[HN Gopher] Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to tr...
___________________________________________________________________
Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people's
cell phones
Author : croh
Score : 194 points
Date : 2022-04-16 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.insidenova.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.insidenova.com)
| steve76 wrote:
| mdb31 wrote:
| _" We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a
| country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including
| the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation
| (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time."_
|
| Oooh, wait until they hear about CCPA... (but anyway, I'm sure
| the 'secret GPS pings' are just plain-old stealth SMS, and we're
| all better off not reading TFA in any case)
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I never understood these concerns in the US, for US web sites.
| What do they even care about our laws?
|
| If there was a US law stating something similar for people
| connecting connecting to my French site from the US I would
| just smile and live on. I do not expect the CIA to kidnap me
| and bring me in front of a US court.
| kube-system wrote:
| They may do business in the EU, want to have that option at a
| later point, or may want to make it easy to be acquired by a
| multinational company.
|
| Or it's just a low-effort CYA move recommended by a lawyer.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| > They may do business in the EU, want to have that option
| at a later point, or may want to make it easy to be
| acquired by a multinational company.
|
| This is a possibility though I have usually seen these
| blocking pages on small, local web sites.
| waqf wrote:
| Specifically, only on "independent local" news sites. I
| have to wonder if they, or the entity who operates the
| website on their behalf, all belong to the same
| multinational. Like the "independent local" TV stations
| that are all owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.
|
| I can't think of any other reason that so many local news
| sites would be affected, and so few other sites.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Most of these local news sites with the same corporate
| owner all have the same site reskined for locality. So it
| would make sense they all behave the same way.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| If the CIA were to kidnap you, I doubt it would be so they
| could bring you in to face a US court. It would be some site
| totally not on the map in a country with a higher tolerance
| to see if you can breath with water in your lungs.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| So an article about corporates violating our privacy doesn't
| comply with laws on privacy?
| buildbot wrote:
| No, it looks like a 2 years location dragnet warrant issued
| against someone for merely being around someone experiencing an
| overdose. IMO, this should be completely unconstitutional.
| tyrfing wrote:
| Where is it stated that he was tracked for 2 years?
| mdoms wrote:
| It doesn't, it says 30 days and renewable by the court.
| lmkg wrote:
| > Oooh, wait until they hear about CCPA...
|
| Actually Virginia has its own data privacy law now, modelled on
| CCPA.
| flotzam wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220416175850/https://www.insid...
|
| > I'm sure the 'secret GPS pings' are just plain-old stealth
| SMS
|
| Worse: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28991641 (depending
| on the carrier)
|
| And look who takes the cake _again_ this time: "Sprint offered
| the cheapest prices to report locations back to law
| enforcement, charging a flat fee of $100 per month."
| duxup wrote:
| This guy's friend died of an overdose and that was enough
| justification to track him?
|
| That seems like way too low of a bar.
| sneak wrote:
| As someone who has read a fair number of granted search
| warrants, I can attest to the fact that 100% had obvious
| technical, logical, or factual errors (under penalty of
| perjury) that were granted by the judge anyway.
|
| The bar/basis to successfully receive a search warrant is
| hilaribad. It's pretty close to a rubber stamp. The courts just
| believe whatever crap the cops spew out.
| [deleted]
| no_no_no_no wrote:
| mohamez wrote:
| >routinely
|
| This is frightening.
| woem wrote:
| Could the wireless carriers track phones even if they were
| carrier unlocked or factory unlocked?
| orangepurple wrote:
| The cellular modem usually has GPS and SMS capabilities
| integrated in one hardware package.
|
| Also, separately, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS#Silent_SMS
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, this functionality is required by law and is done at the
| chipset firmware level these days. And even before phones
| supported this, it was done by triangulation at the carriers
| towers.
| usrn wrote:
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| People brought phones to Jan 6th protest, thats how many of the
| 800 people have been found and imprisoned. Should be a lesson to
| future political protestors.
| 542458 wrote:
| Does anybody have info on how this works on a technical level?
| I.e., is it an actual report of the phone's GPS position, or is
| it tower-side triangulation? If the former, do all devices
| support it?
| flotzam wrote:
| https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21088576/march-2019-f...
| (PDF page 57)
| H8crilA wrote:
| This is better than the OP link! Let's get this to the front
| page.
| kube-system wrote:
| Both, depending on what features are supported by the handset
| and/or network. Earlier phases of e911 compliance did it with
| triangulation, and later phases do it with GPS location.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1#Wireless_locati...
| 542458 wrote:
| Hunh. Does this definitely use the e911 system for tracking?
| If so, there's sort of a well-poisoning thing going on here.
| Most people would like 911 be able to figure out where
| they're calling from in an emergency, but if this is going to
| be abused for surveillance purposes people are going to want
| to disable the phone-side portion of it - which prevents it
| from helping in an emergency. On that note, can this even be
| disabled on iOS/android? I didn't see anything obvious in iOS
| settings (not that I'm itching to disable it - just curious
| if I even can!).
|
| In any case, I would like my device to report whenever the
| network does something unusual, like request my location or
| put in a no-ring call. I wonder if you can make a pinephone
| or Android do that.
| kube-system wrote:
| As I understand it is mostly handled by the chipset
| firmware these days, and no options are available to
| disable it because it is a legal requirement. But even if
| you were able to disable the functionality, the carriers
| towers can triangulate you.
| car_analogy wrote:
| It's revolting that we've allowed functionality to betray
| its owner to be legally mandated into "our" devices. It's
| no surprise that they keep this so very discreet.
|
| Edit: I am specifically referring to the e911 ability to
| without owner interaction or knowledge send GPS
| coordinates, _not_ to network-side triangulation, or even
| to sending GPS coordinates when the owner initiates a 911
| call.
| kube-system wrote:
| I remember seeing it talked about on local news when it
| was being implemented. It was normal to list "e911
| support" on the outside of phone boxes when it was a new
| feature. Just checked my desk drawer and it is listed on
| the box of one of my HTC phones and one of my Samsung
| phones.
|
| E911 can also use triangulation which is isn't "in" your
| phone anyway. It's possible with any type of radio
| transmission due to plain old physics.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's "your" device but you're using it to communicate
| with things that are not your cell phone tower or
| telecoms network. One can have a reasonable discussion
| about the circumstances under which the telco
| doesn't/shouldn't know where your phone is but clearly
| there's some point where it's a function of using your
| phone.
|
| (As others have noted there may be some confusion here
| between GPS data and cell tower triangulation.)
| 542458 wrote:
| Hmm. Re: chipset firmware, the GPS chip and the cellular
| modem are typically separate and not directly connected,
| right? So doesn't that mean there is necessarily
| something in the main phone software that's handling
| passing GPS data from the gps to the modem chip on-demand
| from the modem firmware?
| kube-system wrote:
| I believe it is pretty common for LTE modems to include
| GNSS support these days. I know many modems for even for
| data-only applications do. And it sounds like Qualcomm
| does it on their phone modems from this description:
| https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2021/07/27/qualcomm-
| locati...
