[HN Gopher] FBI used geofence warrant in Seattle after BLM prote...
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FBI used geofence warrant in Seattle after BLM protest attack,
documents show
Author : pseudolus
Score : 138 points
Date : 2022-02-06 13:36 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| temp8964 wrote:
| surge wrote:
| Right, write the same article about Jan 6 and people at the
| Capitol Building, and few would blink an eye.
|
| In that case, I don't think any any attempts were made to burn
| it down, or a federal courthouse building which has zilch to do
| with their grievance and isn't even the right branch of
| government. Then people ask, how did we get here? When the past
| year of activism made mobbing government buildings placing them
| under siege for weeks and trying to burn them down the
| acceptable norm with little done to stop it or condemn it in
| the media, its not hard to see why the other extreme might
| think its their time to shine. The pearl clutching is amusing
| to me.
| DaftDank wrote:
| Let me start by saying I do not condone the destruction of
| government buildings in any way. Full stop.
|
| If there are separate parts of a system -- but all part of
| the same underlying system -- do you really see them as
| completely different things? For example, I've heard cops,
| while arresting someone for marijuana, just "pass the buck"
| and say, "We don't write the laws, we are just enforcing
| them."
|
| If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and continuing a
| system, are you not an equal part of that system and the
| things done in its name?
| nradov wrote:
| I see the three separate branches of government as _almost_
| completely different things. While I think drugs should be
| legalized (or at least decriminalized), the police aren 't
| violating any fundamental human rights by arresting someone
| for marijuana possession. We need to lobby the legislature
| to fix the laws.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The fundamental human right to be free and their pursuit
| of hapiness is most definitely being violated when being
| detained. A police officer can choose to not detain
| someone or they can choose to detain someone. It is
| within their purview.
| batch12 wrote:
| > If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and
| continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that
| system and the things done in its name?
|
| Yes, I think you can make this case. However, it isn't
| appropriate someone charged to execute enforcement of the
| law to ignore the laws they don't like. The only valid
| exception would be laws that aren't legal and therefore
| invalid.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| >" If you are part of maintaining, propagating, and
| continuing a system, are you not an equal part of that
| system and the things done in its name?"
|
| Absolutely not, with a key emphasis on the "equal part". It
| is totally wrong to assume that I, as a citizen and
| taxpayer who is just living my life normally, is equally as
| culpable as a lawmaker or a trigger happy police officer is
| a fallacy.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The events of January 6th involved attempting to overthrow
| the results of a democratic election because a certain
| faction didn't like the outcome.
|
| Trying to burn down a police station is localized mob
| violence.
|
| They are not the same.
| syshum wrote:
| spamizbad wrote:
| Please make an argument.
| sp332 wrote:
| It's here https://www.wired.com/story/capitol-riot-google-
| geofence-war...
| pacerwpg wrote:
| Here is the hackernews entry for the linked article.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28707974
|
| Nobody responded and I'm not entirely sure why.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Nobody responded and I'm not entirely sure why.
|
| Timing probably. What else was active that day that kept
| the Eye of Sauron from looking in this stories direction?
| Lots of things can contribute.
| InTheArena wrote:
| Everyone is convinced that bad things only happen to them,
| and it's a conspiracy to keep them down - while at the same
| time, applying the same controls to others that they may
| disagree with....
|
| There are reasons for _everyone_ to be concerned about
| geofence warrants. It skates dangerously close to restricting
| freedom of association. We all know that there are bad actors
| - and often the chance to use extremists to paint everyone of
| a particular religion, sex or ideology with the tar brush of
| the extremists.
|
| We don't know - for example - how many people were returned
| here. Was it 2 devices? 200 devices? 2000 devices? If there
| was a parade of people in front of the building? If there was
| just the arson suspects? Maybe only police ones?
| syshum wrote:
| These warrants should be called what they are, General
| Warrants. Something that was abused in our history and
| deemed to corrupting that they were banned in our
| constitution.
|
| I do not see how strapping a set of GPS coordinates instead
| of a city block magically makes the warrany anything other
| than a General Warrant.
| rob_c wrote:
| Strange, don't remember reading about that in Canada atm...
| It's asif there is some sort of toxic culture war going on...
| syshum wrote:
| The problem is not that is was a BLM riot, the problem is that
| geofence warrants are effectively a modernized general warrant,
| something that should be viewed as plainly unconstitutional
|
| They get around it because they have slapped a modern
| technology workaround over the top of out constitutional
| protections as they often do, but a warrant under the US 4th
| amendment is suppose to outline the exact person, place, and
| object to be searched and seized.
|
| Obtaining Geofence warrant is, and should be unconstitutional
| any judge issuing such a warrant is unfit to be a judge
| temp8964 wrote:
| What you said has nothing to do with what I said.
