Some more good news on the Fourth Amendment front, even if it's somewhat jurisdictionally limited: the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has (sort of) decided [PDF] the Supreme Court's Riley decision isn't just for cellphones. (via FourthAmendment.com)
In this case, the search of a robbery suspect's backpack while he was being questioned yielded a ring, a digital camera, and other items. The police warrantlessly searched the digital phone1, discovering a photo of the suspect next to a firearm later determined to have been stolen. This led to two convictions: one for the stolen property and one for carrying a firearm without a license.
The defendant challenged all of the evidence resulting from the warrantless search of the backpack, but the state got to keep most of what it found, along with the conviction for theft. But it didn't get to keep the firearm conviction, as the court here sees digital cameras to be almost no different than cellphones when it comes to warrantless searches and the Riley decision. From the opinion:
The Commonwealth counters that Riley does not apply because digital cameras, lacking the ability to function as computers, are not analogous to cell phones for Fourth Amendment purposes. We decline to address the constitutionality of the search of the digital camera on Fourth Amendment grounds, but we apply the reasoning in Riley in holding that the search of the camera violated art. 14 [of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights].
[1] [I suspect the author meant digital camera, not digital phone - Ed]
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:33PM (2 children)
Case law is just the opinion of some guy who dresses daily in a heavy-duty black trash bag.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 28 2017, @08:02PM (1 child)
Judging by your disdain for the legislative branch I'd say you really don't want to open the whole "looks" can of worms!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:55PM
*cough* judicial *cough*
(Score: 0, Disagree) by jmorris on Monday August 28 2017, @06:37PM (17 children)
If searching the backpack was legal, looking at the contents of the camera was also legal. Anything else is insane and another example of our current misjustice system which is clearly designed to protect criminals against the citizens they victimize.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:44PM
Fascist jmorris is fascist! You should listen to the person who told you to get educated beyond IT/Math, you seem to operate on very basic principles of logic due to a fundamental lack of human understanding.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @06:47PM (10 children)
J-Mo, do you understand that you have just spit out almost verbatim one of the pillars of fascism? If nothing else, consider that you're a nobody to the people in power and if they head in the direction you're advocating you could be jailed, tortured, or executed for no real reason.
...oh who am I kidding. I hope you reincarnate somewhere with a fascist government in power.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @06:49PM
J-Mars. Heil Musky!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 29 2017, @01:25AM (8 children)
I don't think you understand fascism. The US is a fascist government, and has been since before the term was invented (by Mussolini) to codify some existing governmental practices. Fascist states are not, inherently, vile. They usually are, but there's no requirement baked into the idea. And democratic states aren't necessarily nice places to live. The actual witch hunts conducted in the US were under a quite democratic government. So was the pillory, and various other forms of public torture. (Including tar-and-feathering which was usually a capital punishment.)
Fascism is the large companies working hand-in-glove with the government. We've had that from before the civil war. Otherwise the "private police forces" would have been at least prosecuted for the many murders they committed as well as lots of assault, battery, and theft. (Saying somebody is a trespasser doesn't excuse you stealing his possessions or beating him up. Those are two separate crimes.)
That said, autocratic states are normally worse than ordinary fascism...and the US has been drifting towards autocracy as rapid communication has made centralized control more feasible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @02:34AM
Interesting approach, normalize fascism as being the way it has always been? I guess you're correct, only the WW2 aftermath and the ideological fight against communism kept the US from devolving into horror as it is doing now. The US had to defend capitalism, show it to be the superior economic method. Oddly that required a massive increase in socialist programs which fueled the post war growth. Then the 80s and 90s came along, the cold war was over and capitalism was firmly entrenched. Goodbye social programs, hello privatization and empire building, and now we're more fascist than ever with the empire on the brink of destruction.