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| It's possible the technical details were lost on the
| journalist. I mean, maybe this secret ping really exists or
| perhaps they're just using the tower based phone location
| system that they developed for Phase I of e911 support.
| hammock wrote:
| Chesterfield County, Va. can be generally understood as one of
| the most, if not the most, pro-cop (densely populated) counties
| in the whole country. You don't want to be arrested there
|
| Edit: not sure the reason for the downvotes, this fact is useful
| context and first-hand
| eganist wrote:
| Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws,
| at least re: driving.
|
| The lesser of either 20 over the speed limit or any speed over
| ~80~ 85 miles an hour (thanks jmisavage) in Virginia is a
| misdemeanor, and at least one auto journalist has been jailed
| in Virginia. https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-
| lessons-from-my...
|
| It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I am someone who's extraordinarily sympathetic to
| journalists. But I don't think there's really any excuse for
| going 93 miles an hour on a country road marked for 55, as
| this author did.
|
| Should he have been sent to jail for it? I don't think so.
| But it's remarkable how _acceptable_ that behavior seems to
| be.
| warning26 wrote:
| Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any
| context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads
| for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits.
| root_axis wrote:
| Virginia has a lot of deer, especially on interstate
| roads flanked by forest - 90mph is a death wish when one
| of these deer pop into your path.
| worik wrote:
| > Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in
| any context. If you want people to go slow, design the
| roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary
| limits.
|
| In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one
| really stands out.
|
| I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands. I
| want you regulated to hell and back when you operate a
| tonne of steel at thirty metres per second heading in my
| general direction.
|
| Actually: Can you, especially you warning26, catch a bus?
| neither_color wrote:
| Are you familiar with the autobahn?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn
|
| Parts of highway with unrestricted speed are not only
| possible, they're not particularly dangerous either.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's a limited access highway, not an ordinary road with
| at grade intersections and inadequate sight lines.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Narrow roads to improve safety are a proposed (and
| increasingly adopted) regulation. They're not privatized
| roads.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Speed limits are a blunt instrument, because "slow" isn't
| the real goal: the goal is to get people to drive
| _safely_ , and one way they currently don't do that is by
| driving at reckless speeds (regardless of what the limit
| happens to be.)
| 1123581321 wrote:
| You don't know which speeds are actually reckless. Using
| speed limits to inform your opinion is circular. It
| depends on the design and condition of the road, the
| quality and features of the car, and traffic, weather and
| environmental conditions.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I didn't say that I did know. It's a general point, one
| that I can make by pointing to _any_ particular example
| of reckless driving (of which there are many, including
| ones I have been personally subjected to.)
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Yes, you did. You said you didn't think there was any
| excuse for going 93 in a 55.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Well we have the stats and at 30mph already a pedestrian
| has a low chance of survival. So there is a perfectly
| good case to be made that just exceeding 20mph is
| reckless. Maybe we just limit cars there, then at least
| we are not "circularly informed", whatever that means.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| You play pick your speed limit in the wrong place in
| Chesterfield county, you'll discover that those speed
| limits are where they are because the roads haven't been
| updated since they originally had asphalt laid down.
|
| It was a very specific road near where I grew up. Nice
| and flat. Looked like you could do any speed you wanted.
| People routinely did 55. Posted was 30.
|
| Near one end of the road was a tree slowly pushing a tree
| root underneath the road. This followed into a sharp
| curve bordered by a second, ancient tree.
|
| The neighborhood lost about one person every 6 months who
| got complacent driving that road faster than speed limit
| and then got decapitated when they hit that tree root,
| their car went airborne, rotated 90deg, and the top half
| of the passenger space intersected the ancient tree down
| the road.
|
| DOTs get no budget to reshape a bad road and do the best
| they can to try and keep us from killing ourselves out
| there.
| nh2 wrote:
| Pessimise roads because people cannot stick to basic
| rules? That's silly. Instead, take away their ability to
| drive if they can't do it responsibly.
|
| If an ambulance has to go that way, you'd want that to be
| able to drive fast.
|
| Also, people can drive poorly on any type of road.
| jonhohle wrote:
| At least in Arizona where the top end is 75MPH, speed
| limits on highways seem reasonable for the environment.
| There are plenty of opportunities to go careening off the
| side of a mountain or into oncoming traffic because a 1/4
| mile earlier nothing would suggest that the natural
| momentum from the grade of the mountain road was
| excessive for the upcoming switchback.
|
| So they could set up some arbitrary obstacles to slow
| people down prior to the natural contour of the terrain,
| or, you know, throw up a sign which indicates a safe
| speed for the upcoming section of highway.
| chrismcb wrote:
| So we should make roads more dangerous instead of using
| speed limits? That seems backwards.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Speed limits exist because stupid people exist. When I
| was young, I was stupid. I thought it'd be cool to count
| how many streets I'd on which I'd driven at least 100kph.
| Soon after that I got into an accident because I was
| going too fast and couldn't slow down in time.
| worik wrote:
| Golly.I read that article.
|
| What a hideous person.
|
| Who drives so fast on country roads? Very selfish people who
| do not care about their own lives let alone the lives of
| others.
|
| What a good punishment! Much better than a fine. We should
| use short prison sentences much more for the sorts of crimes
| rich privileged reprobates like this do.
|
| Then the winging! It seems gaol is not pleasant. Does the
| writer want sympathy? None from me!
|
| I so wish the officer had impounded the car and left these
| two people on the side of the road. The officer did not. But
| still the winging!
