Hacker News Reader

Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

Well... no warrants were issued, no search conducted, and nothing seized.

Where is the violation?

Not saying this is good, just that it isn’t against the constitution. If the data is publicly available for purchase, nothing in the constitution says the government can’t buy it.

View on HN

Can you clarify why you think that no search is conducted when using this data? My understanding of your question is that you think that dragnet operations don't involve searching, which doesn't match reality.

The data is handed over willingly to a third party. You agreed to this by accepting the fine print in the contract. In the US, your rights end when another other party takes possession unless it's health data.

I know what my rights are. My question for clarification is in spite of the fact that signed agreements give companies the effective ability to share with gov agencies. It still doesn't answer the question of how it's any different from a search.

Heh, re: health data. HIPAA considers the name of hospital to be private information (try FOIAing the hospital names where people have died from COVID). But, if I go to a hospital with my phone on, then that fact will be available in location data that's bought by gov agencies. Through your qualification, have my rights ended by this fact?

> Well... no warrants were issued, no search conducted, and nothing seized.

The violation is that they were able to sidestep legal processes like warrants by buying the data. If you don't see the issue with that, then I'm not sure what to tell you. It doesn't become okay just because they're purposefully avoiding legal scrutiny. It's like saying HSBC's money laundering is totally fine because they're successfully avoiding legal or law enforcement action.

I think I'm not secure, when people in the military or police etc can get my exact location that easily.

I could get arrested too easily, by law enforcement who skipped some steps in the process and got the wrong person? Maybe LEOs more eagerly do SWAT raids when they know the person's exact location? (I'm guessing)

So, could it be a partial violation of "secure"?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses"

It’s not any different than a criminal taking evidence to a pawn shop, and then expecting that the pawn shop couldn’t say anything about it to the police.

The problem is that we’ve all become accustomed to agreeing to give away our data, while pretending that we didn’t.

Sounds like you want something like GDPR. Without that entities can collect and sell data about you like this, and the government can buy it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com