Friday, April 29, 2011

Protect Your Rights: Learn the Rules for Dealing with the Police

From the ACLU:

Do you have to allow a police officer to search your car when you are stopped for a traffic violation? Are you required to identify yourself to a police officer if you are not driving a car? Can you videotape a police officer arresting someone in public?

Encounters with the police can be stressful experiences - even for people who have done nothing wrong. Take this short quiz and learn to protect your rights in dealing with the police.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

iPhone, iPad Tracking Causes Alarm

By Jordan Roberston from Forbes:


Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple about why iPhones and iPads are collecting location data about their users.
Full article can be found here.


The most recent dust-up, prompted by a report at a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., raises questions about how much privacy consumers surrender by carrying around a smartphone and the responsibility of the smartphone makers to protect sensitive data that flows through their devices.


Researchers emphasize that there's no evidence that Apple Inc. itself has access to this data - it apparently stays on the device itself and the computers the data is backed up to. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

Full article can be found here.

Gadget Gives Cops Quick Access to Cell Phone Data

By Bob Sullivan

The "Universal Forensic Extraction Device" sounds like the perfect cell phone snooping gadget.

Its maker, Israel-based Cellbrite, says it can copy all the content in a cell phone -- including contacts, text messages, call history, and pictures -- within a few minutes. Even deleted texts and other data can be restored by UFED 2.0, the latest version of the product, it says.

And it really is a universal tool. The firm says UFED works with 3,000 cell phone models, representing 95 percent of the handset market. Coming soon, the firm says UFED works with 3,000 cell phone models, representing 95 percent of the handset market. Coming soon, the firm says on its website: "Additional major breakthroughs, including comprehensive iPhone physical solution; Android physical support – allowing bypassing of user lock code, (Windows Phone) support, and much more." For good measure, UFEC can extract information from GPS units in most cars.

The gadget isn't a stalker's dream; it's an evidence-gathering tool for law enforcement. Cellbrite claims it’s already in use in 60 countries.

That apparently includes the U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan says it has learned that state police there have purchased some of the gadgets. What is it doing with them? So far, Michigan authorities aren't telling. A public records request for information by the ACLU was met with a prohibitive $500,000 bill to cover the supposed cost of making the documents available.

"They did produce documents which confirmed that they have them," said Mark Fancher, a staff attorney at the ACLU office. "We have no idea what they are doing with them."

Technology and the Fourth Amendment have had a rocky relationship. When The Founding Fathers created protections against unlimited search and seizure, they never imagined the kind of tools that would be available to 21st century police officers.

Cell phone data is an indispensible tool in both investigations and prosecutions. A drug dealer's contact list is an obvious treasure trove. Location information stored in the phone can prove (or disprove) an alibi. Texts are at least as valuable as emails. Increasingly, smartphone s are used as mini-laptops, placing even more ready-made evidence in one small package -- as long as law enforcement can get to it before it's destroyed.

Because handsets are nearly always with suspects, it's easy for a would-be criminal to delete information during a traffic stop. Remote wiping programs exist that mean critical evidence could be destroyed even after a police officer takes possession of a suspect's phone. That means law enforcement official s have great interest in slurping up all the secrets that a handset might contain as quickly as possible. Enter Cellbrite.

But how fast is too fast? Fancher and the ACLU argue that most cell phone searches are an invasion of privacy that requires law enforcement officials to get a court order before rummaging through a suspect's handset data. While UFED could be used after an order is obtained, its obvious focus is on time-critical searches -- those that would occur, for example, right after a "routine traffic stop."

Full article can be found here.

2011 NDIA National Conference

This year the 2011 NDIA National Conference will be held April 28-29, 2011 at:

The Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency
21500 Pacific Coast Highway
Huntington Beach, California 92648
Telephone: 714/698-1234
Fax: 714/845-4990
www.huntingtonbeach.hyatt.com

Introduction to the 2011 National Conference by Sean Broderick
Current 2011 National Conference Agenda
2011 National Conference Registration Form
Conference At-A-Glance

Room Rate: $123 per diem OR prevailing Government per diem rate
Room Reservations Telephone: 714/698-1234
(Refer to NDIA Group Meeting when making reservations)

Check-In: 4:00 p.m.
Check-Out: 11:00 a.m.