| tomc1985 wrote:
| The 101 through Sonoma/Humboldt/Mendocino counties is, at
| some places, a 2-lane highway weaving its way through a
| twisty curvy Redwood forest at 55-65mph, and up to 75mph
| when it's a six-lane highway. And here in Southern
| California I regularly get away with 80-85mph in front of
| CA highway patrol. Most places I've been to in the US seem
| to consider 5-10 over the limit to be acceptable. I have
| even heard of freeways in Texas permitting 80 MPH! So these
| speeds are not unheard of (maybe on a country road but
| you'd expect the kind of treatment that guy got for
| 100MPH+)
|
| Judging by your writing you sound British, IMO speed limits
| in a lot of Europe are ridiculously low; our highway speeds
| shown in MPH are often a larger number than your highway
| speeds shown in KPH.
| jameshart wrote:
| For someone so ready to leap to conclusions, you don't
| sound particularly informed about British attitudes to
| road speed (notably, Britain still uses mph, not km/h).
| You might be surprised to discover that outside built up
| areas in the UK the national speed limit on an undivided
| road is 60mph. Not an undivided _highway_ - an undivided
| _road_.
|
| Here's an example of a random British B road with a 60mph
| speed limit: https://goo.gl/maps/2jetrMeoWbuTvShN9
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| There are a few stretches of highway near Austin that
| have 80 posted and people absolutely fly on that road. I
| was in a shitty rental trying to do 80 and people were
| passing me like I was driving slow. It was wild
| lolpython wrote:
| Nitpick: I think you meant to write "whinging" rather than
| "winging"
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Considering the effects of driving at these speeds, I'd say
| the legal absurdity is the other 49 states not having similar
| punishments for people who drive at these incredibly
| dangerous speeds. An enormous amount of people die or acquire
| permanent, life-altering disabilities at the hands of people
| who were speeding and crashed.
| hammock wrote:
| To add to the other comment, your idea ignores the history
| of speed limits and how they aren't just for safety. For
| example how the highways were reduced to 55mph during the
| 70s oil crisis as an indirect way to ration gasoline. Or
| how small towns will lower sections of road for the
| specific purpose of creating a revenue-generating speed
| trap.
| casion wrote:
| This kind of absolute thinking is not helpful. The US is a
| HUGE place. Each location has different driving conditions,
| types of roads, driving habits etc...
|
| Affluence also factors in significantly both on a community
| level and personal level.
|
| Driving 80mph through a small town with significant
| environmental debris on the roads where everyone is driving
| trucks from the 60s? That should be a felony.
|
| Driving 80mph on a clean, straight highway where everyone
| is driving a relatively modern car? There should be _no
| problem_.
|
| Separately, IMO, vehicle should factor in at the judgement
| level of law enforcement. My car can stop from 60mph in
| <100ft, will pull >1g on skidpad, has a full bevvy of
| features to alert me of surrounding conditions and will
| intervene in certain dangerous scenarios. The idea that
| such a vehicle should be equally treated as a 1992
| unmaintained civic is ridiculous. Yes, the laws should be
| consistent in a given area, but the application of those
| laws should be just not blindly applied. There's clearly a
| boundary to be crossed, but my car going 10mph over is
| SIGNIFICANTLY less dangerous to the public than that hoopty
| going the speed limit.
| verve_rat wrote:
| You are making an argument for different places having
| different speed limits. Yes places should match their
| limits to the local conditions, but people should still
| get in trouble for breaking the law.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > but my car going 10mph over is SIGNIFICANTLY less
| dangerous to the public than that hoopty going the speed
| limit
|
| To the driving public, specifically. Pedestrians and
| cyclists will still be goop on your windshield 50 feet
| into your 100 foot braking.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Of which there are none on the roads where people want to
| go particularly fast.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I take it you've never cycled in Virginia. I have (on
| "slow" roads no less) and I've had no less than a dozen
| people buzz me at over 20 miles above the speed limit.
|
| (There is no such thing as a road where people "don't
| want" to go fast, because "fast" is disjointed in
| meaning: there's the legal speed that drivers regularly
| and unsafely exceed, and there's the "fast" speed at
| which drivers _perceive_ how unsafe they 're being.)
| spaethnl wrote:
| There are typically two kinds of roads these speeds are
| reached in the US:
|
| 1. Expressways, where pedestrians and cyclists are not
| allowed. They are walled off with specific entrances and
| exits.
|
| 2. Country highways, where pedestrians and cyclists are
| nearly unheard of, and are typically very easy to spot
| from a distance and adjust accordingly.
|
| There is a third area where these speeds are sometimes
| reached in urban areas that Strong Towns calls "stroads",
| and these have a whole host of problems. Going 10mph over
| the speed limit in these areas probably doesn't make a
| huge difference, because the are already so pedestrian
| and cyclist unfriendly to begin with. Not Just Bikes has
| a great video about them here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
| woodruffw wrote:
| It's not uncommon to see people go 20 over on country
| roads (including mountain roads) in Virginia. That means
| 55 in a 35, or 60 in a 40. Those roads don't have great
| visibility, and I've had more than a couple of
| unnecessarily close calls because of recklessly speeding
| drivers.
|
| Edit: The upstream thread even has an article where the
| author describes doing 93 on a 55 backroad in VA and
| subsequently getting arrested[1].
|
| [1]: https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-
| lessons-from-my...
| spaethnl wrote:
| Sure, but that isn't what we're talking about.
|
| The comment that this thread branched off of is about the
| relative difference in danger of 10mph with a modern
| vehicle, not 20, 30, or 40mph. I don't think I agree with
| that user's overall point, but I also didn't think your
| response to it was particularly on point either.
|
| I think our transportation infrastructure needs a massive
| overhaul to be more pedestrian, bike, and even motor-
| vehicle friendly, but I think speeds limits are such a
| poor answer to that problem that arguing about +10mph is
| merely a distraction.
| earleybird wrote:
| With you on "driving to the conditions". Although just
| because your vehicle can stop quickly doesn't mean that
| unmaintained civic can do the same when you go flying
| past and then hard brake.
|
| My one hope for self driving vehicles is that it
| normalizes efficient traffic flow.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I grew up there and remember the fear of hitting 81mph and
| how the police just hid on the side of the road off 95 and 81
| waiting to shove a ticket into your window.
|
| My friend once got a ticket for going 81mph downhill on
| highway 81 in the middle of nowhere southwest VA and had to
| trek out there for a court date.
|
| I don't ever miss living in Virginia
| logifail wrote:
| > Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police
| laws, at least re: driving
|
| (Full disclosure: have never driven in the USA), but without
| wishing to sound like a know-all, how about sticking to the
| speed limit?
