Red Phone

You can secure calls from your cell phone by encrypting them, which you might consider since the FBI apparently thinks they have free reign to listen to you talk without a warrant.
Writing in Ars Technica, David Kravets is unimpressed with the FBI’s regard for Americans’ expectation of privacy.

The bureau’s position on Americans’ privacy isn’t surprising. The Obama Administration has repeatedly maintained that the public has no privacy in public places. It began making that argument as early as 2010...
Of course, there's always a chance that the tech firms offering the encryption have partnerships with the government. That's certainly been the pattern in the past.

4 comments:

MikeD said...

This really bothers me. Quite literally, cell phones are the modern equivalent of "papers" and should be considered such by Fourth Amendment protections. Now, if the FBI wants to claim that they have a right to record a conversation which occurs in a public space, then I am fine with that. If they want to take pictures or videos in a public place, I am fine with that. If they want to send a camera on a remote device (I find the term "drone" to be provocative, even if technically correct) to obtain a vantage point normally unreachable without making it blindingly obvious that someone is surveilling you, then yes... I have a problem with it. If they want to plant a tracking device on a vehicle, then yes... they should need a warrant. If they want to decode the electronic communication between two users (and yes... this includes cell phone calls unless you can hear in the megahertz range and speak digital fluently) then yes... they should need a warrant.

We have a right to be secure in our persons and papers unless a warrant is sought. Electronic communications (such as emails, phone calls, cell calls, texts, etc) are nothing more than 21st Century versions of papers. If that burden is too much for law enforcement, and there is no other way for them to find that data than to lift it without a warrant, then too damned bad.

Grim said...

I tend to think so, but the government finds it convenient to reject the analogy.

MikeD said...

Well, of course they do. It is the very nature of those in power to seek more, and as long as they are not pushed back, they will only be encouraged to continue seeking more.

Ymar Sakar said...

More power in the hands of Good, is better. More power in the hands of Evil, produces catastrophe.

The idea that a tool, by its nature, is demonic or holy, is a quaint and very superstitious kind of heretical dogma.