Emily Bazelon writes: When I see a police dog inside a train station or at a public gathering, I feel safer. I figure it is there to protect us from explosives, and if it sniffs out drugs along the way, well, that’s against the law, too. But what if it turns out that the dogs…
Category: U.S.
The Legal Battle Over Cell Phone Location Privacy
Larry Bodine writes: It’s just a “routine investigation.” The feds want the location records of MetroPCS and T-Mobile cell phone customers in Texas without bothering to show that a crime was even committed. The U.S. Attorney in Houston asserts that cell phone users have no reasonable expectation of privacy as to their location, and he…
Megaupload User Seeks to Unseal Documents Relating to Data Seizure
From EFF: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), on behalf of its client Kyle Goodwin, asked a federal court yesterday to unseal warrant-related documents surrounding the loss of access to Mr. Goodwin’s data after the government shut down Megaupload.com. Goodwin used Megaupload’s cloud-based storage system for his small business reporting on high school sporting events in…
Judge Questions Tools That Grab Cellphone Data on Innocent People
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries reports: A judge in Texas is raising questions about whether investigators are giving courts enough details on technological tools that let them get data on all the cellphones in an area, including those of innocent people. In two cases, Magistrate Judge Brian Owsley rejected federal requests to allow the warrantless use of “stingrays”…