|
| I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding since getting my
| licence almost exactly 30 years ago this month. No points in
| either case. It's not hard, honest. My wife might disagree,
| but her licence, her problem :)
| alistairSH wrote:
| _how about sticking to the speed limit?_
|
| Because the speed limit in much of the US is below the
| "natural" speed of that roadway. We have highways where
| 80+mph is the norm, but the posted limited can be anywhere
| from 55-70mph (I-95 along the east coast). Driving the
| speed limit actually becomes dangerous. At this point,
| speed enforcement becomes a hit-or-miss affair, where
| you're at the mercy of the police officer. Better hope he's
| having a good day and you don't "look suspicious", etc.
| Making it even worse, that same interstate (I-95) has the
| limit vary from 55-70 depending on state/town - the highway
| itself didn't change, just the jurisdiction. And yes, the
| states with the lower limits are notorious for ticketing
| out-of-state drivers.
|
| And that's just the highway. Secondary roads through small
| towns are just a racket. https://www.newsweek.com/police-
| chief-quits-after-report-rev...
| criddell wrote:
| I think in most places, the speed limit is set to the
| 80th percentile speed. If there is a road where people
| routinely drive much faster on, you might want to ask for
| your county to do a speed study on that road.
|
| In some places, you may be able to use the lack of an up-
| to-date speed study as a defense against a speeding
| charge.
| vkou wrote:
| The problem with this line of reasoning is that the
| 'natural' speed limit of a freeway is a death sentence in
| the event of a crash.
|
| I have zero sympathy for this. If you're doing 20 mph
| over the limit, you shouldn't be driving, whether it
| comes from taking away you car, or from putting you in a
| cage for a few weeks.
| oneplane wrote:
| Since when is a speed limit not a rule/law but a
| 'feeling' for a 'natural' speed? That doesn't make a lot
| of sense to me. That essentially just escalates as
| everyones 'naturally' speeds up as a herd and then the
| whole point of having rules is moot.
| ghaff wrote:
| You could also ask when is walking across the street
| against a red light or outside of a crosswalk a "feeling"
| about whether it's a safe thing to do that doesn't impede
| traffic--even though it violates the law?
|
| The fact is that there are plenty of laws we somewhat
| violate on a daily basis. This has its own set of
| problems but it's the way things are essentially
| everywhere.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Your common sense is wrong here. If you replace speed
| limits with "go a safe speed" then people don't go faster
| indefinitely, they'll find a speed that depends on road
| design. It doesn't escalate, and it's only notably faster
| than the speed limit when something has gone wrong with
| the road planning.
| jfk13 wrote:
| You're ignoring the fact that many people's perception of
| what is "a safe speed" is not at all reliable. (Compare:
| what percentage of people would claim to be better-than-
| average drivers?
| https://www.smithlawco.com/blog/2017/december/do-most-
| driver...)
|
| We have speed limits because trusting people to "go a
| safe speed" doesn't work, in general.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Objectively, the group settles into a particular speed.
|
| It's based on both safety and perceived safety, and it's
| not perfect, but it works out pretty well.
|
| If the road is designed properly it's the top few
| percentile that you need to restrain, not the masses.
|
| If you make a super wide straight shot of asphalt down a
| residential neighborhood, and people go too fast, that's
| the road designer's fault.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > it's the top few percentile that you need to restrain,
| not the masses
|
| And how do you propose to "restrain" them, if not by
| enforcing a speed limit?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'm not suggesting getting rid of speed limits.
|
| I was objecting to the idea that there is no natural
| speed, and that the group will "just escalate". Nothing
| else.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I don't think anybody is arguing speed limits should be
| abolished. At least not in any general sense. But, it's
| plain enough to see that speed limits on some roads are
| wrong.
|
| I-495 in VA is a prime example. It's posted at 55mph and
| traffic regularly flows faster (or slower, during rush
| hour). It really needs variable limits based on traffic
| volume instead of a dumb 55.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Dylan16807's comment about
|
| > If you replace speed limits with "go a safe speed"...
|
| sounded to me like a suggestion that speed limits could
| be abolished in favour of a "use your judgement" rule,
| which I don't think is a sensible idea.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You obviously have not seen any of the many posted videos
| of some guys racing on public streets. Or are you saying
| the natural speed is a personal thing and everyone should
| be allowed to drive as fast as they personally feel
| comfortable with?
| alistairSH wrote:
| There are outliers in any group. Nobody is debating that.
| All we're saying is roads tend to have a speed where the
| vast majority of drivers are comfortable and they'll tend
| to go that fast.
|
| Most times you're on a road and traffic is flowing
| significantly faster than the posted limit, either the
| limit is wrong or the road is poorly designed and not fit
| for purpose. And that happens a lot in the US.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Roads tend to have a speed where people feel comfortable.
| In theory, road engineers design roadways to match the
| desired speed. In practice, that doesn't always happen.
| Even worse, cities/towns have been known to lower the
| speed limit to drive revenue.
|
| Edit, some links:
| https://beyondtheautomobile.com/2021/02/08/what-is-
| design-sp...
|
| https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-
| slow...
|
| Usually, when people talk about the topic, they're trying
| to calm local traffic. But the concept applies to
| highways where speed limits can be pretty arbitrary.
| Plenty of interstate where 80+mph feels safe, but is
| posted at 55 or 65.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > Driving the speed limit actually becomes dangerous.
|
| I've lived in VA for decades and have driven all over the
| state. There is no highway where driving the speed limit
| is actually dangerous and there _certainly_ isn 't a
| highway where the norm is 20 over.
| sterlind wrote:
| in Atlanta there's a stretch of interstate at 50mph, and
| the traffic flows at 70+mph. driving the posted limit is
| dangerous, and possibly even illegal (delaying traffic.)
| alistairSH wrote:
| I was referring to the interstates in general, and I-95
| specifically. Not just within Virginia. Particularly
| stretches through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
| cycomanic wrote:
| As someone who grew up and drove in Germany and being
| used to 160+km/h on highways moving to Australia made
| quite a positive change to my driving. In Germany outside
| of cities everyone drives at least 10%over the limit. You
| also constantly look where to overtake and be a little
| faster (and I was by no means a speeder or very fast
| driver) .
|
| Australia on the other hand is very strikt about speed
| limits and even being 10% over can be a significant fine,
| so people gereally adhere much closer to the limits.
| Having to stick to the limit is actually liberating, I
| just stopped trying find some extra time by e. g.