The US is not worthy of being the world leader, at least not with the current state of affairs. Too many xenophobes screwing up foreign policy, too many mad dogs hell bent on killing "the enemy". The great melting pot subverted by millennia old prejudices, the wealthy subverting the will of the people in their insane greed for more power. I hope we can stick to conventional warfare at least, let the survivors stand a chance of rebuilding civilization.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:40AM (4 children)
Well, no. It has a Bill of Rights, which the courts regularly enforce.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:40PM (3 children)
Sorry, but the "Bill of Rights" is almost orthogonal to whether or not it's fascist. Fascist largely has to do with economic policy, and the degree to which wealthy interests control it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday August 30 2017, @08:16AM (2 children)
From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
The First Amendment directly contradicts the 'forcible suppression of opposition' component.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 30 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
Forcible suppression of opposition is, indeed, characteristic of all fascist governments that I am aware of...though with varying degrees of force. But it's not a defining characteristic. And if you think it hasn't been common in the US, your history teachers should be fired.
Also, Wikipedia is *not* a reliable primary source. I, also, quote from them occasionally, but always hesitantly. They aren't reliable, and they have in the past had a tendency to explicitly exclude expert reporting. Don't believe them, only consider them as evidence. (Often the Wikipedia pages will have links to more reliable sources.)
Mussolini, who defined the term fascism, considered forcible suppression of opposition a tactic, not a defining quality of fascism. Many forms of government use that tactic. So this cannot be consider a defining feature.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:32PM
Yes, it is. Wikipedia's description aligns correctly with the way the word is used in reality.
Of course it has, but the First Amendment has its moments, and is a point of national pride. Would not be so under fascism.
That makes no sense. There is no requirement that fascism be the only political system to forcibly suppress political opposition.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:46PM (1 child)
No, Fascism ISN'T government and industry "working hand in hand". Fascism and Communism are exact opposites. In communism, government controls industry. In Fascism, industry controls the government.
With that terrible SCOTUS opinion that said that money is speech, our country is headed towards Fascism, but is nowhere near there yet.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:53PM
That's not what Mussolini thought when he defined the term. Mussolini thought it referred to a combination of government doing what powerful companies wanted and those powerful companies doing what the government wanted. That's why he chose the symbol of a bundle of sticks bound together with an axe at the center. The axe represents the power of the state, and the bundle of sticks represents how much stronger things are when they are bound together.
Please note that Mussolini's main purpose was to make Italy a strong country, as it had been during the days of the Romans. So he picked a Roman symbol. You might consider Mussolini's fascism a nation-building exercise, even though, as most such exercises, it miscarried. But also consider that today Italy is much stronger and more unified than it was during the period of Mussolini's rise to power. So it wasn't a total failure. (How much of the improvement is due to the episode of fascism, and how much to improved communication and transport, is a separate question, and one I have questions about, but it's worth remembering that prior to Mussolini Italians emigrating to the US used to identify with the cities that they came from rather than the country...and IIRC Italy was home to three or four separatist movements during that period. I also remember the area around Naples and south as being a separate country, but a brief search seems to show that this was a mistake. Possibly a bit earlier.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 28 2017, @06:53PM
I might have some sympathy with your argument except for one really evil thing: police officers.
As soon as a menace to society like that is involved, things change.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Informative) by rigrig on Monday August 28 2017, @07:22PM
The judge decided that exception doesn't apply to rooting through his camera, because pictures don't pose a threat.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @07:23PM
There are a number of reasons police might legally search a backpack without a warrant. (Without RTFAing, I don't know which one applied here.) At least one is a ridiculously obvious counterexample: a "Terry search", that is, a cursory search for concealed weapons, justified for the police officer's safety. One can hardly suppose the officer endangered by concealed jpegs in the camera!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 28 2017, @07:59PM
If searching the backpack was legal, looking at the contents of the camera was also legal.
It wasn't. So, it isn't.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:28AM
Our system is supposed to protect people from being victimized by the government, even though that oftentimes results in criminals getting away. Catching every criminal or anything close to that simply isn't our main priority, and nor should it be. I would also point out that many criminals aren't even bad people because some laws simply should not exist.
