Where is the line drawn for your fourth
amendment right? You know the one, it states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Almost everyone has a cell phone these
days. A random study I stumbled upon states that even many US third graders (8 years old) have cell
phones.
With the massive acceptance and usage
of cell phones, would you expect some privacy on those lines?
Wouldn't you suppose that a cell phone and a conversation had on one,
would be private, aside from maybe a warrant based on probable cause being involved?
Apparently the federal court does not
agree. Within the last year a device known as a “Stingray” has
been getting a lot of publicity. The way the device works is that it
pretends to be a cell phone tower, intercepting signals and
initiating handshakes to mobile devices at it's own accord. The
device does not actually disrupt but acts as a middle man to cell
phone traffic. The government can use these devices to monitor any
and all cell phone data and conversations.
This article
states that the government insists that stingrays do not infringe on
the Fourth Amendment. Their claim is that most people do not have
the expectation of privacy so therefore they do not need to
acknowledge it as personal property or privacy.
In this day and age of wireless fun,
how can you not expect some level of privacy? Literally everyone uses
them and for the government legislators to entirely disregard the
fourth amendment right is insane to me.
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