Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Stringrays and feds...


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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