Woodstock Times: Sheriff suspends warrant checks at Social Services by Jesse J. Smith:
Ulster County Sheriff Paul VanBlarcum said this week that he will suspend a controversial policy of running warrant checks on visitors to the county’s Department of Social Services HQ after lawmakers threatened to replace sheriff’s deputies assigned to security at the facility with private security guards.
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MotherJones: The FBI Is Very Excited About This Machine That Can Scan Your DNA in 90 Minutes by Shane Bauer:
Rapid DNA technology makes it easier than ever to grab and store your genetic profile. G-men, cops, and Homeland Security can’t wait to see it everywhere.
TechDirt: FISA Judge To Yahoo: If US Citizens Don’t Know They’re Being Surveilled, There’s No Harm by Tim Cushing:
A legal battle between Yahoo and the government over the Protect America Act took place in 2008, but details (forced from the government’s Top Secret file folders by FISA Judge Reggie Walton) are only emerging now.
WaPo: Phone tracking: From your address to, now, your altitude by Craig Timberg:
Cellphone tracking is about to go vertical as the location-services industry, prodded by the U.S. government, solves the riddle of what experts call ‘the z vector.’ Soon it will be possible to determine not only what building you and your phone are in but also whether you are on the first or 15th floor.
NYTimes: Mail Monitoring Rarely Denied, Postal Service Says by Ron Nixon:
The United States Postal Service granted almost all of the nearly 6,700 requests from law enforcement agencies last year to monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations, Postal Service officials told a House panel on Wednesday.
NYTimes: N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Could Go On, Even if a Law Expires by Charlie Savage:
WASHINGTON — A little-known provision of the Patriot Act, overlooked by lawmakers and administration officials alike, appears to give President Obama a possible way to keep the National Security Agency’s bulk phone records program going indefinitely — even if Congress allows the law on which it is based to expire next year.
Salon: This is America? Secret courts, no 4th amendment and… magic pixie dust by Marcy Wheeler
The claims judges are making in secret hearings about your privacy would be funny — if they weren’t so alarming
When officers doing a knock-and-talk get no answer at the front door and there’s no car in the driveway and no signs anybody’s home, they can’t go to the back door to see if the barking dog they heard belonged to the house. They violated curtilage to smell the marijuana. State v. Gentile, 2014 N.C. App. LEXIS 1149 (November 18, 2014):
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Delaware requires that there be reasonable suspicion for a probation search. Here, a police officer passed on an unverified tip from an informant that defendant was selling drugs, and that was used for a home visit. Defendant had a couple of dirty UAs but no action reports had been written for him. Once officers were inside, defendant admitted to smoking marijuana. Tossing his apartment, officers found a gun safe and procured the key and searched it finding a gun. The gun was suppressed because the initial search was based on an unverified tip. State v. Johnson, 2014 Del. Super. LEXIS 587 (October 30, 2014).
Defendant was stopped because the side light of the car he was driving was broken. He made a furtive movement as he was stopping. It was a high crime area, and everybody in the car came back as having priors, although defendant first gave a fake name. After he was out of the car, a gun was in plain view. United States v. Bayya, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162073 (D. Or. November 18, 2014).*
IAC claim on direct appeal for failure to raise suppression motion was denied without prejudice to try it during post conviction proceedings. State v. Carter, 2014 N.C. App. LEXIS 1140 (November 18, 2014).*
WND: SWAT Team Tasers, Pepper-Sprays Homeschoolers by Bob Unruh:
A Missouri homeschooling family is suing a sheriff and another officer who forcibly entered their home without a warrant, Tasered the father, pepper-sprayed the mother and put their children in the custody of social service workers.
A court already has ruled that the actions of Sheriff Darren White and Capt. David Glidden of Nodaway County, Missouri, violated the U.S. Constitution, resulting in the dismissal of charges of child endangerment and resisting arrest against the couple, Jason and Laura Hagan, of New Hampton.
[WND is not the most reliable source. They posted this two hours ago. I can’t find any other source on the internet with this story by searching the names or “SWAT” and “homeschool.” I also searched on Lexis federal and Missouri courts the party names and got no hits.]
