I’ve got a party that’s getting a little too boisterous. Can you stop by? 
But you are correct. Seems I mad the leap from:
To it being done remotely.
Mostly because I can’t see any situation where I would say “No officer, I don’t know why you pulled me over. You want my cell phone. Certainly here take it.”
I’m not trying to besmirch the ACLU. I think they are trying to get at the truth. However the reporting has been a bit sensational, and even the one OP cites is fanning the flames a bit.
I too am one who assumed that the data could be access remotely, though it wasn’t explicitly stated. See my post #34 for why I thought so.
Also this quote from the article the OP cited.
The words, immediate and surreptitious get me thinking remotely.
It’s an understandable interpretation but it’d require security holes looser than Paris Hilton, in every phone. Quite frankly I find current school of thought more alarming, if true. It’d mean the police feel they can demand an expensive device from me for no reason. Security holes I can deal with, but theft by force?
If the police come pull you over how about quickly shutting off your cell phone. It has to be on to take data off it ,doesn’t it.
As the latest posts have indicated, it not only has to be on, but either plugged in for a USB connection or physcially touched to effect Bluetooth connectivity.
We have, in other words, pretty well ruled out the idea that the police can, without your knowledge, get data off your phone without touching your phone.
If they’re doing this, it’s obviously violative for the Fourth Amendment.
But I can’t see any indication that they are.
There has been a bit on this on the local news this morning. Not the Michigan part, but what’s on the iPhone that’s so interesting. Apparently it has a GPS feature that accurately tracks your prior movement. This feature can NOT be turned off, and can be accessed with special equipment, or a now available app. You could theoretically track the travel and destination of your spouse, for example.
Given that Michigan only bought 5 of the devices, it’s not likely that they will be a common tool for the police. I can also see the advantage of not telling the public that the purpose of the device is to use the GPS information in your phone to track your prior location. HOPEFULLY however, it is used ONLY pursuant to a lawful search warrant.
Hell, as soon as I see a cop car behind me, I’m slipping the SIM card out of my phone.
I have always known that Big Brother is watching. This is why I would never post pics of myself online doing such things as showing myself nakey or smoking pot or all of those other things people do on facebook. If you were to look at my posts in the work rants string, you will not see me saying anything but nice things about my totally awesome boss or about how I hate my job. I love my job. Waves at boss. 
I know that everything that happens electronically can be tracked and used against me. Maybe this is an age thing. M is outraged about it, but its all meh to me.
There is no expection for privacy in public places and IMO, all cyber comunications, including carrying devices which shows my location are public.
So the moment you step outside you have no privacy on your person? Fuck that and the mother of anyone who supports that’s cunt with a cactus. The bitch deserves it for being such a failed parent.
The data on my phone is mine. If a cop or anyone wants it they can ask nicely, and see if I chose to share, or they can get a warrant if they have cause.
My contacts don’t deserve to be harassed because some thieving thug with a badge thinks I was in the wrong neighborhood, and stole my phone by force.
I am generally in agreement.
However, the picture gets a bit mor complicated when we consider that the cell phone provider may also have records of your locations, independent of your phone. I’m not sure I agree you have a full Fourth Amendment interest in those records: they are held by a third party, and odn’t involve a search of anything you own.
Ohhhh, I like that 
I didn’t say that I supported it, I didn’t say that it was right. I just said that IMO, its a fact of life. And, thinking about it more, I’m in my home now. On my computer and with my cell turned on. So, I’ve given up electronic privacy in my home as well.
I think that speed cameras are not right. In my state, we’ve learned that speed cameras record everyone who passes them. I think that’s totally wrong. I don’t try to vandalize them, I don’t kill the operators, both of which has happened here.
The most I can do is let my elected officials know my opinion and then adjust my behavior accordingly. (For any bikers, I have proved to myself that riding the center line when passing speed cameras will give me a free pass. I don’t usually ride/drive more than 5 mph over the limit, but I had to try it, just because)
This is the world we live in. Big Brother is here. There is no expectation of privacy. Its just the way things are.