Deadline for Hotel Reservations: April 8, 2011!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Justice Department challenges ruling on GPS use - Washington Times

The debate over warrantless GPS monitoring continues. (See previous posts here). The latest news? The Department of Justice has filed a Petition of Certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to review the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Maynard v. United States. The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. in the Tenth Circuit held police can’t use global positioning satellite (GPS) technology to track a suspect’s car without getting a warrant. The full court, in a 5-4 decision last fall, refused to reconsider the decision. Now, the Justice Department is requesting that the Supreme Court accept Certiorari. The Court of Appeals expressed a distinction between a person "exposing" themselves in public on roadways, and police tracking that reveals all the places a person may travel over the course of a month:
In the August 6, 2010 decision, Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote, "It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even follow someone during a single journey, . . . it is another thing for a stranger to [dog] his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores
that make up that person‘s hitherto private routine.”

The Justice Department now requests that this be considered by the Supreme Court:

“Prompt resolution of this conflict is critically important to law enforcement efforts throughout the United States,” government attorneys argued in their petition. “The court of appeals’ decision seriously impedes the governments’ use of GPS devices at the beginning stages of an investigation when officers are gathering evidence …”

Attorneys for Jones, who remains in prison, argued that federal authorities violated Jones‘ reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment when they used a GPS device to track his movements.

“This is an issue over which a philosophically diverse appellate panel and a majority of the full court agreed,” Stephen C. Leckar, Jones‘ appeals attorney, said after the Justice Department filing.

“The public has a constitutional right that a neutral magistrate will decide in advance whether the police can secretly install in your car an extraordinarily intrusive device that will record relentlessly every seven to 10 seconds where you’ve traveled for over a month,” Mr. Leckar said. “To allow anything less would encourage further erosion of the Fourth Amendment, whose purpose was to curb such abuses of power.”

The issue is heating up elsewhere in the Supreme Court where a Petition was filed by the defendant challenging a Ninth Circuit ruling in United States v. Pineda-Moreno where the Ninth Circuit held that such a GPS tracking did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that such a track was not a search. The Ninth Circuit was asked to consider the case en banc and Judge Kozinski wrote an eloquent dissent, available here Circuit Court order denying en banc review, together with a vigorous dissent, is here.. The Supreme Court case, is filed under Pineda-Moreno v. United States, docket 10-7515. [petition available here].
Additional reporting available at Washington Post here or Inside GNSS here.
Stay tuned and keep preserving the issue of the GPS tracking in motions and investigation work.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

AT&T Subpoena Compliance

Mobility subpoenas should be addressed to AT&T and submitted to:

AT&T Subpoena Center
208 S. Akard St., 10th Floor M
Dallas, Texas 75202
Contact Number: (800) 291-4952
Fax: (877) 971-6093

Hours of Operation: Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 5:00 pm CT

Additional AT&T Contact Information

The website below provides general information related to the landline subpoena process and also facilitates an online process whereby landline subpoenas can be submitted. Please do not use the website below for Mobility subpoenas, this will delay the return of records requested.


Subpoena requests for AT&T Internet Services, Inc. should be directed to:

AT&T Internet Services
Legal Compliance Group
1010 N. St. Mary’s Street
Room 315-A2
San Antonio, TX 78215
Contact : (210) 351-5219
Fax: (707) 435-6409

The AT&T National Compliance Center in North Palm Beach, Florida, will retain responsibility for all Mobility Court Orders, 911, and other legal process compliance work functions. 

AT&T National Compliance Center
11760 US Highway One
Mailstop: Suite 600
North Palm Beach, FL 33408
Contact : 800‐635‐6840
Fax #: 888‐938‐4715