Friendly reminder: the magic words for dealing with the police are "I do not consent to a search. Am I free to leave?" It's just business: you never need a reason to ask for more money in a negotiation and you never need a reason to avoid waiving your Constitutional rights.
If they need your iPhone address book they can get a search warrant. (Our historical understand is that they do need a reason for asking for that sort of thing, and that your papers and effects enjoy a strong presumption of privacy.)
If they need your iPhone address book they can get a search warrant.
While I agree that's our right as protected by the 4th, some states have determined that only probable cause is required to confiscate and search cell phones (e.g. California). In those states refusing to consent will not help (except of course if you plan on taking the case to SCOTUS).
But probable cause is still not the same as searching everybody. If you refuse consent, you can challenge in court whether they really had probable cause.
In the article, it said that the device used could extract data regardless of whether the phone was password-protected or not. Looks like it's time to start encrypting our cellphone data as well.
I don't recall any mention of the specific methods used in California, but in this case the officer took the phone when he arrested the person, so presumably the police had quite a long time to muck about with it. Here is one of the original articles covering the California Supreme Court ruling:
Relevant text:
A government agency may charge a fee for the necessary copying of a public record for inspection or providing a copy of a public record to a requestor. A public body may also charge for search, examination and review and the separation of exempt information in those instances where failure to charge a fee would result in unreasonably high costs to the public body. The fee must be limited to actual duplication, mailing and labor costs. The first $20 of a fee must be waived for a person who is on welfare or presents facts showing inability to pay because of indigency.
(italics mine)
Translation: The $500k "fee" is another denial/delay tactic
Because the citizenry are complacent. 60 years ago, my grandfather would've led the charge to hang these traitors from the nearest convenient lamp-post. Now, I'm too busy waiting for the next American Idol to be bothered with the whole messy business. Vote from the rooftops, its our only hope.
Check the date in the article. This started under the previous Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm. I live just outside the capital and trust me this was done quietly, very quietly never making the papers until the ACLU lawsuit. Judging from my friends this is opposed by people in both political parties and I doubt will be allowed to stand.
From what I've gathered, police can ask for all kinds of things that they legally have no right to (searches, being let in, etc), but you can still ignorantly comply. They can even legally lie about shit to persuade you.
Have to disagree with "You haven't committed any crime" because these to my understanding occur during traffic violation. Not saying I agree with the practice but am saying cops are not pulling over perfectly legal drivers and saying "Sir/Ma'am please handover your cell phone".
An ambiguous crime. The limits are clearly posted, but enforcement is highly inconsistent. Driving the speed limit has probably become indicative of old age or an attempt to avoid police interaction. Try strictly driving the posted limit for a while and you will find it socially unacceptable. While most traffic stops are rightly due to excessive violation, some are an excuse to investigate. A stop for speeding makes a great cover should the motorist complain. If they were driving slower than the social norm, or even the cars around them, there is no hard evidence to support their case.
Right, and that's why you're not entitled to a jury trial for your speeding ticket. Speeding, running a light, etc., are not criminal offenses (except in extreme cases of reckless driving, where you may be on the hook for "reckless endangerment" or some such)
First sentence reads: "In the United States, most traffic laws are codified in a variety of state, county and municipal ordinances, with most minor violations classified as civil infractions."
They can't lie about them afterwards, but they can lie to you during interrogation. E.g. "your friend Joe already told us you did <whatever crime> so you might as well admit it." even if that's not true.
If you appear to be intoxicated (staggering about, etc) you can be arrested for public intoxication, though you are not driving. Not sure whether they can compel a breathalyzer without a warrant in that case though.
Android phone encryption: http://www.whispersys.com/ -- the good sire @moxie_ makes it. I believe it's supported on the nexus one and nexus s.
They all at some point will have the source code available, though until that occurs I've only got redphone / textsecure installed. Great apps., great developer.
Wonder if they sell to private individuals?; they only seem to list military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies as their target customer on their site.
To defeat over 3000 models of phones it would need to have about 2000 different connection types, based on my experience trying to plug in and extract information from various manufacturers extortionately priced dongle custom connectors.
I found myself inadvertently helping a friend today who's abusive manipulative ex-partner has been sexting their 14yr old daughter and I was helping her recover the messages to present to the police; could seriously have used one of these and avoided a heap of hassle with drivers, cables, custom software. (The NZ police don't seem to have these devices yet)
I'm thinking I need an app that immediately encrypts the flash should it ever detect its been placed in a "Faraday bag".
I've actually tried to isolate a phone from the network for testing. Its much more difficult that it seems like it should be. I'm wondering if such a thing works or if this more of a gimmick.
The only reliable way I've found of making sure my iphone is truly off the air is to take it to San Fran(1)...
Or you could stick it in a microwave. (I've used this to test if my home 'repaired' microwave is leaking radiation. Stick your phone in it and close the door. Call it. If it rings, chuck your microwave out :-) If it doesn't, well, I wouldn't stake my life on it not leaking and I'd still get it tested professionally.
Only problem with this microwave trick is that it's hard to push the buttons once the door is closed! You can use it to test your microwave, but not your phone unless your app doesn't need any interaction. Also, an app that encrypts on loss of signal would be of limited use where I live in NZ. The Vodafone network drops in and out so often you'd flatten the battery on the phone real fast with all that encryption action.
If your phone doesn't ring and you're not feeling warmth when the microwave runs, you're fine.
Microwaves don't do much more than excite water molecules. Those excited molecules would manifest as a simple perception of increased heat if there's somewhere your microwave is leaking. If you're not feeling that, you're safe.
Yeah, I was thinking about that. It couldn't just encrypt on "no signal". On a rooted Pre I have, I'm able to get lots of radio stuff even when the phone is saying "no signal" and I can't make calls. The noise floor is a pretty good place to start. I'm thinking just monitoring the noise and watching for very sudden changes. If you suddenly change rapidly to very quiet, you might be in a faraday bag.
Hmm. It actually can only report the SNR. I'll have to look into how it comes up with this number. Thanks for the microwave tip. Might be handy.
In this case I believe so. I was doing nothing more than recovering text messages and phone call logs so that they could be printed. The police had already seen and witnessed the information directly on the devices, but had asked if they could be printed to make it easier to include them in a file (i.e. they actually requested my friend do this if she had the means as it would be preferable to hand-transcribing this information)
The "Apple iPhone Passcode Bypass instructions" document explains that they can bypass your iphone User Lock, but they need access to a plist file from the iTunes installation on the machine which the phone syncs to, which is often unlikely to be available at a routine traffic stop.
One point which I haven't seen come up in any discussion of this: Michigan now prohibits texting while driving. So at least in theory, checking your cell phone could determine whether or not you were violating this. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a major part of the justification for this.
Of course, even that wouldn't justify anything but getting your last few minutes of chat log off the phone...
Pretty crazy, and a great argument for device-level encryption on mobile. I really hope someone gets it together and exposes Linux's encryption support on Android devices. I think it'd be pretty difficult to grab the key from memory with a device like that, but you should be able to turn the device off or pull the battery when you get stopped anyway if that's a concern.
Just got an Android two weeks ago, and I'm shocked that so far I haven't been able to find TrueCrypt or similar software available for it. Does anybody know of a solution?
If they need your iPhone address book they can get a search warrant. (Our historical understand is that they do need a reason for asking for that sort of thing, and that your papers and effects enjoy a strong presumption of privacy.)