| overtaking yet another car, and instead my driving
| experience is much more relaxed, I just put on cruise
| control and that's it. I seriously encourage you to think
| if you really need to be speeding, because the time you
| save is miniscule, while the driving is significantly
| more stressful.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| >how about sticking to the speed limit?
|
| Remove speed limits on the highways and you have a deal
| sir.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Because im and places it is designed to catch you. But I
| got a ticket in Zurich for doing 16 kph in a 15 kph zone.
| hammock wrote:
| sharken wrote:
| A modern car with cruise control, either adaptive or not,
| will make the task of keeping to the speed limit a breeze.
|
| The only improvement would be that the car always knew the
| speed limit for any stretch of road.
| Wistar wrote:
| Many modern cars have traffic sign recognition systems
| that extract the speed limit. The BMW system is fairly
| amazing to watch work as the speed limit display changes
| juuuust as you pass the sign and are surprisingly good at
| reading signs that are even partially obscured. Although
| I can't remember exactly which cars feed the detected
| speed limit into their adaptive cruise control systems, I
| _think_ some of the Range Rover models do. Some even
| allow you to set a percentage or absolute speed value
| above or below the speed limit that you want the car to
| travel.
|
| Others use a speed limit database and GPS/accelerometer
| system to establish the speed limit.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| When I was driving in the EU I had a car that used gps to
| pull the limit (but never actually enforced that you
| followed it). It was really cool to hop on the Autobahn
| and see a symbol for none pop up in the indicator. It
| looked like a nonsmoking sign without the cigarette in
| it.
| ghaff wrote:
| I haven't used (non-adaptive) cruise control in years. I
| find that a lot of the time in the Northeast US roads are
| busy enough that you have to be constantly dropping out
| of cruise control or end up driving in ways that are
| suboptimal other than for keeping the cruise control
| active. To be honest, I just stopped using it at some
| point and just don't think to use it even when it's a
| match for conditions.
|
| When I get adaptive cruise control--presumably when I
| eventually get a new car--I may well change my tune.
| cryptonector wrote:
| American highways for decades now have been designed for
| very high speeds, often 100mph or more, but the speed
| limits are set much much lower than that.
|
| Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are generally
| just the natural speed for the roads they're posted on,
| _and_ the roads are designed for natural speeds that are
| appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if so. Here in the
| U.S., speed limits are set to give police probable cause to
| stop anyone, any time.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > Perhaps you are in Europe, where speed limits are
| generally just the natural speed for the roads they're
| posted on, _and_ the roads are designed for natural
| speeds that are appropriate for their uses. Lucky you, if
| so.
|
| What are you talking about? With the exception of Germany
| all countries in Europe have maximum speed limits and I
| have no idea what you mean by natural speeds. Sweden
| which has highways that are in better condition than
| pretty much all US roads I've driven on has a maximum
| speed of 110 km/h (as has Australia btw) , Spain has 120
| km/h, France 130 km/h. All lower than the US 85 miles/h.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Your roads are often designed with natural speed control
| devices. Things like making them narrow, or lining them
| with trees, etc.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Highways certainly have not, and for other roads it
| highly depends, just like in the US. But the
| Bundestrassen in Germany (the next larger roads after
| highways) have a speed limit of 100km/h and are very
| straight and definitely not artificially narrowed.
|
| I'm actually not aware of any roads without a specific
| lane separator (like highways) that have speed limits
| above 100km/h in Europe (I certainly could be wrong
| though).
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Reading your comment makes me think you've never driven
| in Europe whatsoever. Driving on your typical E road (say
| E6 or E4 in Sweden) is no different in design than any US
| interstate. In fact, driving on regional highways is
| mostly roughly equivalent in design with USA state
| highways, except roundabouts are often in place of street
| lights.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Some highways in Sweden go up to 130 kph. E4 in Halland
| is an example. Still not 85mph but close.
| mdoms wrote:
| > I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding
|
| Not to be a know-all but why not stick to the speed limit?
| dictateawayyyee wrote:
| Because it is very dangerous to drive at the speed limit
| on a 55-65mph interstate.
|
| You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick
| to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to
| the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost
| never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.
| worik wrote:
| > You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick
| to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to
| the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost
| never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.
|
| Where I live (Aotearoa) trucks do not act like that. They
| are heavily policed and drive to the speed limit.
|
| It is very common to see a truck stopped on the side of
| the road with a police officer checking it.
|
| Good
| Diesel555 wrote:
| The person you replied to is being sarcastic. Their
| response to the quote is a also a near quote of the
| parent post.
| jmisavage wrote:
| You're out of date as of 2020. Reckless driving is 20 mph
| over the speed limit or over 85 mph now. It's a class 1
| misdemeanor.
|
| Most of Virginia has 65 mph as the stated speed limit which
| usually drops to 55 mph around cities. There are stretches of
| I-95 and I-81 were the speed limit is 70 mph.
|
| But anyone who drives here knows that the speed limit is
| generally considered the slowest you should go on the road.
| Speeding around here is common. And for anyone who lives in
| Richmond people run red lights all the time even in front of
| cops. We're all just practicing for the next Mad Max movie.
| systematical wrote:
| Richmond police force is understaffed (many have left to
| Chesterfield and Henrico) and the city has serious crime
| problems in many neighborhoods.
| xwdv wrote:
| I regularly drive at speeds in excess of 100mph when
| highways are empty and waze shows no police. What would be
| the fate of a person caught at those speeds in Virginia?
| CodeAndCuffs wrote:
| Reckless driving in VA is a class 1 misdemeanor.
| Punishable by confinement in jail for not more than
| twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either
| or both.[1]
|
| That said, many things are a class 1 misdemeanor. Usually
| reckless driving is a fine similar to that of speeding.
| I've seen judges with stances like "1 day in jail for
| every mph over X" where X is usually 90,95, or 100. I
| think the most I've ever heard of was like 3-5 days for
| 100mph+, and even that was served on weekends.
|
| Well, I heard of one guy who was given 3 months for 76 in
| a 55 by a very old substitute judge, much to the
| defendant's, Trooper's, and clerk's shock. The Trooper
| made it a point talk to the defendant and inform he could
| talk to the court clerk about the appeal process. The
| defendant appealed it down to a fine of around $150.
|
| [1]https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter1
| /secti...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Potentially a misdemeanor. Big waste of your time and
| money, with potential career impacts.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In Virginia?
|
| Death.
