Privacy, encryption vs. Surveillance state

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Michigan Supreme Court Creates Giant Loophole for Warrantless Surveillance​

Court Refuses to Decide if Repeated, Warrantless Drone Snooping Is a “Search,” Holds That Government Can Use the Evidence Anyway

ARLINGTON, Va.—On Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court unanimously ruled that even if the government deliberately violates your rights by flying a drone over your property, it can still use its unconstitutionally obtained evidence against you in court. The ruling, which concerns Long Lake Township’s repeated drone surveillance of Todd and Heather Maxon’s property in order to gather evidence against them, sets a devastating precedent that undermines the Fourth Amendment whenever the government goes after you in civil court. The Maxons were represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ).

“The Michigan Supreme Court blessed warrantless surveillance in the name of code enforcement,” said IJ Attorney Mike Greenberg. “Courts ordinarily order evidence from unconstitutional searches excluded, to disincentivize officials from violating our Fourth Amendment rights. The court’s holding creates a massive hole in that rule, removing that incentive for officials who pursue civil, rather than criminal, violations.”

More:

ij.org

Michigan Supreme Court Creates Giant Loophole for Warrantless Surveillance - Institute for Justice

ARLINGTON, Va.—On Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court unanimously ruled that even if the government deliberately violates your rights by flying a drone over your property, […]
ij.org ij.org
 
The spirit of the Constitution, drafted by men who chafed against the heavy-handed tyranny of an imperial ruler, would suggest that one’s home is a fortress, safe from almost every kind of intrusion.

Unfortunately, a collective assault by the government’s cabal of legislators, litigators, judges and militarized police has all but succeeded in reducing that fortress—and the Fourth Amendment alongside it—to a crumbling pile of rubble.

We are no longer safe in our homes, not from the menace of a government and its army of Peeping Toms who are waging war on the last stronghold of privacy left to us as a free people.

The weapons of this particular war on the privacy and sanctity of our homes are being wielded by the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized mercenaries.

Government agents—with or without a warrant, with or without probable cause that criminal activity is afoot, and with or without the consent of the homeowner—are now justified in mounting virtual home invasions using surveillance technology—with or without the blessing of the courts—to invade one’s home with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, aerial drones, and other monitoring devices.

tenthamendmentcenter.com

Virtual Home Invasions: We’re Not Safe from Government Peeping Toms | Tenth Amendment Center

We are no longer safe in our homes, not from the menace of a government and its army of Peeping Toms who are waging war on the last stronghold of privacy left to us as a free people.
tenthamendmentcenter.com tenthamendmentcenter.com
 
searcher said:
Alaska high court rules against warrantless aerial police surveillance of private citizen

Alaska law enforcement agencies do not have the right to conduct aerial surveillance of private property with high powered telephoto technology without first obtaining a search warrant.

This was the March 8 ruling of the Alaska Supreme Court in the case, State of Alaska v. John William McKelvey.

Back in 2012 the Alaska State Troopers received a tip that McKelvey had a grow operation on his property located in rural Fairbanks. After initially flying over the property and taking photos with a telephoto lens, the Troopers then obtained a search warrant. The central issue in this case concerned the validity of the search warrant and whether the Troopers’ use of aerial photos violated the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Alaska Constitution’s rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches.

According to the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling, the State Constitution protects Alaskans from law enforcement aerial surveillance by requiring a warrant prior to taking pictures of private property from the sky.

More:

alaskawatchman.com

Alaska high court rules against warrantless aerial police spying of private citizens

Alaska law enforcement agencies do not have the right to conduct aerial surveillance of private property with high powered telephoto technology without first obtaining a search warrant.
alaskawatchman.com alaskawatchman.com
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More:

www.eff.org

The Alaska Supreme Court Takes Aerial Surveillance’s Threat to Privacy Seriously, Other Courts Should Too

With this decision, Alaska joins California, Hawaii, and Vermont in finding that warrantless aerial surveillance violates their state’s constitutional prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Other courts should follow suit.
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
searcher said:
Like privacy? Don't want a surveillance state? Well, here's a little food for thought.

A second Trump term would be a surveillance nightmare​

It’s darkly ironic that Donald Trump’s upcoming appearance at the Libertarian Party’s national convention was announced the same week his stunning interview with Time magazine was published, in which he indicated all the ways a potential second term would imperil our personal liberties.

Reading through the interview, I was struck by the scope of the surveillance state — and widespread intrusion into Americans’ personal lives — that will be required for Trump to accomplish his agenda.

Take immigration, for example. Trump said he would tap state police forces to aid a mass deportation plan that his advisers have said will involve rounding up most of the roughly 11 million undocumented people in the United States, holding them in camps along the southern border, and deporting them. Aside from the monumental resources that authorities would require to search for and apprehend that many people, it also stands to reason many of them, once apprehended, would be subjected to intense surveillance already deployed against people at risk for deportation, like ankle monitors and strict curfews.

