Secret Service Allowed To Use Warrantless Cellphone Tracking (myway.com) 104
mi writes: A mere belief in there being a threat against the President or any other protected person is now sufficient for the U.S. Secret Service to use cell-site simulators (commonly known as "stingrays"). In certain "exceptional circumstances," the stingrays can be used without a judge-signed warrant and even without probable cause. When asked whether this essentially granted a blanket exception for the Secret Service, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Seth Stodder said the exemption would not be used in routine criminal probes, such as a counterfeiting investigation. I suppose, the personal verbal assurance of an executive-branch government employee should put all fears of the citizenry to rest.
Well now (Score:1)
What's left to say that hasn't already been said?
not guaranteed, could be paralyzed like my friend (Score:4, Informative)
> Can't be that bad, and it definitely will be brief.
A friend of mine stuck a gun in his mouth. Splattered across the wall was the part of his brain that controls muscle function. Now he's a prisoner of paralysis.
To anyone seriously thinking along these lines, that's a very permanent solution to a temporary problem. Remember in high school it was the end of the world when that girl or guy you liked went to the prom with someone else or whatever? Now, it doesn't seem to matter at all. Whatever today's problem is, whatever is the end of the world today, will seem almost as unimportant after a while.
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Just get caught for speeding, then try to accelerate away when the cop touches your car.
Or even just run away from the car after stopping. As a bonus, you get a free gun.
Unfortunately, if you are white, you may have to do this in blackface.
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The way the years are melting away the older I get, I see no need for suicide. Life will be over soon anyway.
While you're here, try to see the beauty in the things that you take for granted. Know that all things are impermanent, including who you are.
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I don't have any ethical qualms about suicide but, yes, much the same. I've made it this far and new and interesting things keep happening to me. Why quit now? Age will claim me soon enough. I hope... I really don't want to live forever - nor do I want to be mentally incapacitated and need to rely on a someone to take care of me.
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To be honest, I kind of expect to tire of it all, eventually, and not want to deal with mental degradation and physical ailments any longer. At that point, I'd not be surprised to see me go out in a heady, warm blanket, opiate overdose while nodding out and enjoying the last few minutes of awareness. I always thought that would be a pleasing way to go if, you know, you have to pick. My other option includes words like, 'sudden,' unexpected,' 'painless,' 'gory,' and 'chunks.' I haven't quite figured out how
Voteobama? (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2008, when this very site discussed John McCain's opinion on warrantless wiretapping [slashdot.org], his views were sufficiently unpopular for TFA to be tagged voteobama [slashdot.org]...
The first post [slashdot.org] requested a link on Obama's view on the subject — and got a +1 Interesting upvote. The reply — with a level-5 moderation — quoted a promise [cnet.com] by the then junior Senator from Illinois thus:
All of you, fellow Slashdotters, who voted for the post-racial Nobel Peace Prize winner based on that (or similar) promise, should ask for your money back. Public self-flagellation is optional.
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While Obama has broken many promises including this one, I'll remind everyone something that's been said before; getting meta-data isn't wiretapping. So much of what's happening now would still happen if Obama was dutiful. Just like his promise to close Guantanamo prison didn't mean the end or torture or the exercise of due process.
And that still doesn't excuse any of it, or let any of them off for their dereliction of duty, and (at least temporary) damage to the Constitution.
Also, meta-data doesn't have to be "wiretapping" to be violation of constitutional privacy rights, as the Supreme Court has ruled on more than one occasion.
(Clarification: while "privacy" is not stated explicitly in the Constitution, SCOTUS has many times ruled that any rational interpretation of the Bill of Rights must include privacy.)
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Hell, we can't even get people to rationally interpret what is written in black and white (ink and parchment). Most people can't even understand how to interpret "people" and "not" or the part about if the document does not explicitly state that the government can do it, then the government cannot do it.
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I like this new definition of meta-data. When I do SQL meta-data is the column definitions, when you do illegal wiretapping meta-data is everything in the table, all the data, except 1 column with the voice recording. Not sure why you believe they are just not looking at that 1 last column (the voice recording of the call) when they are looking at everything else.
I guess you are more prone to believe proven liars, that even you admit lied, than I am.
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The meta-data is what was given to the service provider to route the message like the telephone number, right? That is a pair of IP addresses and nothing else. Since IP encryption does not involve them, what are they complaining about if the encryption only affects data they should need a warrant to seize and search anyway?
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Oh, I'd go even further.
When the left were patting themselves on the back at how wonderful they were at ushering a new era of peace and hope, even when poo-pooing anyone bringing up Obama's vote on the Telecom Immunity bill and his then stance on gay marriage (and let's not forget some of the most meaningful advances on this have come from... gasp! the right), they were demonizing everyone else (Ron Paul especially) with a better record on civil rights, casting doom and gloom upon the nation if anyone else
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Well, to begin with, Christian extremist isn't exactly synonymous with the right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Highlights-
Founding member of the Federalist Society.
Assistant Attorney General (Office of Legal Counsel) in the Reagan administration.
In September 2007 Olson was considered by the Bush administration for the post of Attorney General to succeed Alberto Gonzales. The Democrats, however, were so vehemently opposed that Bush nominated Michael Mukasey instead.
And most importantly-
Olson, over time, c
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No, he means the Joe Biden who isn't running for president.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I never heard the officials explaining why getting a warrant is a problem. Would that prevent them from protecting the POTUS or investigating a crime?
