This is how laws have worked for centuries at this point in the US. At least with this method you have the option of fighting it and the data isn't secretly used behind your back. Also you can force them to clearly define what data they need, like front porch, rather than as much as they can get.

Yes, as I said if you have the money (a big if and whether you win or lose, you can’t recover that money ) you can fight it, but can you really say you “own” your data if you can be forced to give it up?

Of course. Just like I own my car but if I violate certain laws it may be confiscated.

If "can't be forced to give it up by normal legal processes" is your standard for what it means to own something, there is very little in the world that you do actually own. So little, in fact that the concept doesn't mean much at all.

But you can have your video footage taken without you having violated any laws or even have any relation at all to the reason they want the footage, the cops can say "We think there's something we want to see on your camera feed, now give it to us", and as long as they have reasonable suspicion that there's footage related to an investigation, they'll get it.

If you're assuming the cops and the judges are so corrupt that the safeguard of the subpoena process is worthless, then you also have to think of everything you own being subject to seizure. Not just data.

I think you are talking past each other. If a crime (not committed by you) happens near your security camera, then your footage can be subpoenaed. This is not corruption or a violation of the subpoena safeguard process. I agree that it's a bit over-the-top to say "you don't own the footage." just because of this, but that appears to be the point that is being made.

Yes, I understand.

I think the issue, really, is a philosophical disagreement. I think that if the police are to be able to investigate crime, they need to have some invasive powers. But they also shouldn't be trusted to use them without controls. The subpoena (and warrant) process is the control we have in the US. I don't think the existence of this ability is, itself, a serious violation of rights.

Other people may legitimately disagree.

There is also a serious discussion that could be had about whether the controls are sufficient, but that's a procedural issue rather than a philosophical one.

> This is not corruption or a violation of the subpoena safeguard process

Not if it ends there and cops make the right decisions. However it's a legitimate concern that an overly broad police investigation, even after a real crime happens, might lead bad/lazy/dishonest cops to wrongfully acuse someone unrelated.

> But you can have your video footage taken without you having violated any laws

This is true of your car too, look up civil forfeiture in the US. The bar for seizing property is much lower than for criminal conviction.

A low bar doesn't mean "no bar" - they literally need zero reason to think you had and relation to a crime to take your video footage, but for civil forfeiture, they have to have suspicion that the property seized was related to wrongdoing.

Subpoenaing footage also has more than "no bar" as they still have to convince a judge to approve it

But my point is that you don't have to be under any suspicion yourself, if the police think your camera recorded something related to an investigation, they can take the footage.

If some person you dislike got robbed in front of your house, you could be compelled to help them by supplying your video footage even if you don't want to. If you really owned your camera footage, you could say "Naa, I don't wanna help that guy, I'm not going to let you have it".

And still that doesn’t mean we don’t own our data. We own it.

That’s why the police asked us for the data. Because we own it.

But they don't ask, they tell you that you have to hand it over. You can appeal to the courts (which is an expensive option), but the judge may say the same thing and you have no (practical) choice . That's why I say that you don't own it -- if you owned it and the police ask for it, you could say "no".

What then, do I ask, do you own? Because it sounds like your answer is “nothing”, which is not a useful definition of “own”.

Can you hand it over if you don’t own it?

You can own your car but if you get in debt they can come and take it too. That's what living in country with other people is.

“If some person you dislike got robbed in front of your house, you could be compelled to help them by supplying your video footage even if you don't want to.”

You say that like it’s a bad thing…

No, I'm saying that if I really owned the video, I could decide whether or not the police can use it. I'm not arguing whether or not the police should be able to have access to private video, but that you don't really own the video if you can't tell them "no" when they subpoena it.

Then you don’t actually own anything because I can think of a scenario where the government can take it.

including your freedom and your very life.

If the government does not have power to compel then property rights are moot anyway as the biggest warlord will just take your shit.

Seems a sophmoric definition of ‘own’.

Furthermore in this circumstance you aren’t even deprived of your video. They simply want a copy.

There is basically nothing physical in your life, excluding your body, that can't be subpoenaed.

This is not a reasonable definition of ownership.

> If some person you dislike got robbed in front of your house, you could be compelled to help them by supplying your video footage

Let me get this straight. You're so concerned about your property rights being absolutely privileged in such a way that when social institutions gathering evidence for the crime of robbery -- a crime where relevant law is meant to deter/address the violation of property rights -- come knocking at your door, you want to assume the privilege of telling them "nah, I don't like that guy, screw him and screw his property rights and nothing I own will be involved in the enforcement of laws regarding those property rights"?

I think what this highlights is that, even where rights are important, they are rarely unqualified privileges. In the reality of any sufficiently complex system, corner cases or even conflict between worthwhile values exist. A legal system that cannot obligate people to produce relevant evidence for a case will likely be without power to make judgments based on evidence or enforce its laws, including those meant to protect property rights, which are the reason you can be said to "own" things at all.

In order to have a functioning legal system, there needs to be power to compel people to do things. Not every arbitrary thing -- good legal systems have limits too -- but you'll never be able to have rule of law without some power to compel.

