The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants. The case centers on the trial of Okello Chatrie, a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to a 2019 robbery outside of Richmond and was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison for stealing $195,000 at gunpoint. Police probing...

“Encryption Backdoors and the Fourth Amendment”

Law journal article that looks at the DualECPRNG backdoor from a US constitutional perspective: Abstract : The National Security Agency NSA reportedly paid and pressured technology companies to trick their customers into using vulnerable encryption products. This Article examines whether any of...

Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act Goes Back to Congress

A bill to prevent cops and spies from buying Americans’ data instead of getting a warrant has a fighting chance in the US Congress as lawmakers team up against surveillance overreach...

Large-Scale Collection of Cell Phone Data at US Borders

The Washington Post is reporting that the US Customs and Border Protection agency is seizing and copying cell phone, tablet, and computer data from "as many as" 10,000 phones per year, including an unspecified number of American citizens. This is done without a warrant, because "…courts have long...

Google Report Spotlights Controversial ‘Geofence Warrants’ by Police

Newly released data by Google sheds light on a controversial practice called “geofence warrants”, which describes the practice of law enforcement requesting mobile phone data of users within close proximity of a crime. Google said, in an August report, the number of geofence warrants the company...

Can the Government Buy Its Way Around the Fourth Amendment?

Immigration authorities are purchasing cell phone location data, and it might be totally legal...

NSA on the Future of National Cybersecurity

Glenn Gerstell, the General Counsel of the NSA, wrote a long and interesting op-ed for the New York Times where he outlined a long list of cyber risks facing the US. There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: The firs...

Judge: Law Enforcement Can't Force Suspects to Unlock iPhones with FaceID

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that law enforcement can’t force people to unlock their iPhones using the phone’s biometric capabilities – like FaceID or TouchID. The ruling comes from a Jan. 10 filing, for which police were seeking a search warrant as part of a cyber-extortion case. The victim wa...

Police Can't Force You To Unlock Your Phone Using Face or Fingerprint Scan

Can feds force you to unlock your iPhone or Android phone? ..."NO" A Northern California judge has ruled that federal authorities can't force you to unlock your smartphone using your fingerprints or other biometric features such as facial recognition—even with a warrant. The ruling came in the ca...

U.S. Supreme Court Bolsters Mobile-Phone Privacy Rights

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a decision that bolsters digital privacy rights of cellphone users. In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain mobile phone tower records that can reveal a user’s location over time. The ruling was made on Friday in a case involving...

House Votes to Reauthorize Controversial Spy Provision, Section 702

The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to renew the National Security Agency’s spy powers to collect internet communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008. The vote 256-to-164 in favor of the legislation ends a yearlong debate over...

EFF Blasts DEA in Ongoing Secret 'Super Search Engine' Lawsuit

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is accusing the Drug Enforcement Agency of improperly withholding documents in a court case that hopes to reveal details about the government’s controversial surveillance program known as Hemisphere. The EFF, which is suing the DEA as part of a Freedom of...

Search Warrant Targets Fingerprints to Crack Open iPhones

Civil libertarians and security experts say a Department of Justice search warrant goes too far in seeking fingerprint data to crack open smartphones. The warrant in question would allow law enforcement to search a Lancaster, Calif., residence for an undisclosed number of smartphones. The warrant...

Judge Rules Use of FBI Malware Is A 'Search'

Civil liberty advocates say a Texas judge got it right when he ruled on a controversial child porn case regarding the FBI’s use of malware to search a computer. Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra of the San Antonio division of the Western District of Texas court ruled that sending malware...

STOP Rule 41 — FBI should not get Legal Power to Hack Computers Worldwide

We have been hearing a lot about Rule 41 after the US Department of Justice has pushed an update to the rule. The change to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure grants the FBI much greater powers to hack legally into any computer across the country, and perhaps anywhere in the...

Dept. of Justice Makes Plea for Mass Surveillance, Hacking

The Department of Justice is countering a growing chorus of privacy advocates who are against a rule change that will greatly expand law enforcement’s ability to hack into computers located around the world. In a blog post to the DoJ website late Monday, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell...

Microsoft Wins Widespread Support in Privacy Clash With Govt.

Microsoft’s lawsuit against the U.S. government for the right to tell its customers when a federal agency is looking at their emails is getting widespread support by privacy advocates. For many, Microsoft’s stance lends an important and powerful voice to ongoing efforts to reform the Electronic...

President Urged to Reject Mandatory Backdoors

One-off opposition to calls on Congress from FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers to draft a legal framework that would enable law enforcement to access encrypted communication has been scattered at best. Experts have taken to their own forums to voice opposition to the...

Appeals Court Rules NSA Metadata Collection Not Authorized by Section 215

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Thursday that the Patriot Act does not authorize the bulk collection of phone records by the NSA. The ruling undermines the key foundation upon which the federal government’s phone metadata surveillance program is built, Section 215 ...

Satellite-Based Monitoring Constitutes a Fourth Amendment Search

The Supreme Court has weighed in on a series of lower court decisions, issuing a summary opinion that satellite-based monitoring is in fact a Fourth Amendment search. What remains to be decided is whether GPS-based tracking constitutes an unreasonable search and is thus a violation of the Fourth...