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They used the other exception in a hostage/kidnapping situation, apparently because there wasn't time to get a warrant.
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Which is why "original intent" should be the standard. We have all kinds of documents written that show what the original intended meaning of the document was. But no, the left convinced people that original intent was wrong-headed because it did not allow them to GPs path.
The problem is not that we are putting our faith in 200 year old words. The problem is that we decided to ignore them for so long that any attempt to now follow them is basically useless.
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One thing: If nothing decisive is being done very soon, things will get a _lot_ worse.
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That's where the aliens are with their brain waves. Duh. ;-)
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Do you feel better now?
Need a hug?
*hugs you*
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the type of situation (Score:2, Insightful)
At some point, you are willing to ruin your court case in exchange for protecting your president.
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Yup, I'm totally convinced that is the only situation it will ever be used in.
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And they claim that this President is in danger 24/7/365. That means they can always use it.
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This might be the first time the troll has been right?!? I suspect some of them still do.
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This is actually hilarious. Here we have a thread admitting that the Republican party is actually standing up for Constitutional Rights and the left is claiming that standing up for Constitutional Rights is a racist thing to be doing.
There you have it, folks. Demanding that the law be followed and not being willing to have your rights trampled is now racism. Anything a politician or their appointees dream up is the correct thing.
God help us all.
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Err, did you read my post or are you reading more into it than is in it? No, my expectation is that *some* of the right still wants him dead. I am not one of those people nor am I a Democrat. In fact, I don't really fit that neatly into checkboxes. However, I'm pretty sure some of the right still wants him dead - no matter what he does.
Carte blanche (Score:2)
So, all people have to do is say "it's a threat" and they can do whatever the fuck they want now...
Great!
Can we just all gang up and export our politicians into space?
What? No! Who said they'd need space suits?
Yup, (Score:1)
4th amendment (Score:4, Insightful)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized; unless the government doesn't feel like it.
FTFY
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Is checking the location of a cell phone a search, or is it a seizure?
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Doesn't really matter because both are forbidden.
Glad to see that it's only exceptional (Score:3)
So is everybody else. (Score:1, Troll)
In other news, it is reported that Secret Service is allowed to use guns and rifles. The fact that one does not see agents firing their guns everyday is simply because unless in "exceptional circumstances" there is no need, not because they are not allowed to.
So is every body else.
At least to the extent this civil right is not "infringed", in violation of the constitution. or lost, along with other civil rights, as part of the penalty for conviction of a {constitutionally valid} crime.
And the PC mod it down! (Score:1)
Parent post got a down-mod within 45 minutes. I wonder if any meta-moderators believe that's an abuse?
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There is no check up on this, just as there isn't for all that NSA stuff. A check box, "did you get a warrant?" with no alarms going off if you didn't, and no tracking of what you looked at in any case, is a recipe for corruption to spy on politic enemies.
Oh that's nice (Score:1)
Dear Leader must be protected after all. There are many terrible secrets of space..
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Google tracks cell phones [junkee.com] without a warrant and they don't need a belief in anything to do it. When corporations track and commoditize you like an animal, what do you care about your privacy?
The constitution doesn't limit what Google can do, it limits what the government can do. It would take new laws being written to say that Google can't do track you, which would be shortly followed by Google going out of business. On the other hand, this is big news that the SS can do this, because constitutionally, no they can't.
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You grant Google tracking permissions and can opt out. You've been able to do this since like 2008, but it's just been recently that they've screwed up the interface.
Nothing new..
Are you saying we're nobodies? (Score:2)
Very few people are worried about government surveillance ...
The very fact that we're having this conversation proves that statement wrong. There are plenty of people who care. Some of them are in high places. Some of them are doing their best to stop it.
But the press gets its power mainly by creating illusions for the legislators about how much, and which way, the voters care about various issues.
"Nobody cares" really means that Sumner Redstone (CBS), GE and Vivendi (NBC), The Walt Disney Company (ABC
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Really? (Score:2)
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Well, in case you're only just joking ... the governments have been ignoring the Constitution at an accelerating rate for quite some time.
They're fully into "don't give a fuck" by now.
All those people who have taken an oath to "defend and uphold the Constitution"? That means "except where inconvenient".
Are you still laboring under the belief you live in a free and just society? You should get over that.
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The bits you're looking for must be under all the brown stains that have developed over the years whenever the Whitehouse ran out of toilet paper.
Logging. (Score:1)
This makes you more worried? (Score:1)
As I understand it, if the Secret Service wanted to go and start stingraying everybody, there's nothing really historically stopping them other than "anything they picked up wouldn't necessarily be admissible in court," and all that's changed is that a few more situations would make any collected evidence admissible. This goes for any method of evidence collection. There was some discussion a few days ago in another thread about police needing a warrant to use FLIR to look at possible growhouses, and it's t
This points out why not to use insecure software (Score:1)
Had the network been properly hardened, with a list of valid towers, then a user's cell phone would never erroneously connect to a Stingray tower.
Now, certainly, law enforcement might work with cell providers to put their spy devices on the list of valid towers. But that would require effort. As it is, dumb devices connect blindly to spy devices and divulge secrets, all with no extra effort from the criminals in charge.
And I'm sure it will improve their work no end... (Score:2)
http://www.foxnews.com/politic... [foxnews.com]
Of course (Score:2)
"Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Seth Stodder said the exemption would not be used in routine criminal probes, such as a counterfeiting investigation."
Yup, no fear.
They think we are this naive. Well, most of us are.