More:

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You should post that in the "Good News" thread.
.....or do you enjoy your city being over run with foreign criminals?


pmbug said:
There are only a handful of DC critters that care about the privacy and the surveillance state and most of them are in the GOP
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Anyone paying attention already knows that.


pmbug said:
That article is dumb to focus just on Trump. Is the author purporting that Biden would be any better?
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It sure is dumb.


pmbug said:
Is the author purporting that Biden would be any better? That's not supported by the track record of his current administration.
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That's exactly what the author is saying. It's a hit piece on Trump, after all.


searcher said:
Michigan Supreme Court Creates Giant Loophole for Warrantless Surveillance
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Another democrat run shithole, so what else should we expect?
 
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As the current leadership of the EU Council enters its final weeks, it is debating a dangerous proposal that could lead to scanning the private files of billions of people.

EFF strongly opposes this proposal, put forward by the Belgian Presidency at the EU Council, which is part of the EU’s executive branch. Together with European Digital Rights (EDRi) and other groups that defend encryption, we have sent an open letter to the EU Council explaining the dangers of the proposal. The letter asks Ministers in the Council of the EU to reject all proposals that are inconsistent with end-to-end encryption, including surveillance technologies like client-side scanning
...
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More:

www.eff.org

EU Council Presidency’s Last-Ditch Effort For Mass Scanning Must Be Rejected

As the current leadership of the EU Council enters its final weeks, it is debating a dangerous proposal that could lead to scanning the private files of billions of people. EFF strongly opposes this proposal, put forward by the Belgian Presidency at the EU Council, which is part of the EU’s...
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
...
As police departments look to expand their use of unmanned aerial aircraft, no agency has embraced the technology quite like the CVPD. A model for police departments around the United States, “some police officers joke that visiting the Chula Vista Police Department is like visiting Mecca,” says Jay Stanley, author of a 2023 American Civil Liberties Union report on police use of drones.

In October 2018, the city became the first in the nation to start a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program, where department teleoperators listening to live 911 calls decide when and where to dispatch the department's growing fleet of drones. Now those devices criss-cross the skies of Chula Vista daily—nearly 20,000 times since 2018—and are often first to appear above the sites of noise complaints, car accidents, overdoses, domestic disputes, and homicides.
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Despite the police promoting the benefits of the DFR program, residents who encounter the technology day-to-day report feeling constantly watched. Some say they are afraid to spend time in their backyards; they fear that the machines are following them down the street, spying on them while they use the public pool or change their clothes. One resident says that he was so worried that the drones were harassing him that he went to the emergency room for severe depression and exhaustion.

The police drones, equipped with cameras and zoom lenses powerful enough to capture faces clearly and constantly recording while in flight, have amassed hundreds of hours of video footage of the city’s residents. Their flight paths routinely take them over backyards and above public pools, high schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, immigration law firms, and even the city’s Planned Parenthood facility. Privacy advocates argue that the extensive footage captured by the drones makes it difficult to distinguish between flights responding to specific incidents and mass surveillance from the sky. Department secrecy around the recordings remains the subject of ongoing litigation.
...
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More:

www.wired.com

The Age of the Drone Police Is Here

A WIRED investigation, based on more than 22 million flight coordinates, reveals the complicated truth about the first full-blown police drone program in the US—and why your city could be next.
www.wired.com www.wired.com

also...

In March, the Alaska Supreme Court held in State v. McKelvey that the Alaska Constitution required law enforcement to obtain a warrant before photographing a private backyard from an aircraft. In this case, the police took photographs of Mr. McKelvey’s property, including the constitutionally protected curtilage area, from a small aircraft using a zoom lens.

In arguing that Mr. McKelvey did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the government raised various factors which have been used to justify warrantless surveillance in other jurisdictions. These included the ubiquity of small aircrafts flying overhead in Alaska; the commercial availability of the camera and lens; the availability of aerial footage of the land elsewhere; and the alleged unobtrusive nature of the surveillance.

In response, the Court divorced the ubiquity and availability of the technology from whether people would reasonably expect the government to use it to spy on them. The Court observed that the fact the government spent resources to take photos demonstrates that whatever available images were insufficient for law enforcement needs. Also, the inability or unlikelihood the spying was detected adds to, not detracts from, its pernicious nature because “if the surveillance technique cannot be detected, then one can never fully protect against being surveilled.”