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| What he said actually addresses the article though
| 5ESS wrote:
| aqme28 wrote:
| > What BLM did...
|
| Was this done by BLM or was this independent actors taking
| advantage of the chaos of the protests?
| Krisando wrote:
| Regardless of how moral the goals are of the group. The
| reality is that BLM is a decentralized group that has actors
| which freely associate and disassociate fluidly. Because of
| this, it would be reasonable to assume that this is part of
| BLM as the overall group are not outing these individuals and
| are in fact concealing their identities.
|
| Unfortunately, the lack of self policing with the group has
| lead to this result.
| bobthechef wrote:
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| BLM as a whole was done by independent actors, so what is the
| distinction?
| bobthechef wrote:
| josephcsible wrote:
| If it were the latter, than I would have expected more people
| associated with BLM to disown/disavow the violent criminals,
| rather than making excuses for their behavior.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Oh really? When why would officials say that the biggest
| domestic terror threat comes from __white__ supremacists?
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Both things can be true at the same time. Think about it.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| no they aren't. think about it. White supremacists is a
| real thing. This is the biggest threat to the country and
| they showed that on Jan 6
|
| BLM was a legitimate protests with a couple of bad actors.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| >Why would officials say that the biggest domestic terror
| threat comes from __white__ supremacists?
|
| >White supremacists is a real thing.
|
| Your first comment is answered by your second comment.
| There is no disagreement here. This part is true. White
| supremacists are currently the biggest domestic terror
| threat in the United States.
|
| The parent poster deleted their comment, which from
| memory described their own personal experiences as a
| resident in a place where BLM held a
| protest/rally/march/whateveryouwanttocallit.
|
| They were speaking from personal experience and they
| related an account of events that most of us would equate
| with the terrorization of innocent people who had no
| involvement in the triggering event or in the public
| events during the aftermath.
|
| It doesn't matter when you are defining the truth of a
| statement whether the event was perpetrated by a lone
| actor, "a couple of bad actors", or a group organized
| with the intent to go out and terrorize innocents and
| destroy property.
|
| The simple truth is that throwing Molotov cocktails is
| the act of someone hoping to terrorize another person or
| group. The simple truth is that harassing people in their
| homes and destroying the property of people who had
| absolutely no involvement in the trigger event and
| indeed, rioting in general, are events used to terrorize
| other people.
|
| No one ever thinks that some of those who become victims
| would have supported those in the march until their own
| families and property were attacked and destroyed.
|
| It doesn't matter that you characterize these problems as
| the actions of "bad actors". It is still true that the
| things they do are intended to terrorize others and the
| terroristic events occurred in the context of a BLM
| event.
|
| BLM will not achieve any of their goals until they can
| control their processes and the actions of those who come
| out to support them. Allowing themselves to be associated
| with terrorist actions will cause their efforts to be set
| back even further.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Maybe they support one type of terrorism? After all the
| officials have long engaged with terrorism around the world.
| With support from their voter base, just think of all the
| drone strikes and covert actions.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| right. The most recent operation where they took down the
| IS leader does not smell good. 13 civilians are dead
| including kids and women. Who knows what actually happened
| where and what's the actual tally, but I don't believe a
| word coming from Biden's mouth.
| neoromantique wrote:
| https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/
|
| Maybe it's time to separate the two?
| trothamel wrote:
| Of course, not every characterization of a protest as
| peaceful was, objectively, correct:
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-
| for-...
| [deleted]
| Miner49er wrote:
| So what? What does this add to the conversation other then
| throwing a scary word into it?
|
| The Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism, yet we teach it
| in schools and celebrate it.
|
| MLK was considered a terrorist in his time by many. Now he's
| widely celebrated.
|
| Jan. 6th was just as much of an act of terrorism. Yet many who
| condone this molotoving will support that. And vice versa.
| steve76 wrote:
| syshum wrote:
| I can see this is going to be one of those times were I get
| crap from both "sides"
|
| Even if it was terrorism, these kind of police tactics should
| be abhorrent to anyone that desires to live in a free nation.
| General Warrants are very oppressive and open for wide scale
| abuse.
|
| Fear should not bring your about willingness to cede your
| rights to a government promising safety, for you will lose your
| freedom and your safety
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| So, it was legitimate political discourse then?
| [deleted]
| greedo wrote:
| Some of the events that occurred during the protests definitely
| fall into the rioting category. Terrorism might be a stretch
| though, and you're conflating all riotous acts with BLM; many
| were instigated by white supremacy groups (Boogaloo Boys etc.).
|
| Even if it was 100% terrorism, coordinated centrally by one
| group, it doesn't mean that we discard the laws and
| constitutional protections enumerated by the Constitution.