You could get the same effect by… not saving any recordings you know?

It’s essentially creating an attractive nuisance if you do and then want to refuse to hand them out.

You can be compelled to turn up in court and testify about a crime you saw, even if it was nothing to do with you. How's that different?

… I’m confused why this would be objectionable.

If you were the victim of a crime, and some useful evidence that could lead to the identification and punishment of the perpetrator existed on someone else’s camera system, wouldn’t you want the police to be able to get hold of it?

I'm not arguing for or against the police being able to subpoena video, I'm just questioning the real ownership value of storing the video on your own hardware vs cloud storage. It doesn't keep the police from subpoenaing and obtaining the video. It makes it a little easier to fight the subpoena since you can hold onto the video while it works its way through the courts, but that's an expensive process that I think few would undertake so it's more of a theoretical advantage rather than a practical one.

It doesn't keep the police from using it, it does keep some cloud company (and a possibly limitless network of 3rd parties, regardless of what is publicly known) from using it.

> I'm just questioning the real ownership value of storing the video on your own hardware vs cloud storage.

3rd party have no motivation to only give the say front porch camera video vs "here are all of their videos from every camera everywhere".

> that's an expensive process that I think few would undertake so it's more of a theoretical advantage rather than a practical one.

You don't actually need to hire a lawyer to fight a subpoena. It would be smart, but not necessary. And how expensive that fight is depends entirely on how far you want to take it.

If you're broke, you can still appear before the judge and argue your case. It only really gets expensive if the judge rules against you and you want to fight it in a higher court.

> if I violate certain laws

Trouble is that police, prosecutors, and even judges and juries can famously get that wrong. So I find this caveat not to be especially reassuring.

Welcome to society?

We can get the society we ask for, though. IMO this is one reason why we should favor policy that doesn't have overly aggressive law enforcement or prosecution.

In my experience, we don't get the society we ask for (though asking is the first step). We get the society we make happen, and that has pros and cons.

The current setup is this way because of a very complex set of intertwining factors which are shifting constantly. So 'shoulds' are plentiful and never ending.

'Is', however, is right in front of us.

"We" is an awful lot of us with many different opinions. I accept for instance that my views on criminal justice are not a majority in the United States, especially with the "tough on crime" bullshit from the last election cycle, which they are still pumping. So, I try to make awareness for what I consider to be the good parts of my views, and that's the best I can do. I also try my best to be respectful of those who don't share the views and aren't receptive to changing, even though I feel pretty strongly on this topic.

> can you really say you “own” your data if you can be forced to give it up?

You can be forced to give up anything you have. If that's the deciding factor for the question of ownership, then nobody owns anything. I don't think that's a useful definition, though.

> nobody owns anything

This is a pretty accurate statement.

If the footage is encrypted, are you legally required to unencrypt it for the police?

Not a lawyer, but I read about cases where the judge put people in prison for contempt because they refused to disclose passwords for encrypted content. There was a guy that was in prison for more than 1 year in such a case.

To the extend that I've read, they can demand that they hand over data/documents that they know exist, regardless of whether they're encrypted. It's akin to being forced to open a safe if they have a search warrant for a specific document.

What they can't do is say "decrypt this blob and let us look around".

If they give you a valid subpoena, then yeah, you have to give them the video in a format they can use, you can't give them a bunch of encrypted video files and say "Good luck trying to watch it".

If you refuse to hand it over and they get a warrant and seize your NVR, then I'm not sure if they can compel you to decrypt it, but you may already be in jail for contempt and probably are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees at this point, so most people would cave long before this and just hand it over.

It depends. If it's against another party they can compel you to decrypt it. If it's against yourself they may respect a 5th amendment claim, or they might not.

That's fine. I don't mind complying with a warrant.

The likes of Ring (it might have actually been Ring if memory serves) were recently caught sending data to whomever asked nicely.

> you can be sure that they can’t bypass you and get the footage while your fighting it

They also wouldn't request data from cameras offsite. I mean, they could, but why would they (and would they even make the connection that these cameras are also owned by you?)

For the police to subpoena the footage they at least have to know you have cameras. They'll have much tougher time figuring out you have indoors cameras and requesting data from them.

With Ring it seems to be more like selecting a box on the map and click "request".

You're less likely to have them come to you for video if they're looking at a map of Ring users. Of course they will go to them first.

"I set autoremove to 7 days ago and I got your notice on 8th day, sorry".

"well, it does record only when it detect motion, and there isn't anything on that date, but here is the neighbour's cat video few minutes earlier"

Just need to shred the files instead of just removing them.

Then again if it is by police to you they need to say what they need and not just get everything automatically so IMO not really that problematic as the case where they can get inside house footage from 3rd party company coz they don't give a shit.

I think that's why encryption must play a role if this is a concern. Apparently passwords are "testimonial" level speech and cannot be compelled.

"Sorry, I deleted it the day before you issued the subpoena. No, I don't keep deletion logs."

It's my data on my drives. Are there legal retention requirements? Lying and saying "I already deleted it" seems like a pretty simple solution.