Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, court rules

Re:Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, cou... by pjc50 on Friday May 22, 2020 @06:53AM (#23270692)

The US has no general, coherent, constitutional legal theory of privacy per se. Just the 4th amendment rule against unreasonable seaches. As distinct from ECHR general right to private life.

This leads to all sorts of "I'm not touching you" shenanigans where getting your data from somewhere else is perfectly fine, so long as they're not performing something that could be called a search on you specifically.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, cou... by mhh__ on Friday May 22, 2020 @09:01AM (#23271551)

Then there's also the whole can of worms that (I'm not a lawyer but if I understand it correctly) the NSA can collect as much data about you as they like but it is not considered to have been collected until someone actually requests it

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, cou... by mindslight on Friday May 22, 2020 @10:26AM (#23272415)

Don't listen to any of NSA's, or really the entire executive branch's, narratives about the legality of anything. It's possible to twist logic to justify anything when you've set out to do so - the legal equivalent of "I'm not hitting my brother, I'm just flailing my arms and walking forward". The only effective answer about legality is when these things actually end up in a real court, apart from the secret kangaroo "courts" they've invented. And as we've seen, these treacherous agencies will do everything they can to keep their activities out of open court.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Just turning your phone on qualifies as searching it, cou... by mhh__ on Friday May 22, 2020 @12:10PM (#23273608)

"We are overseen by the FISA courts!" - NSA

"We don't have enough money to oversee the NSA" - FISA courts

Repeat ad infinitum

[ Parent | on HN ]