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| please provide more details on your location so your claims can
| be verified
| batch12 wrote:
| This article has some concerning practices, but I can't help but
| see it as anything other than ragebait.
| [deleted]
| ren_engineer wrote:
| because it arguably violates the 4th amendment. This stuff
| could be abused horribly if it's allowed to continue
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-fence_warrant
| deepsun wrote:
| I came from a country that became dictatorship. Dictatorships
| never came one day, they always creep in bit by bit. So raging
| on each small point is the right thing to do.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Are you against warrants? Raging on each small point is the
| way to become a boy who cried wolf.
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| Warrants on everyone in a particular geographical region
| purely by virtue of them being in that geographical region?
| Yeah I'm against that
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| They didn't get identifying information on everyone if
| that's what you think. They worked with Google to narrow
| it down to two individuals.
|
| That doesn't seem like an abuse of a crazy law from
| patriot act. It's not like they swatted someone's
| apartment for hate speech on Twitter without a warrant,
| someone tried to burn down a police building.
| NHQ wrote:
| What you are missing is the fact that Google is
| protecting rights against the state; but they could just
| as easily decide to give up all the data instead of
| anonymizing and parsing it for them.
|
| When corporations are holding the privacy line against
| the state, there are wolves in the pasture.
| emteycz wrote:
| It's courts, not corporations. The corporation is
| protecting the customer because the law says so, and the
| courts enforce it. This is an example of the system
| working, not a negative.
| kodah wrote:
| I'm a very big privacy enthusiast and you're right. Part
| of effective privacy law is passing rules to ensure
| companies (who have more power and financial incentive)
| protect their customers.
| [deleted]
| sp332 wrote:
| I think holding governments accountable is a pretty core job of
| news outlets. And the use of controversial kinds of warrants is
| newsworthy.
| pmorici wrote:
| The author seems to make a point of minimizing the crime of
| trying to commit arson with fire bombs because the
| perpetrators weren't successful in burning the building down
| as a rational for why this was somehow an over reach. Seems
| like a nutty argument.
| nemo44x wrote:
| That and the refusal to call the situation a riot and
| instead leaning into the "protest" narrative.
| sp332 wrote:
| Gotta agree, that part was weird.
| batch12 wrote:
| The way this is written is obviously intended to evoke a
| specific feeling and convey a single opinion. I am tired of
| being manipulated for ad revenue.
| sp332 wrote:
| I don't know what you want, an article that's happy about
| geofence warrants? If reading an article about a FOIA
| response makes you angry, maybe the article isn't the
| problem.
|
| Edit: to be clear, I did not feel rage when reading the
| article. I don't want to invalidate your reaction, but I'm
| not convinced that the article was designed for that.
| batch12 wrote:
| Reading an article written in such a way as to cause
| needless flamewars makes me angry. The article is a
| borderline opinion piece. For instance:
|
| > While some towns saw significant property damage in the
| wake of the Jacob Blake protests, all evidence shows the
| attack against the Seattle union building was ineffective
| and notable mostly as an affront to local police.
|
| The writer is expressing on opinion that the attack
| wasn't that bad and didn't justify this kind of warrant-
| not that the warrant should never be used-- just not used
| to investigate activity related to BLM activity. There is
| no mention as to the legality of throwing fire bombs at
| buildings or comment on the justification actually used
| in the warrant.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| supreme_berry wrote:
| stavros wrote:
| The underlying issue here is that there's an escape valve of
| law enforcement being ineffective enough to allow people to
| form organized resistance if things get too bad. With perfect
| enforcement, there would be no way to ever overthrow a
| dictatorship, so we don't want perfect enforcement, even though
| it's not a dictatorship just yet.
|
| Also, perfect enforcement is bad for society. Imagine where gay
| rights would be if we had perfect enforcement back when being
| gay was illegal.
| rob_c wrote:
| Good. They're doing their job.
|
| Although frankly, the solution is simple. Use 24hr burner phones
| and never when making outside contact with someone...
| doodlebugging wrote:
| According to the article they have surveillance camera video
| showing the incident. That should be time-stamped with a
| reasonably accurate time and their physical location should be
| determinable with good accuracy from the video alone.