Throughout its analysis, the Alaska Supreme Court demonstrated a grounded understanding of modern technology—as well as its future—and its effect on privacy rights. At the outset, the Court pointed out that one might think that this warrantless aerial surveillance was not a significant threat to privacy rights because "aviation gas is expensive, officers are busy, and the likelihood of detecting criminal activity with indiscriminate surveillance flights is low." However, the Court added pointedly, “the rise of drones has the potential to change that equation." We made similar arguments and are glad to see that courts are taking the threat seriously.

This is a significant victory for Alaskans and their privacy rights, and stands in contrast to a couple of U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 1980s, Ciraolo v. California and Florida v. Riley. In those cases, the justices found no violation of the federal constitution for aerial surveillance from low-flying manned aircrafts. But there have been seismic changes in the capabilities of surveillance technology since those decisions, and courts should consider these developments rather than merely applying precedents uncritically.

With this decision, Alaska joins California, Hawaii, and Vermont in finding that warrantless aerial surveillance violates their state’s constitutional prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Other courts should follow suit to ensure that privacy rights do not fall victim to the advancement of technology.
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www.eff.org

The Alaska Supreme Court Takes Aerial Surveillance’s Threat to Privacy Seriously, Other Courts Should Too

With this decision, Alaska joins California, Hawaii, and Vermont in finding that warrantless aerial surveillance violates their state’s constitutional prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Other courts should follow suit.
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
DOVER, Del. (June 19, 2023) – Yesterday, a Delaware House committee passed a bill that would ban reverse-keyword search orders. Passage of the legislation would not only protect privacy in Delaware; it would also hinder the growth of the federal surveillance state.

Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton introduced House Bill 445 (HB445) on May 14. The legislation would prohibit state government agencies including local law enforcement agencies and courts from requesting, issuing, or enforcing reverse-keyword court orders and reverse-keyword requests. It would also prohibit government agencies from seeking the assistance of any agency of the federal government or any agency of the government of another state in obtaining information or data from a reverse-keyword court order or a reverse-keyword request if the government entity would be barred from directly seeking such information under the law.

blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com

Delaware House Committee Passes Bill to Prohibit Reverse-Keyword Surveillance | Tenth Amendment Center

The legislation would prohibit state government agencies including local law enforcement agencies and courts from requesting, issuing, or enforcing reverse-keyword court orders and reverse-keyword requests.
blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com
 
This segment is from the show ‘VICE’ which originally aired in December 2021."

Should Americans Worry About Mass Surveillance in the US?​

Jul 30, 2024
If you’re wondering if your phone is listening to you…the answer is basically, yes. Big Tech knows your every move, purchase, email, and internet search, but data collection affects more than your Netflix queue and Amazon suggestions. Silicon Valley is cashing in on the government’s increased need and reliance on security technology. VICE News' Krishna Andavolu investigates this unlikely alliance of the Feds and Big Tech that’s ushering in a new era of surveillance, with drastic implications for privacy and human rights.


15:39
 

Illinois governor approves business-friendly overhaul of biometric privacy law​

Aug 5 (Reuters) - Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill into law that will significantly curb the penalties companies could face for improperly collecting and using fingerprints and other biometric data from workers and consumers.

The bill, opens new tab passed by the legislature in May and signed by Pritzker, a Democrat, on Friday amends the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) so that companies can be held liable only for a single violation per person, rather than for each time biometric data is allegedly misused.

The amendments will dramatically limit companies' exposure in BIPA cases and could discourage plaintiffs' lawyers from filing many lawsuits in the first place, management-side lawyers said.

"By limiting statutory damages to a single recovery per individual ... companies in most instances will no longer face the prospect of potentially annihilative damages awards that greatly outpace any privacy harms," David Oberly, of counsel at Baker Donelson in Washington, D.C., said before the bill was signed.

More:

 
www.eff.org

Backyard Privacy in the Age of Drones

Police departments and law enforcement agencies are increasingly collecting personal information using drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to high-resolution photographic and video cameras, police drones may be equipped with myriad spying payloads, such as live-video...
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
Doesn't matter whether fed or state, once something is in place for the war on terror, war on drugs or immigration, it will eventually be used on regular citizens.

www.texasobserver.org

Texas State Police Gear Up for Massive Expansion of Surveillance Tech

DPS plans to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a controversial software, used first as part of Governor Abbott’s border crackdown, to “disrupt potential domestic terrorism.”
www.texasobserver.org www.texasobserver.org
 
www.eff.org

You Really Do Have Some Expectation of Privacy in Public

When we spend time fighting the growing ubiquity of both public and private surveillance cameras we often hear a familiar refrain: “you don’t have an expectation of privacy in public.” This is not true. In the United States, you do have some expectation of privacy—even in public—and it’s...
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
www.eff.org

FTC Report Confirms: Commercial Surveillance is Out of Control

A new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report confirms what EFF has been warning about for years: tech giants are widely harvesting and sharing your personal information to fuel their online behavioral advertising businesses. This four-year investigation into the data practices of nine social media...
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
www.eff.org

Germany Rushes to Expand Biometric Surveillance

Germany is a leader in privacy and data protection, with many Germans being particularly sensitive to the processing of their personal data – owing to the country’s totalitarian history and the role of surveillance in both Nazi Germany and East Germany.So, it is disappointing that the German...
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
Newer generations forget the lessons learned by their forebears. Same dynamic plays out with sound money. Joe Public is mostly ignorant.
 

