morning. Whoever is working the front desk has seen me, and other hotel patrons may well be able to see me as I'm walking around the place. Somebody likely has a credit card charge with my name on it recorded somewhere. I don't even have an expectation of privacy for all the activities in the hotel room - if I order a movie, that will show up somewhere, and if I leave something incriminating visible during the day the housekeeper may well come in and see it.

      2. The hotel is not required to provide evidence incriminating the hotel, but incriminating somebody else (the guests). Refusing to cooperate with investigations of yourself is protected by the Fifth Amendment, but refusing to cooperate with investigations of other people can be considered "obstruction of justice" or "accomplice after the fact".

      3. As a general rule, businesses have fewer privacy rights than individuals. For example, publicly traded companies are required to release information about their financials each quarter.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:08AM

        by tathra (3367) on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:08AM (#108999)

        3. As a general rule, businesses have fewer privacy rights than individuals.

        that was before the supreme court set the precedent that corporations can have religious beliefs (1st amendment rights). if the 1st amendment applies, then all of them must. police have a history of threatening people into voluntarily giving up their rights; "consent or be charged" is clear abuse of authority and needs to be illegal (if its not already). businesses have traditionally given that information to the police freely, but traditionally the US wasn't a police state. being charged with a crime for asking for a warrant is effectively no different from being charged for invoking your 5th amendment rights.

        if SCOTUS allows this, it'll mean police no longer need a warrant to get phone records, credit records, snoop your email... basically everything that goes through a 3rd party (which is everything in today's society) will be obtainable without a warrant. even if its technically not a constitutional violation since businesses aren't living human beings (though they are people legally, due to Citizen's United and Burwell v Hobby Lobby), the precedent could render the 4th amendment meaningless.

      • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:18AM

        by davester666 (155) on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:18AM (#109023)

        You may not have an expectation of privacy when you book a hotel room, but most people do. Would you object to a computer touch display in the lobby so that anybody can view a list of names and room numbers? What about on the internet? And if it's all just business records, I guess everybody can see what movies you watched, who you called, what you did on the internet. Hell, might as well hook up a security cam in your room to the internet.

        • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:24AM

          by davester666 (155) on Thursday October 23 2014, @05:24AM (#109025)

          Anyway, these laws are pointless. After ANY sort of "attack", the police and military throw out everyone's rights because "its an emergency".

          Boston, they locked down the CITY while they did warrantless searches of houses looking for a single wounded man.

          Here in Canada, ONE guy killed a glorified security guard at a cemetary, and they locked down some schools 2000 miles away!

          There is an approximately 100% Harper will use this to push through a bunch of new "you don't even need to bother imagining a reason to access this information" set of laws.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nyder on Thursday October 23 2014, @12:07AM

    by nyder (4525) on Thursday October 23 2014, @12:07AM (#108959)

    In Seattle, since the 1990's at the very least, police have been checking Hotel/Motel registries for people with warrants and whatever. They also give the police the license of any cars parked there. I've known a few people to get arrested from that.

    Not saying it's right, because I've never felt it was. Hope it become illegal in CA.

     

    • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday October 23 2014, @12:40AM

      by Buck Feta (958) on Thursday October 23 2014, @12:40AM (#108964) Journal

      > They also give the police the license of any cars parked there.

      Systematically, or just on special request?

      --
      - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:03AM

      by mendax (2840) on Thursday October 23 2014, @02:03AM (#108985)

      Because government intrusion into the lives of the public has become such a cause célèbre it's now becoming something that some, perhaps many, think ought to stop. After all, why should anyone trust the government? I certainly don't.

      --
      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.