|
| I do not see why the warrant requests data over such a long time
| frame. It seems likely to me that you could identify the perps
| from the mobile phone records by simply limiting the warrant
| request to 5 minutes before and 10 minutes after the event. There
| will be less data to sift through and the longer window after the
| event will allow you to track them to a vehicle or a nearby
| residence, etc. If the perps were carrying phones then they
| should be identifiable.
|
| This warrant is overly broad and will pull innocent people into
| the investigation including people who may not have been
| participants but who may have only been in the neighborhood while
| it was happening and just decided to stop and take a few pictures
| to pass on to people in their social circles. (Social media
| cancer sufferers unite!).
|
| A crime was committed and it is right to make an effort to locate
| and prosecute those responsible so that society has an
| opportunity to hold people accountable for their actions.
|
| Once you dig into this you find another situation where it is
| true that if event A had never happened, then the likelihood of
| event B occurring is near zero. This event is the event B and in
| order for justice to be served, those who were involved in event
| A need to be held accountable. Committing crimes in an attempt to
| force accountability will not improve the situation for anyone
| and will likely only result in someone who would otherwise have
| enjoyed a happy, productive life being locked up for a crime of
| passion that should never have happened (event B).
|
| We need technology that erodes the thin blue line serving as a
| refuge for cowards seeking to escape accountability for their
| crimes. Molotov cocktails chunked at a police station will never
| be that technology. I don't know what it looks like but there are
| some smart people on this forum who may have useful ideas to
| promote.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It's the ballot or the bullet and public calls for more police
| accountability are falling on deaf ears. There will likely come
| a time when the police are lynched in their homes just as
| they've been doing for so long. Most are too dense to see the
| writing on the wall. The type that does see it gets out of
| policing, but often for other reasons.
|
| The rioting is an expression of the inefficacy of the political
| mechanisms we have.
|
| Those areas in US cities where cops don't go are symptoms of
| lawlessness, but not in the way you'd expect. It's often the
| police targeting minorities that leads the minorities to ambush
| cops moreso than the direct desire to commit unpoliced crime
| (though after a certain amount time crime does move in if it
| wasn't already there). In the US the precedent of killing
| police to preserve your life and liberty already exists. Don't
| look up.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Your reply reads like a depressing commentary on the state of
| our society. I don't agree that we will see a time when
| police are targeted in their homes and if that ever happens
| it is likely to be a rare event.
|
| I agree with the part about our political mechanisms since so
| much of the process of making things work for everyone will
| require political action and compromises that are likely
| several years, though hopefully not generations, away.
|
| The first sentence of the last paragraph has likely always
| been true of any town or city. Then historically, townspeople
| who desire a stable existence with a rigid set of rules that
| apply to everyone will seek to install a lawman or
| peacekeeper. That lawman will be given responsibility for
| instilling order, enforcing the law, and detaining those
| engaging in criminal behavior so that the justice system can
| be used to determine their guilt or innocence and prescribe
| an appropriate penalty.
|
| Crime in one form or another has been a part of human
| existence for too many generations to count. Societies have
| their own mores and define their own set of behaviors that
| they endorse and that they will sanction.
|
| I see targeting police as a really stupid, monumentally bad
| move since they are the only ones who can reliably identify
| the bad actors in their midst. Doing stupid shit like that
| will only close their ranks and put a target on every law-
| abiding citizen's back as police become more paranoid than
| they already have been trained to be.
|
| We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior by
| law enforcement officers and work to open everything to
| public scrutiny. I don't know what that looks like
| technologically speaking but there should be tools in place
| to allow officers to report criminal behavior and the use of
| those tools should protect the officer reporting the crime
| since their own life may be at risk.
|
| No matter how much your local police suck, handing out
| lollipops to reward good cops will never be enough. We need
| tools that are easy to use, that satisfy the needs of the
| criminal justice system and enable effective prosecutions.
| The price of or penalty for non-compliance should be high
| enough that reporting is incentivized more than the current
| system of internal whitewashings or cover-ups.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| > Doing stupid shit like that will only close their ranks
| and put a target on every law-abiding citizen's back as
| police become more paranoid than they already have been
| trained to be.
|
| We're already in this part. Closing ranks further is just
| showing people most police force's true colors. Everyone
| was willing to overlook police abuse as long as it was
| targeted against minorities but now the average person has
| had a direct negative experience or has some relative that
| was railroaded by the prosecution and a lying cop.
|
| > We should incentivize the reporting of criminal behavior
| by law enforcement officers and work to open everything to
| public scrutiny.
|
| This isn't working.
| steve76 wrote:
| quacked wrote:
| > It's often the police targeting minorities that leads the
| minorities to ambush cops moreso than the direct desire to
| commit unpoliced crime (though after a certain amount time
| crime does move in if it wasn't already there).