Cell Phone Investigations by Thomas Manson via Police Technical, shipping about Dec. 1.
arstechnica: AT&T demands clarity: Are warrants needed for customer cell-site data? by David Kravets
Legal uncertainty surrounds a law compelling disclosure of location information.
AT&T has entered the legal fracas over whether court warrants are required for the government to obtain their customers’ cell-site location history.
The telecom, while not siding one way or the other, said Monday the courts should adopt a uniform policy nationwide. As it now stands, there’s conflicting appellate rulings on the matter. The Supreme Court has yet to decide the issue.
Two defendants were arrested and left alone in the back of a police car, and, as hoped, they talked about the crime they were arrested for, and it was surreptitiously recorded. They may have had a subjective expectation of privacy but not an objective one. The Second Circuit hasn’t had this issue yet, but every circuit to rule on it goes against them. United States v. Colon, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161461 (D. Conn. November 17, 2014):
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NYTimes: Bill to Restrict N.S.A. Data Collection Blocked in Vote by Senate Republicans by Charlie Savage and Jeremy W. Peters:
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a sweeping overhaul of the once-secret National Security Agency program that collects records of Americans’ phone calls in bulk.
Democrats and a handful of Republicans who supported the measure failed to secure the 60 votes they needed to take up the legislation. The vote was 58 to 42 for consideration.
EFF Fights Government’s Effort to Get Cell Location Records Without a Warrant by Hanni Fakhoury and Jennifer Lynch:
Once again, a federal court will decide whether police can track your movements over an extended period of time without a search warrant. Federal and state courts have divided over whether the Fourth Amendment requires police seek a search warrant to obtain historical cell site location information (CSLI)—the records of which cell phone towers your phone has connected to in the past. We’ve weighed in, filing a new amicus brief in one of the most important legal cases to watch in 2015.
CNN: Can cell phones stop police brutality? by Laura Ly:
Millions of people have now seen the video.
Eric Garner, standing on a sidewalk, asks the NYPD officers surrounding him, “What did I do? What did I do?”
Garner, 43, raises both hands in the air and tells the officers not to touch him.
Moments later, he’s on the ground while a plain-clothes officer places him in an apparent choke hold.Garner gasps, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.”
His words are muffled as his face is pressed into the pavement.
By the end of the video, Garner is lifeless on the Staten Island sidewalk.
The video went viral. Garner’s death sparked protests across the country, thrusting into the spotlight the issue of police brutality on unarmed citizens. Citizens who, in increasing numbers, have taken to arming themselves with their own kind of weapon — their cell phones.
Baltimore Sun: Judge threatens detective with contempt for declining to reveal cellphone tracking methods by Justin Fenton:
Baltimore prosecutors withdrew key evidence in a robbery case Monday rather than reveal details of the cellphone tracking technology police used to gather it.
The surprise turn in Baltimore Circuit Court came after a defense attorney pressed a city police detective to reveal how officers had tracked his client.
City police Det. John L. Haley, a member of a specialized phone tracking unit, said officers did not use the controversial device known as a stingray. But when pressed on how phones are tracked, he cited what he called a “nondisclosure agreement” with the FBI.
Washington Times: D.C. rethinks rules that let police seize, keep suspects’ cash, property by Andrea Noble:
Civil asset forfeiture policies facing increasing scrutiny nationwide
D.C. lawmakers are pushing forward with legislation to reform policies allowing police to seize property from people they stop, regardless of whether criminal charges are ever filed — a practice called civil asset forfeiture that is facing increasing scrutiny nationwide.
Among the changes, the D.C. Council has proposed diverting profits from seizures into the city’s general fund instead of letting the police department keep and spend the money, reducing the appearance that officers have an incentive to take cash or cars.
NYTimes Editorial: A Crucial Vote on the Surveillance Bill:
The Republican Party is so badly fractured that it is impossible to tell what steps it will take on domestic surveillance once it assumes control of Congress in January. Its rising libertarian wing wants to crack down on abuses of Americans’ privacy, but many of its leaders express full support for any action the intelligence agencies want to take.
That’s why it’s important that the Senate break a filibuster on the USA Freedom Act, which would reduce or end the bulk collection of telephone records, in a vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. If the bill doesn’t pass in the current lame-duck session of the Senate, still controlled by Democrats, it may never get past the 60-vote hurdle in the next session of Congress.