I suppose when a cop pulls you over you will hand him your cell phone and say "return it when you are done. and oh yes, here is my laptop, you may as well download that too. I have no rights’.
Bricker the problem you outline could best be described by the old childhood game of passing notes in class. A Jerk named Ted gets the note and suddenly everyone knows Jenny thinks Dave is cute, and that she thinks Tim smells funny.
Information shared among additional parties is only as secure as the least trustworthy party. I can’t do anything if the telephone company just hands over their data on me without a fight. What I can do is pick better phone companies, and if I feel extra caution is needed, cover my tracks.
For example I use Google voice because I like having a consistent number, and it’s voice mail and texting features. As an unintentional side affect my phone company records only show calls to and from the Google voice routing numbers. Texts are handled over TCP/IP so the phone company knows nothing of those.
Of course this means they could go after Google, but if they want it that bad it’d be easier just to get a warrant.
If I had a mind to want much more secure privacy, especially in the age of VOIP, I could rig an international proxy system. It wouldn’t be a 100% (nothing is), but it’d be a lot better than most with the right security.
I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.
Like hell there isn’t. Before electronics police could physically go rooting through house anytime they wanted. What stopped them was they did not have permission to. The Constitution provided specific circumstances where they could but bared all others.
The expectation of privacy was artificially created by the Constitution, and various supporting laws. The letter f the Constitution was written in a time so far removed from our digi-time it’s not funny. Well it is kind of funny. I bet John Hancock’s email sig would be in 72 point font, and blinking.
Anyway the anachromism of the wording means the letter of the law is written to protect physical privacy but knows nothing of digital privacy. Where as I believe the spirit of the law includes digital privacy protections too.
For example a public facebook profile would be like the front yard, visible to all and no expectation of privacy. However a private email account, that only is for me to read is like the inside of a house. The public can’t see it without nefarious actions, or permission, and neither should the government, without permission or cause.
My friend list on facebook is public, my phone contacts are not.
Your private information that is taken by the police, will tell them things about your friends and contacts, who have not been pulled over. So your ceding your privacy may also cede mine. It will give info about everybody you have called. Can the cops then follow up on something they find that they think is suspicious? You get pulled over for speeding and your friend could get dragged in for questioning or be put on a terrorist list.
Just to clarify, because I kind of got side tracked there, my beef is electronic security means nothing without physical security of those systems.
Actually some sort of password system on the phone could provide better physical security. The problem is it’d have to implemented deep in the guts of the phone’s bootloader and BIOS (anything higher could be over ridden from underneath by the boot loader), and the SIM card couldn’t be trusted to store contacts (it can be removed).
Sure – and consider the intersection of the plain view doctrine as applied to computer searches. If I have probable cause to believe your computer has evidence of, say, mail fraud, I can get a warrant to search it. But that means that I get to lay eyes on every since piece of information, deleted and not deleted, on the system… and the plain view doctrine says that anything else I find, even if completely unrelated to mail fraud – even if it turns out that I was wrong on your being involved in mail fraud – is completely admissible against you.
Now that’s just silly. Don’t you know that the first rule about talking to cops is to NEVER volunteer info? When you get pulled over and Officer Friendly asks “do you know why I pulled you over?” The response should be a confused smile and “no, but I’m sure you will tell me”
At the risk of being rude, I’m going to repeat myself. I don’t think its right. Its just the way things are. I could take measures to stop the invasion, but I chose to carry a cell, its my choice to be online.
Big Brother has been watching since forever. I could take measures to stop that. I could get rid of all my connections, I could go off the grid. I carry a cell phone by choice. My car has a GPS thingy. Nobody has forced me to aquire these things.
If you want to live off the grid, more power to you. I choose to live connected. Being connected means that I have no privacy. Just MHO.
I’d be quite happy to hand over my cell phone data to prove I wasn’t in the vicinity of Bert’s bar when it was robbed by someone fitting my general description who used a get-away car similar to mine.