|
| Have you ever lived among people who have committed
| deliberate violent crimes?
| fidesomnes wrote:
| fnalPs wrote:
| I'm surprised that so many here justify dragnet surveillance
| (let's call the method by its proper name).
|
| By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an FBI
| database and will be investigated. Once you are in that database,
| you won't get out of it. After all, perhaps you'll be tagged in
| another dragnet operation.
|
| Even if you aren't interrogated or harassed otherwise, perhaps
| you'll be searched more often by the TSA or magically stopped
| more often for "traffic violations". Or perhaps you won't get
| that job at a government agency.
| indymike wrote:
| > I'm surprised that so many here justify dragnet surveillance
| (let's call the method by its proper name).
|
| I'd agree if it was the government that was survieling
| location. Instead, it's lots of people who buy mobile devices
| and agree to be survieled by a software company so their phone
| can do stuff for them. The government is asking for a
| reasonable amount of factual data from that non-government
| company. This is just bog standard police work.
|
| >By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an
| FBI database and will be investigated.
|
| People that were proximate to the scene of the crime will
| likely be questioned, but that doesn't mean they will be
| investigated as a suspect. The idea of a database that you can
| never get out of that will lead to you being targeted for
| enhanced law enforcement is something that shouldn't exist. But
| it is a different issue than a bog-standard arson
| investigation.
|
| Incidentally, arson is a really awful crime. It kills a lot of
| innocent bystanders and often destroys properties that weren't
| intended to be damaged by the arsonist. I've experienced this
| twice in my own life, where someone destroyed their property
| (once to prevent the bank from foreclosing, and once to get a
| big insurance check) with fire, and ended up killing neighbors
| when their house was ignited by the fire started by the
| arsonist.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > By definition, hundreds of innocent persons will now be in an
| FBI database and will be investigated
|
| I would love for you to tell me how the methodology described
| in the article allows for hundreds of innocent persons to be
| inserted in an FBI database and investigated. Because right
| now, your point is directly at odds with what the article
| presents, meaning you either didn't read or understand the
| article, or you have some special knowledge above and beyond
| what is presented in the article which you should share with
| the rest of us.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Your phone communicates over public airwaves. Therefore the
| government that represents the peoples interests has every
| right, and I'd say responsibility, to use that to help identify
| who was in the area of a crime when it occurred.
|
| It's no different than asking a witness for a testimony.
| ramoz wrote:
| [deleted]
| simion314 wrote:
| Why not also a warrant to Apple since there are more Apple users
| in US AFAIK? Or there was such a warrant but the article omitted
| Apple.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Likely existing agreements/backdoors/vulnerabilities that
| allowed them to get the data in other ways.
|
| They very likely had the capability:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/pegasus...
| isodev wrote:
| Apple wouldn't be able to fulfil the warrant as it doesn't
| collect the kind of data needed to identify users based on
| their historical location.
|
| Requesting the data from Google has the advantage that it can
| also include iPhone users who have Google apps or apps using
| one or more of Google's analytics products with some kind of
| location access.
| rob_c wrote:
| Oh I'd bet highly that they do and it's just that it's not
| advertised or really accessible...
| simion314 wrote:
| >Apple wouldn't be able to fulfil the warrant as it doesn't
| collect the kind of data needed to identify users based on
| their historical location.
|
| How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-fence_warrant
| search for Apple there and maybe provide a link why Apple
| can't find people that have maps, find my shit or other
| features on.
| [deleted]
| echopurity wrote:
| dannyw wrote:
| This is a warrant:
|
| 1. Issued in relation to attempted arson, which I think we all
| agree fits closer with "serious crime" than "civil disobedience"
|
| 2. The warrant is detailed and specifically identifies two
| specific subjects, identified through CCTV footage and described
| in the warrant.
|
| 3. Is approved by a magistrate in a federal court.
|
| 4. Is issued for a specific location and a specific timeframe (75
| minutes).
|
| 5. Is for a specific record of movements during the location and
| time, without account details, before the FBI asks which account
| details they want to subpoena.
|
| Let's look at the fourth amendment: 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
|
| Is there probable cause? Indisputably.
|
| Was the application made under oath? Yes.
|
| Is there a specific place? Yes, both in terms of space, and in
| terms of time.
|
| Does it clearly describe what to be seized? Yes.
|
| Has a warrant been issued by a Magistrate after review? Yes.
|
| Sounds good to me. I oppose mass surveillance (fuck you, NSA),
| but this seems constitutional and reasonable to me.