|
| But it will be enforced by the velocity squared
| proportionality of kinetic energy and chronically
| underfunded highway maintenance coupled with old
| highways, not the police.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| That's reckless driving, which is a class 1 misdemeanor
| punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in
| jail.
|
| At over 100, you would have a pretty high chance of
| spending a weekend in jail.
| cryptonector wrote:
| What if the police use Waze though? Last time I used it
| -and it was many years ago- it was clearly possible to
| use it to find _speeders_ using it.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Can you explain how? Waze doesn't show your speed to
| others on the map.
| cryptonector wrote:
| It's been like eight years. I don't recall exactly, but
| what I recall is that Waze showed me _other_ Waze users
| on the road, including their positions, and these were
| updated in something close to real-time, which means one
| could estimate their speed. I imagine a police officer
| waiting to "ambush" a speeder they know is coming.
| xwdv wrote:
| If a police uses Waze to find me and catch me he can go
| ahead and just throw me in jail.
| cryptonector wrote:
| I thought Connecticut also prohibited radar detectors.
| randombits0 wrote:
| > It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors
|
| Which is arguably outside of the state's jurisdiction. Only
| the FCC has the authority to regulate the airwaves and
| specifically transmitters and receivers.
|
| I bet that cop's radar gun has an FCC sticker on it.
| novok wrote:
| Maybe they are not regulating radio receiver usage, but the
| just the possession of it, which would be a separate kind
| of regulatory space.
| hammock wrote:
| That is accurate. Your vehicle is not allowed to be
| equipped with a radar detector that is powered or
| accessible to the driver.
|
| The police even have radar detector detectors.
| cjrp wrote:
| I can't be the only one thinking "so how do you build a
| radar detector detector detector?"
| randombits0 wrote:
| You could tune an antenna to trip a detector detector
| (side note: which would be some great civil
| disobedience!), but I don't think you can get to the
| detector detector detector without an interaction with
| law enforcement. Layer eight problem.
| CodeAndCuffs wrote:
| Some Troopers have a Radar-detector detector (such as the
| VG-2).
|
| There are Radar Detectors that have VG-2 (Radar detector
| detector) detectors on them.
|
| I haven't heard of a radar detector detector detector
| detector. Such a thing would be pretty useless for a
| cop's intent and purposes.
| VistaBrokeMyPC wrote:
| It's basically just a more sensitive radar detector.
| Instead of picking up the main frequencies radar guns
| use, it picks up the harmonics emitted by the oscillating
| crystal inside the radar detectors. All radar detectors
| leak on harmonic frequencies of the frequency they pick
| up on, it's just a matter of how much. Those cheap
| Walmart radar detectors leak so badly they detect each
| other. Pricier ones are more sophisticated in how they
| shield.
| function_seven wrote:
| Could one build an SDR version of a radar detector that
| doesn't have a detectable oscillator? (Or, if it does,
| it's oscillating at a much higher frequency?)
|
| I'm no RF guy, so I'm clueless on this stuff. But my
| understanding is that SDRs aren't radio receivers in the
| traditional sense. That's the whole "SD" part of it, the
| device scoops up everything and FFTs it or something.
| krapht wrote:
| It would be way cheaper to design the radar detector to
| have better RF isolation than to go towards an SDR
| solution.
|
| A modern radar gun operates in the Ka-band, Google says
| between 33.4 and 36 GHz. Assuming 12 bit samples, your
| proposed solution needs to process a minimum 3.9 gigabits
| per second, or ~500 megabytes per second. To do this work
| in software would require a workstation.
|
| Not to mention I'm not even sure if you can operate most
| ADCs above the 1st Nyquist zone like would be needed
| here.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Radenso Theia does that.
|
| But they are suffering from the chip shortage. I was
| interested in using it as an X-band and K-band capable
| SDR receiver, which is a supported use case according to
| their media. But we'll see when it ships.
| Wistar wrote:
| How do radar detector detectors work? A video.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=upCm4ONlvBY
| blantonl wrote:
| All radio receivers have local oscillators built into
| their receiving circuitry that actually transmits energy
| that can be detected by specialized receivers.
| xxpor wrote:
| Not only are there radar detector detectors, but then
| there are radar detector detector detectors, and radar
| detector detector detector detectors. A hilarious arms
| race.
| ianhawes wrote:
| You should be fine with a trace buster.
| worik wrote:
| > All radio receivers have local oscillators built into
| their receiving circuitry that actually transmits energy
| that can be detected by specialized receivers.
|
| All efficient radio receivers....
|
| It is possible to build radio receivers without such. I
| built a crystal set as a child that could power an air
| piece without a battery using only the AM signal.
| testbjjl wrote:
| I once got a ticket from a Virginia state trooper for driving
| in the HOV restricted lanes, with two passengers in a two
| seater. I took the ticket (like there is a choice) thinking I
| would go to court and contest. While looking for where to
| appear I came across the FAQ stating no exceptions for two
| passenger vehicles in the HOV. Nothing illegal, just feels
| wrongheaded in public safety and service are the priorities
| of the organization.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| Can you elaborate? What does "pro-cop" mean in this
| geographical context and why do I not want to be arrested here
| versus somewhere else (assuming I wanted to be arrested)?
| hammock wrote:
| Cops get more benefit of the doubt there than anyplace I've
| seen. And the cops, prosecutors and judges are in close
| coordination.
| systematical wrote:
| Eh, police can't even pull you over for no head lights,
| expired tags and many other things here. The previous
| legislature over corrected.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Just for maximum pedantry: it's normal for cops and
| prosecutors to coordinate (it's their job). Americans
| frequently treat state attorneys as if they're not
| fundamentally "in law enforcement," which is absolutely not
| the case.
|
| But I do agree with you about Virginia (from personal
| experience as well), and there _should_ be a firewall
| between the police and actual trial judges.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Should judges be working with enforcement? Aren't there
| meant to be checks and balances?
| [deleted]
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I see, thanks. I suppose I too live in a pro-cop area then.
| The police, judges and county attorneys all know each other
| and work together quite a bit. I know them and they know
| me.
|
| I suppose the way I handle the situation is to not break
| the law and not treat them like we inherently have an
| adversarial relationship. From my perspective, having the
| local community support first responders is a good thing
| and works very well for us here.
|
| This is rural Texas, btw.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Last time I was in Texas, it was legal to drive 80 miles
| an hour on certain highways.
