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Comment by nomel | Hacker News Reader

The supreme court had a 5-4 decision related to this [1]. Was there something specific, in that decision, that leaves a loophole open?

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf

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> Carpenter v. United States (2018) was a landmark Supreme Court case that held the government generally needs a warrant to access historical cell-site location information (CSLI) from cell phone carriers, as its acquisition constitutes a Fourth Amendment search

This is very different from buying your data from a company especially when the user consented to their location being tracked.

Too many people in these threads jumping to anti-Trump when the real issue is how quick we are to give up our our privacy to use technology and then quickly turn to shock in anger when it’s used against us.

> This is very different from buying your data from a company especially when the user consented to their location being tracked.

No, it's not 'very different'. When you sign a cellular contract you consent to all sorts of tracking and data collection, but it still requires a warrant for government to obtain.

Requesting != Buying

When this goes back to the courts you can come back to this comment and still be angry you are wrong.

Requesting or buying, the end result is the same; the government is obtaining historical location information on private citizens. Arguably, buying it is worse too. At least with a warrant there is ostensibly probable cause to support a search. Circumventing a warrant and buying in bulk means they're searching data of citizens not even suspected of crimes. And you're probably right that the courts (government) are not going to prevent the FBI (a government agency) from doing their job. That doesn't mean I'm wrong in my assessment. It means that you base your idea of correctness on an obviously flawed legal system.

Is it materialy different than a landline (in the rights signed away, not the data emitted/captured)?

You don’t actually consent (per-se) in most cases. Hence the warrant.

If you consented, no warrant would be required.

Consenting to data being collected by a company does not mean you consent to a search by the government of said data.

As noted, the company can sell it however. Which is even easier than a search, which typically requires paperwork.

They can, yes. But this is a legal loophole that the government abuses to circumvent a warrant required by the 4th amendment.

The 4th (and 5th) amendment requires warrants to compel folks to do things they aren’t voluntarily consenting to do….. Not really a loophole per-se.

Modern vehicles make disabling data collection fairly difficult. And even if it is disabled, there is no guarantee data is not being sent despite your user settings.

I would love for investigative groups to target the auto industry’s data collection practices and have meaningful legislation created and implemented as a result.

Why is it different though? Who gets to say so?

If the SCOTUS case merely said "needs a warrant to access historical data"... it didn't say "only if acquired via specific means" (like a subpoena), right?

> The Court ruled that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the detailed, comprehensive record of their movements that CSLI provides, even though they share it with their carriers. This decision limited the "third-party doctrine," which previously suggested no privacy rights in information shared with third parties, and established that the unique nature of cell phone data requires greater protection.

Additionally, the decision was narrow, applying specifically to historical CSLI.

The issue of buying location data from a 3rd party company as part of a service has not been argued.

> the FBI has confirmed it was buying access to people’s data collected from data brokers, who source much of their information — including location data — from ordinary consumer phone apps and games

This is completely different from CSLI, you are agreeing to provide your location to these apps and games, as most require it, and, finally, a majority of these EULA state that the data may be shared with 3rd parties.

SCOTUS makes narrow rulings all the time and this is one of them.

The argument that you are expressly providing your location information and agreeing that it can/will be shared with a 3rd party who can then do as they please with your data is not a violation of the 4th amendment and will be excluded from the 3rd party doctrine.

Many people won’t agree with this, and if ever argued in a court, they won’t agree with the ruling when it’s allowed to continue.

> Too many people in these threads jumping to anti-Trump when the real issue is how quick we are to give up our our privacy

Both things are very real problems.

Yeah, the loophole is always "national security" and SCOTUS doesn't enforce the law.

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