| syshum wrote:
| >>The warrant is detailed and specifically identifies two
| specific subjects
|
| False, the warrant asked for data for all devices in a
| geographic location, they were then trying to use that data to
| find to individuals.
|
| That is VERY VERY different than seeking a warrant for 2
| individuals
|
| >> Is approved by a magistrate in a federal court.
|
| Ahh yes the rubber stamp, the idea that a federal magistrate
| provides any reasonable check on government power today defys
| countless examples proving this belief to be false. The courts
| rarely reject any warrant requests, this should give everyone
| pause for concern
|
| >>>Sounds good to me. I oppose mass surveillance (fuck you,
| NSA), but this seems constitutional and reasonable to me.
|
| Mass Surveillance is a different topic to General Warrants
| which it seems you do support
| dannyw wrote:
| > False, the warrant asked for data for all devices in a
| geographic location, they were then trying to use that data
| to find to individuals.
|
| Page 17: Page 17: "(a) [...] Google will not, in this step,
| provide the Google account identifiers (e.g.
| example@gmail.com) associated with the devices" "(b) [..] The
| government may, at its discretion, identify a subset of the
| devices" "(c) [..] Google will then disclose to the
| government the Google account identifier associated with the
| devices identified by government"
|
| The warrant specifically addresses Google.
|
| > The courts rarely reject any warrant requests, this should
| give everyone pause for concern
|
| This could also mean law enforcement generally only issues
| warrants when there is probable cause and legal basis to do
| so; such as in this case. This warrant being unsealed and
| public also means the public can review it.
|
| I am absolutely concerned about the encroachment of civil
| liberties, constitutional rights, and privacy. This specific
| example is not a battle I would disagree on, or fight.
| syshum wrote:
| >>This could also mean law enforcement generally only
| issues warrants when there is probable cause and legal
| basis to do so;
|
| We have decades and decades of proof this is claim is
| false, do I really need to list the 1000's of bad warrants
| issued on the premise of the war on drugs. Terrorism
| examples are harder to come by due to "national security"
| nature of them allows the government to issue them under
| seal or in secret courts but the war on drugs provides some
| of the more egregious examples
|
| We even have proof of this very type of warrant being used
| to incorrectly target innocent people [1], remember also
| that the process is punishment in a lot of cases, simply
| being arrested even if you are later cleared can cause life
| altering effects to your life.
|
| >>I am absolutely concerned about the encroachment of civil
| liberties, constitutional rights, and privacy
|
| I am going to press x for doubt on that one. If you are not
| extremely concerned with public private partnership to use
| GPS tracking devices everyone has as a de-facto drag net
| issuing general warrants to obtain data on everyone that
| happened to be in a location where a crime occurred then
| you are not concerned at all with civil liberties, sorry
| that is just a fact
|
| Having seen the abuse other of types of "novel"
| constitution stretching warrants (no knocks as an example)
| have lead to when it comes to the war on drugs I can
| clearly where using this "tool" has been [1] and will
| continue be abused for all manner of other objectives in
| society beyond peace keeping and as a justification to
| harass innocent people.
|
| It takes an extreme ignorance of both history and current
| events for anyone to claim support for civil liberties and
| privacy while agreeing with this type warrant. It is truly
| terrifying that people are actually making that case.
|
| I wonder what other rights you are willing to sacrifice in
| the name of safety? 1st amendment? 3rd? 2nd? which ones?
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/13/us/google-
| loc...
| crmd wrote:
| What scares me about these scenarios is how it fabricates
| durable probable cause on the basis of being in the vicinity
| of the wrong place at the wrong time. Imagine becoming a
| felon because the police searched your phone and found a
| discussion between you and your friend about buying LSD, and
| discovering that the legal basis for that search was that
| your phone was in the vicinity of a crime scene a couple of
| years ago. This is bad news.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| "Vicinity of a crime" has already gotten people arrested.
| And of course, since in the US, the process IS the
| punishment, the guy lost everything.
|
| https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/google-geofence-
| locatio...
|
| Even fitness app data has been used to finger the wrong
| person.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/7/21169533/florida-google-
| ru...
| isomel wrote:
| > Imagine becoming a felon because the police searched your
| phone and found a discussion between you and your friend
| about buying LSD, and discovering that the legal basis for
| that search was that your phone was in the vicinity of a
| crime scene a couple of years ago.
|
| I fail to understand what's wrong with that. If you did
| commit a felony, should you not be prosecuted for it
| regardless on how it came to light?