I don't see how you can say that the government is often malicious and incompetent while also being a hardcore authoritarian; those things seem utterly irreconcilable unless you're a huge masochist, an idiot, or more.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 28 2017, @06:51PM (11 children)
either
Stop taking pictures of yourself doing illegal stuff
or
Send them directly to @HappyCops
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Monday August 28 2017, @07:27PM (6 children)
Yea, want to bet the same retards are going to howl when the cops start rolling up the Orcs tweeting their looting of Houston? Nope, cops ain't got a right to look at someone's 'private' tweets intended to be seen by everyone... well everyone without a badge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @07:46PM (4 children)
Care to explain your usage of "Orcs"? I have not heard of this Texas group before.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @08:28PM
After some searching it looks like just another racist dog whistle, not sure what else I should have expected from jmorris.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @08:43PM (1 child)
He's likely comparing blacks or other racial minorities to Orcs, who IIRC are a sort of pig-human hybrid in D&D or similar high fantasy settings. Basically, he's combining everything dumb about racists with everything dumb about being a permanent neckbeard.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @09:17PM
I've never seen razors run for the lives before, had to double check that I wasn't having fever induced hallucinations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @11:51PM
"the ugliest, but strongest, race in most RPGs and MMORPGs" [urbandictionary.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 28 2017, @09:14PM
If someone posts as picture or video to the public, then the police have as much right to see it as anyone else. And to act upon it if they see something illegal.
People have have legal consequences for posting images or videos of their crimes, and that is as it should be.
However, if I have pictures in a phone in a backpack, those pictures are none of the police officer's business since they are not public. The pictures could be intimate or proprietary or confidential, etc. The pictures don't represent a threat to the officer. Nor would legal papers or contracts that might be found in a backpack.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 28 2017, @08:05PM (3 children)
either Stop taking pictures of yourself doing illegal stuff or Send them directly to @HappyCops
I'd prefer my persons, houses, papers and effects to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. But hey, YMMV I guess.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 28 2017, @08:13PM (2 children)
Me too. It's just a much easier fight when you don't get (illegally) caught with proof of doing something illegal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:34AM (1 child)
It's not, actually.
The courts often rejects cases because the person cannot show any harm. Where as this person can show that he was convicted of something through illegally obtained evidence, and thus he has a case.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:34PM
So ... His file will permanently record the fact that he was clearly doing something illegal, but got away on a technicality. That will be nice and expensive for parties involved, and the next time anything happens in the vicinity, he'll be on the cop's radar.
Hardly a smart career move.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Monday August 28 2017, @07:22PM (6 children)
is no domain specific knowledge.
> because digital cameras, lacking the ability to function as computers
LOL, the guy never had to update the firmware of a camera's LENS.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday August 28 2017, @07:47PM (5 children)
Cameras clearly don't have the ability to function as computers. They are driven by a GUI controlled by buttons, acquire picture and audio data from embedded peripherals, and can send data to wireless networks or over physical cables.
Totally unlike computers, because they don't have a lock screen I guess.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 28 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)
How many modern cameras with WiFi, SD card support and GUI interfaces happen to be running Linux?
Nope. No computers here. Nosiree.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:18PM
Another case in point: "Magic Lantern [magiclantern.fm] is a free software add-on that runs from the SD/CF card and adds a host of new features to Canon EOS cameras that weren't included from the factory by Canon."
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:51PM (2 children)
My old 35mm SLR has no computer, but every single digital device in existence does, including digital cameras. You simply CAN'T take a digital photo without a computer.
I have no idea how your mistaken post got modded up.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)
You may want to read my post again, realize that we're a tech site, and understand that mocking absurd statements takes many forms.
Tone is hard in text, but others seem to have taken the screen saver hint.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 30 2017, @01:52PM
If it had been modded "funny" it would have fit, but the fact that it was at +4 insightful shows that a lot of folks here have no clue about digital tech.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org