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Federal Court Rules Geofence Warrants are Unconstitutional

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday September 03 2020, @11:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-know-where-you-were dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Federal court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional:

In another round of increasingly rare good news in the realm of privacy, individual rights and freedom, two separate US federal judges have found geofence warrants to be unconstitutional.

Geofence warrants have been around for some time now. Essentially, it's a new investigative technique wherein law enforcement, rather than surveilling a suspect to discover if they had been at the scene of a crime, they work backwards by identifying everyone that's been at a particular location and surveilling them until they discover which one of them is a possible suspect.

[...] US courts have recently begun accepting that our smartphones hold so much data about us that they should be protected by the fourth amendment, as an extension of our homes.

Three separate unsealed opinions from two federal magistrate judges have come to the same conclusion: that these warrants lack the probable cause and particularity requirements of the fourth amendment.

[...] It's disturbing to think of just how many Americans' constitutional rights would have been violated if the warrant was granted. Even more disturbing is other such warrants possibly getting granted regularly, aside from what information Google willingly hands over to governments.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @03:27PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @03:27PM (#1045883)

    Can the admins change the moderation to "Spam" so they are easier to hide? Other people are modding them down so they can't be modded again. I'm afraid the admins need to step in. The change in moderation is not censorship. It is an aid for more user control of what they have to see.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +4  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   4  

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:09PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 03 2020, @06:09PM (#1045953) Homepage Journal

    I'll have a look at the templates but I don't think it's going to be something that can be viably hot patched in without a site update.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 03 2020, @07:23PM (1 child)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 03 2020, @07:23PM (#1045999) Homepage Journal

    Better?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @02:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2020, @02:31PM (#1046318)

      Don't know yet. What am I looking for?