|
| (Now there is the question whether buying LSD should really
| be a felony, but that's a different problem entirely)
| syshum wrote:
| No it is the same problem
|
| Overcriminlization of society leads to people using this
| defense for more and more drag net style surveillance in
| order to "catch the criminals"
|
| It has been studied and there is a good case to be made
| that the average person commits 3 felonies a day, there
| is no single person in the nation that know every single
| law, regulation, or ordinance one must follow, and some
| are written in such away criminal defense lawyers call
| them "catchall" felonies that are specifically designed
| for plea agreements, to get people to plead out to a
| "lesser" offense just so the felony would go away
|
| Since the 90's we have expanded the number of "crimes"
| that classify as felony as well, when most people think
| about "felony" they think about violence, this is far
| from the case today when there are TONS and TONS of non-
| violence offenses that are classified as felonies.
|
| Beyond drug laws, there are all manner of federal and
| state regulations that can be a felony
| Fnoord wrote:
| There's a simple way around that: any evidence found for
| crimes, can only be used to prosecute the original crime
| involving the law why the warrant was issued. Everyone else
| is offtopic, and therefore discarded. I know, there's
| parallel evidence, but the fact its possible doesn't mean
| such should be used.
| krisoft wrote:
| It becomes very hard to discuss these things when we are
| mixing up what we think the law should be with what the
| law is.
|
| What you are saying is a reasonable proposal, but it is
| not how it works now. And it is very unlikely to change
| in the close future.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I don't know how US law is, but in The Netherlands this
| would've been unlawful evidence [1].
|
| [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onrechtmatig_verkregen_
| bewijs
| vel0city wrote:
| The US has a similar idea of illegally obtained evidence,
| its a very common concept. This is different from the
| above suggestion, which is essentially any unrelated
| evidence of crimes found while executing an unrelated
| search warrant is void. For example, a warrant is issued
| to find documents related to criminal fraud, while
| searching someone's office for materials related to the
| fraud they find a pile of illegal drugs. In the above
| suggestion, they wouldn't be able to prosecute drug
| violations as they discovered the drugs during an
| otherwise lawful search but its unrelated to the crime
| the warrant was issued for. The original search wasn't
| illegal, just that the second crime wasn't related to the
| issued warrant.
| amusedcyclist wrote:
| Is throwing a molotov cocktail really enough of a reason for a
| geofence request to be approved ? These are very marginal
| actors doing something that can't really cause large scale
| damage. By your argument, you're okay with these sorts of
| requests for basically any crime. It seems to me that this kind
| of sweeping surveillance should only be used in extreme cases.
| FredPret wrote:
| Are you listening to yourself?!
|
| It's only a little Molotov cocktail, no big deal, hope nobody
| dies in the ensuing fire that will by the way cause huge
| property damage.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| "Fiery, but mostly peaceful"
| Ekaros wrote:
| So you would be entirely okay with police not trying to use
| available information to find a person throwing molotov
| cocktail at your house or you?
|
| After all they are marginal actors and single person or home
| isn't large scale damage?
| pydry wrote:
| I'm ok with throwing a molotov cocktail at corporate/police
| property as a response to police killing people and getting
| away with it.
|
| There are few "reasonable" options for redress or protest
| when the system itself is guilty and successfully sweeping
| nonviolent protest under the rug.
|
| Those who feel more instinctive revulsion to intentional
| property damage than to injustice against human lives are
| part of the problem and must change. Property is never more
| important than human life.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| I'm not. I don't want mob rule or anarchy. There are
| plenty of examples of people bringing about social
| changes through peaceful protests and other means.
| pydry wrote:
| If the police exist to steal your money, beat and kill
| you with impunity the mob rule is already here it just
| isnt evenly distributed. The molotov cocktails are a
| trailing indicator.
|
| Violent protest paired with nonviolent (e.g. Malcolm X +
| MLK/ireland/india) has a better track record of success
| at bringing about change. The Iraq war protests serve as
| an example of the failure of nonviolent only (and those
| protests were huge).
|
| For the white liberal living in safety you _can_ condemn
| the burned out police station and dead body equally. That
| 's definitely your prerogative.
| pstuart wrote:
| I stand in support of BLM, as in its core tenet, but I
| don't support that violence. In fact I think much of the
| violence associated with these protests are the work of
| agents provocateur working to delegitimize the movement.
| And it seems to be highly effective.
|
| A sampling of such here:
| https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/08/protests-
| provocateur...
|
| This isn't to say that some "real" protesters might not
| get caught up in the melee once it starts, but it's clear
| that outside agitators are _actively_ working to destroy
| it.
| pydry wrote:
| It's interesting the number of people who state that they
| generically "don't support violence" as if there were no
| meaningful distinction between violence against a person
| and violence against a window.