Judge reportedly strikes down Texas law that Ken Paxton frequently uses to investigate companies and nonprofits​


A federal judge said Texas’ “request to examine” statute amounts to unconstitutional search and seizure, Bloomberg reported.

Attorney General Ken Paxton can’t use a state statute that he repeatedly relies on to scrutinize various companies and nonprofits — including an El Paso migrant shelter network and a nonprofit focused on increasing Latinos’ civic participation — after a federal magistrate judge on Friday ruled the tool unconstitutional, according to Bloomberg Law.

Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas verbally granted a permanent injunction stopping Paxton using what’s called a “request to examine” to probe myriad practices. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., a Boeing 737 jets manufacturer that received such a request from Paxton earlier this year requiring the company to produce a variety of documents.

More:

www.texastribune.org

Judge reportedly strikes down Texas law that Ken Paxton frequently uses to investigate companies and nonprofits

A federal judge said Texas’ “request to examine” statute amounts to unconstitutional search and seizure, Bloomberg reported.
www.texastribune.org www.texastribune.org

Steve's take:


8:02
 
www.eff.org

The Real Monsters of Street Level Surveillance

Safe trick-or-treating this Halloween means being aware of the real monsters of street-level surveillance. You might not always see these menaces, but they are watching you. The real-world harms of these terrors wreak havoc on our communities. Here, we highlight just a few of the beasts.
www.eff.org www.eff.org
 
I thought this was already passed? I guess not...

 
So much irony...

Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers.

The hacking campaign, nicknamed Salt Typhoon by Microsoft, is one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history, and it has not yet been fully remediated. Officials on a news call Tuesday refused to set a timetable for declaring the country’s telecommunications systems free of interlopers. Officials had told NBC News that China hacked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies to spy on customers.
...
In the call Tuesday, two officials — a senior FBI official who asked not to be named and Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — both recommended using encrypted messaging apps to Americans who want to minimize the chances of China’s intercepting their communications.

“Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it’s on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible,” Greene said.
...
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www.yahoo.com

U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid cyberattack that exposed live phone calls

Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
 
pmbug said:
So much irony...



www.yahoo.com

U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid cyberattack that exposed live phone calls

Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
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That is to prevent interception of the data. The feds will use AI on the phones to see what you encrypt prior to it being sent.
 
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I had to look up what RCS is:
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What is RCS?

RCS is short for Rich Communication Services, though sometimes it is also marketed as “Advanced Messaging.” Either way, it’s often positioned as a next-generation replacement for SMS and MMS. RCS allows users to take advantage of many features that were previously exclusive to over-the-top messaging platforms like WhatsApp.

For instance, the RCS Universal Profile includes full support for read receipts and typing indicators. It can also facilitate proper group chats, and allow users to send high-resolution images, video and audio clips. As of earlier this year, Google’s implementation of RCS also offers by default end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for both one-on-one and group chats.

Unlike SMS texts, RCS messages are routed over a mobile data connection or Wi-Fi link, with SMS functioning as a fallback. For that reason, the older protocol likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
...
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www.engadget.com

What is RCS and how is it different from SMS and iMessage?

This week, Apple announced it would offer RCS support starting in 2024. Here's what that means for the future of chat between iOS and Android devices.
www.engadget.com www.engadget.com
 
pmbug said:
^^ NPUs explained:

www.techradar.com

What is an NPU: the new AI chips explained

What is an NPU? Possibly the biggest advance in computing in a generation
www.techradar.com www.techradar.com

www.pcworld.com

What the heck is an NPU, anyway? Here's an explainer on AI chips

All PCs will soon have neural processing units. Learn everything you need to know about NPUs and whether you need to care or not.
www.pcworld.com www.pcworld.com

Thanks for posting that video. It was worth the time to watch.
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He has a lot of good vids on this, and related subjects. Take a scroll through the vids on his youtube channel, and I'm sure you'll find some that will pique your interest. The dude is a wealth of information.
 

New documentary details how governments use spyware to monitor citizens’ phones​

Dec 8, 2024
This past week, the White House detailed the scope of a massive Chinese hacking campaign that reaped information from American cell phone networks. But an HBO original documentary, “Surveilled,” says some governments use commercial spyware to monitor their own citizens. To learn more, John Yang speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, who produced the documentary.


7:16
 
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