|
| If you needed to make a u-turn while driving on the
| highway, you could pull into special areas in the median
| of highways to make those turns. The same places highway
| patrol often use to sit, wait, and monitor traffic.
|
| Both of those things are illegal in Virginia.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't remember what the exact number was (maybe 75mph)
| but I had a rental for a business trip out west somewhere
| --maybe Arizona--and it turned out the car had a governor
| set to whatever the number was--which at the time was
| presumably significantly over a lot of speed limits but
| was right at the speed limit where I was driving. It was
| very annoying as the car would suddenly drop the throttle
| and slow down. Only time I've ever seen that though there
| may be governors set to speeds I just don't hit in other
| cases.
| salawat wrote:
| There is a gentleman's agreement between many
| manufacturers of street legal cars to produce vehicles
| that will not accelerate to faster than 120-130mph unless
| some special conditions or limits are met.
|
| Been that way for at least a decade.
| ghaff wrote:
| Speeds within many highway speed limits (like 75mph) are
| not 120-130mph however.
| daenz wrote:
| Do you really need to guess why a vague, difficult-to-prove,
| politically divisive statement is downvoted?
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| DevX101 wrote:
| I'm assuming the police is primarily using GPS to prove guilt,
| but are there any recorded cases of someone using GPS to "prove"
| their innocence, as an alibi?
| kingcharles wrote:
| That's a good question. There are plenty of people who have
| proved the GPS is wrong.
|
| For instance, I am on 24/7 GPS/cell tower surveillance because
| I am poor. The police regularly (3 times this week) come to my
| home, pull me out onto the street, cuff me up and arrest me
| because they believe (from the GPS data) that I am not in my
| home. Then they will have me stand on the street corner in
| handcuffs until the GPS matches what they see with their eyes.
|
| Those of us who are under constant surveillance for our poverty
| have taken to installing cameras that record onto the cloud so
| that we can later prove in court we were where we said we were
| (not where the GPS thinks we are):
|
| https://news.wttw.com/2022/03/16/designed-reduce-cook-county...
| sneak wrote:
| In a lot of cases by the time you learn you are being accused,
| the data is no longer retained/available from the carriers.
| lucb1e wrote:
| As part of a GDPR data access request, my mobile ISP denied
| having access to data such as which cell towers I am or have
| been connected to. Wasn't sure what to make of that. They are
| a virtual provider but, like, surely if the police comes
| knocking they suddenly find a way to that data... or does the
| police not knock at theirs but at the network operator's? Is
| the virtual operator then not the data controller, should I
| send access requests to suppliers? But then the data
| controller is not required to give a list of suppliers, just
| a list of 'categories' of third parties they share my data
| with... so that doesn't really add up.
|
| I know a thing or two about GDPR but it's still complex
| enough that I don't know what my rights / their obligations
| are in this case.
|
| The best I could figure, my virtual operator was lying to me
| about not having my location data 24/7 recorded, but I'd be
| interested if anyone can tell me more.
| kingcharles wrote:
| I don't know. I did a subpoena to Verizon once for a guy
| accused of murder who I knew was innocent. There's a long
| story about how the guy didn't want to admit to police he
| wasn't at the scene of the crime because it would have to out
| him as having a gay lover, which he was worried about. He'd
| been in jail for 6 years at this point. I said we should
| subpoena his cell tower records to prove he was away from the
| scene, and we did, but Verizon came back and said they
| deleted them after 5 years.
|
| tl;dr: they do delete them, but Verizon said it has a 5 year
| retention
| blt wrote:
| > _we will use all lawful tools at our disposal_
|
| Interpreted precisely, this sentence doesn't rule out the
| possibility that they use unlawful tools too.
| istjohn wrote:
| Correct. A little parallel construction[1], and no one will
| ever know.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
| kube-system wrote:
| It also doesn't rule out that their favorite flavor of ice
| cream is chocolate.
|
| But it also is just a statement about something else.
| TheWill wrote:
| Not surprising, since the entire telecommunications industry
| continues to work hand in hand with all the alphabet agencies to
| gobble up as much data on everyone that they can. Laws and rights
| to the government are but mere suggestions.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| T-Mobile is charging police $900/customer/month to track us? I
| want a rebate on my cellphone plan.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| It's public money, so they're already grifting all of us.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Good point - they are double-dipping
| colpabar wrote:
| Agreed. I think we need to put as much blame on the carriers
| providing these capabilities to _anyone_ , let alone the
| police. That the police are publicly funded and are buying this
| data with my money is also a huge issue to me, but if I had to
| pick one thing to change, I'd make selling this data illegal.
| That way, no one could have it.
| cryptonector wrote:
| The carriers probably don't have a choice.
| randombits0 wrote:
| That's what the warrant requirement is all about, that's
| where it's broken. This technique should only be used for
| major felonies.
|
| On the flip side, if you want to commit major felonies, don't
| take your phone!
| cryptonector wrote:
| > if you want to commit major felonies
|
| That's not how it works. Sometimes the police suspect
| people who are innocent, and they work hard to get them on
| technicalities if need be, and meanwhile, the risk of
| inadvertently and unintentionally committing obscure crimes
| is substantially higher than zero, so...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _technique should only be used for major felonies_
|
| Doesn't the crime they were pursuing, dealing heroin in
| connection with an overdose, rise to that level? (No
| comment on the merits of the law. Just the facts of the
| investigation.)
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The article says the police didn't describe the man as a
| suspect in the warrant application. By this logic, the
| police could investigate any acquaintance of someone even
| peripherally involved in a crime (which is a huge chunk
| of the population.)
| cosmodisk wrote:
| This one has been the case for years. Even when the
| technical capabilities were only at theoretical level, any
| criminal with some brain used to switch off their phones+
| take out batteries before even having any discussions, not
| to mention commiting crimes. Today's phones can't be used
| anywhere in any context if people are involved in some
| criminal activities.
| morsch wrote:
| Or rather, please do.
| sixothree wrote:
| I assume they target these people because they can seize
| assets. And drug dealers often deal in cash. Why else would
| they be so absolutely inept solving or prventing most crimes
| (looking at just about any metric available), yet still be
| laser focused on these certain crimes.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Asset forfeitures can be beneficial to police departments,
| but not usually of much concern to individual police
| officers, except in ad hoc situations where they can easily
| pocket cash they take during a search (happens very
| frequently from my experience).