|
| Is it that you see an attack on a person as equivalent to
| an attack on a window?
|
| Or if not, why blur the distinction?
|
| I think that the peaceful anti-Iraq war protests of 2002
| serves as a poignant example of what happens when you
| have a large and entirely peaceful protest. No windows
| got smashed in London. Only in Baghdad.
|
| I actually dont think I can think of a protest that was
| that large and failed so utterly in what it set out to
| do.
| pstuart wrote:
| I'm not blurring anything.
|
| I'm stating that _some_ of the violence associated with
| BLM is coming from people actively trying to discredit
| the movement. My gut tells me that it 's a significant
| amount.
|
| What _I_ find more interesting is that people who make a
| point about the violence categorically seem to to ignore
| this aspect of the matter.
|
| Are you willing to consider that this is happening, and
| if so, that perhaps _that_ should bother you more?
| pydry wrote:
| No, I know some of it is police instigators but i dont
| think it's done to "discredit" the movement but to rile
| up and then entrap the peaceful protestors who can then
| be detained and prosecuted.
|
| It bothers me but I consider it a separate issue.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > I'm ok with throwing a molotov cocktail at
| corporate/police property as a response to police killing
| people and getting away with it.
|
| You're OK with someone setting a precinct on fire at the
| risk of actually killing people inside or in the
| surroundings? People that might have had nothing to do
| with whatever crime the police got away with at first
| place?
|
| You're not seeking justice, you're seeking vendetta, so
| why are you acting like justice has not been served at
| first place? You don't believe in Justice anyway.
| pydry wrote:
| No, Im not okay with risking killing people. I was clear
| that i believe human life > property. Im ok with damaging
| empty police stations though.
|
| >You're not seeking justice
|
| You're placing a higher value on property than on human
| (black) life.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > No, Im not okay with risking killing people. I was
| clear that i believe human life > property. Im ok with
| damaging empty police stations though.
|
| No you don't, you are okay with risking killing people.
| How did these protester know the police station was
| empty? They didn't. You condone violence.
|
| > You're placing a higher value on property than on human
| (black) life.
|
| Liar, these molotov cocktails were not thrown at
| buildings ,in a attempt at arson, for the sake of black
| people.
|
| And don't make it about black people, like all that
| violence was for the sake of black people, it wasn't, it
| was for the sake of violent individuals who clearly
| didn't care about the consequences of their actions,
| actions you condone.
|
| Don't use black people as a shield for your violent
| ideology.
| pydry wrote:
| >No you don't, you are okay with risking killing people
|
| This is literally and precisely what I am against.
|
| >And don't make it about black people
|
| It is about the correct response to people who get away
| with literal murder.
|
| >like all that violence was for the sake of black people
|
| Or for murdered people who did not receive justice.
|
| >clearly didn't care about the consequences of their
| actions, actions you condone.
|
| This is precisely the problem. What are the consequences
| if a cop murders someone and gets off?
|
| If the state does not ensure consequences for the guilty
| then is the state not guilty?
|
| And if the state is guilty, what should its punishment
| be?
| fortran77 wrote:
| Wow! I think you should reconsider your stand on throwing
| incendiary devices.
| junon wrote:
| > Throwing Molotov cocktails
|
| > something that can't really cause large scale damage
|
| What planet are you living on?
| rdtsc wrote:
| Fire can kill and seriously injure people. If this kind of
| weapon does not justify a warrant, what does?
|
| I can see making a case that nothing justifies it, as a
| principle, but not sure I agree that Molotov cocktail is just
| a harmless toy idea.
|
| > These are very marginal actors doing something that can't
| really cause large scale damage
|
| Just curious how would we know that? It's nice if it was
| true, of course, but is it?
| throwaway188482 wrote:
| josephcsible wrote:
| To be clear, are you saying that it's okay to set people
| on fire who you think are corrupt?
| maxlybbert wrote:
| > By your argument, you're okay with these sorts of requests
| for basically any crime. It seems to me that this kind of
| sweeping surveillance should only be used in extreme cases.
|
| I'm not familiar with how police departments and prosecutors
| (or in this case, the FBI and the Justice Department)
| determine how much effort to put into solving any particular
| crime. I'm sure they wouldn't put as much time into solving a
| misdemeanor as they would a felony, and that they would put
| even more time into a murder than a regular felony, but I
| doubt they would have very many rules about whether a
| specific type of warrant is reasonable for a specific type of
| crime.
|
| I suspect that once federal investigators are involved, they
| probably take the position that it is an extreme case and any
| legal technique is justified.
| [deleted]
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