|
| And to add to that, a lot of jurisdictions have cracked
| down massively on forfeitures (technical term: civil in rem
| forfeiture) because of how badly abused the system has been
| in the past by prosecutors and police departments.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Simple improvement: ban carriers from charging for this
| surveillance. Could even introduce it as a pro-cop anti-corporate
| measure, which should take care of the political fringes. That
| removes the incentive to make it easy.
|
| Next, some manner of heightened threshold for more than N
| consecutive tracking requests or M requests in a twelve-month
| period. Maybe probable cause? This will be harder, politically,
| particularly in a law & order cycle. (Maybe it could be
| accomplished through rulemaking at the FCC.)
| advisedwang wrote:
| > Simple improvement: ban carriers from charging for this
| surveillance. Could even introduce it as a pro-cop anti-
| corporate measure, which should take care of the political
| fringes. That removes the incentive to make it easy.
|
| I like the idea of motivating cell companies to be less of a
| pushover, but reducing cost does _directly_ reduce the
| disincentive to the police to make these requests.
|
| > Next, some manner of heightened threshold for more than N
| consecutive tracking requests or M requests in a twelve-month
| period. Maybe probable cause?
|
| These requests already have a warrant, so meet probable cause.
| mdoms wrote:
| Sounds like they're doing it with court-issued warrants with
| probable cause, so it's not as horrifying as the title makes it
| sound. It's "secret" to the suspect but it's not like the police
| department has taken it onto themselves to start a new cellphone
| tracking program.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _with probable cause_
|
| It appears to be a lower standard; reasonable suspicion,
| perhaps.
| mdoms wrote:
| How does that appear? The article says,
|
| > Officers simply have to attest in an affidavit that they
| have probable cause that the tracking data is "relevant to a
| crime that is being committed or has been committed."
|
| The term "reasonable suspicion" doesn't appear in the article
| at all.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| 2 big problems: "relavent to a crime" is a very low
| standard.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Not a lawyer. Probable cause for a search warrant, to my
| understanding, means probable cause the target committed or
| abetted a crime. The target must be a suspect.
|
| Probable cause for believing the target has information
| "relevant to a crime" sounds like something else, perhaps
| even lower than reasonable suspicion.
| cryptonector wrote:
| In this case _not even_. In this case the police indicated
| that surveilling the subject would help them find the dealer,
| but they did not indicate that they suspected the subject of
| _being_ the dealer or even _knowing_ the dealer. Or at least
| that was my takeaway from one reading, and I 'm not going
| back for a second. Even if I failed at reading comprehension
| and recall, the important thing is not what happened in this
| case, but what happens generally, and I bet judges and
| magistrates routinely issue these warrants with weak or no
| probable cause.
| advisedwang wrote:
| This is all under a warrant. Of course police can and do get
| location records from cell companies with a warrant, and it
| doesn't seem like a huge stretch for a warrant to require the
| cell company to "ping" to get the most quality location data.
|
| The problem here is the judges granting the warrants.
|
| Judges in Virginia are chosen by legislatures [1], which means
| they're accountable to political establishment who in turn have
| good political cover from being responsible for judicial actions.
|
| Judicial oversight and judicial elections are needed.
|
| [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Judicial_selection_in_Virginia
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _judicial elections are needed_
|
| These aren't a panacea.
|
| I've helped get judges elected in Manhattan. The primaries
| swung by tens of votes in some cases, usually no more than a
| few hundred. A few clubs, or one large tenant association,
| could decide the vote. (Counterfactual: judicial elections
| attract disproportionately-informed voters if they happen off
| cycle and without party affiliations, which in the context of
| primaries, applies.)
| hailwren wrote:
| Judicial elections also directly introduce lobbying into the
| judicial branch. Successful judges now have to pay for their
| campaigns and more money tends to equal more success in
| elections.
| kingcharles wrote:
| How judges get picked is a huge issue that most of the
| population have no education in. Having them selected by
| the populace leads simply to judges that enormously
| punitive. The population as a whole believes that criminals
| should be destroyed/deleted from society, and the judges
| that can deliver that are the ones that get elected.
|
| This generally means very-police-friendly judges that will
| issue warrants without any cause, and will deny any
| attempts to later fight the illegality. These judges then
| move up to the appeals courts and support the same policies
| by the friends they left behind in the lower courts.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| I do prefer appointments for judges, and I prefer those
| appointments to expire _after_ the elected official 's term
| would end. I believe typically this is 4 years for elected
| and 6 for appointed.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Warrants to get logged data are one thing.
|
| Warrants to get a third party to take actions to make your
| devices do things that can be logged is another.
|
| There is, at the very least, a very significant difference
| between the two cases. Whether we can all agree to pretend that
| there is non is certainly a political question.
| Rufhfhs3747rhe7 wrote:
| Why are drug dealers still using an easily trackable phone number
| for communication? Why not a 3rd party messaging and voice app
| like Matrix/Element? Am I incorrect in assuming that local police
| would not be able to easily track it?
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Most criminals aren't very smart.
| lucb1e wrote:
| A common response to why criminals sometimes do stupid
| things, but I haven't actually ever seen this substantiated.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Most criminals _who are caught_ aren 't very smart.
|
| Sampling bias in the extreme.
| Sohurt00 wrote:
| SCOTUS ruled in 2020 government agents can be sued for violating
| constitutional rights:
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-71_qol1.pdf
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _SCOTUS ruled in 2020 government agents can be sued for
| violating constitutional rights_
|
| This...has always been the case? It's a _raison d'etre_ for
| SCOTUS.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > Held: RFRA's express remedies provision permits litigants,
| when appro- priate, to obtain money damages against federal
| officials in their indi- vidual capacities. Pp. 3-9.
|
| RFRA is an Act of Congress. Looking just the quote above, what
| SCOTUS found isn't a constitutional right but a statutory
| right, which means the statue can be amended or repealed, for
| example, and also that the statutory right is limited to
| whatever the statute says (or SCOTUS read in it). Without
| reading the rest of the opinion or the Act itself, I am
| probably justified in imagining that the right doesn't extend
| to violations of any constitutional rights so much as to
| violations of constitutional rights relevant to "religious
| freedom", which is mainly 1st Amendment rights, and maybe some
| others. I wonder, for example, whether RFRA would protect one's
| right to refuse a mandatory vaccine for religious reasons -- it
| might, though I don't have time to go read it (and related
| case-law) and find out (plus IANAL).
| StopDarkPattern wrote:
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