
Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data Without a Warrant, Closes Loophole - OrgNet
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/04/16/utah-bans-police-from-searching-digital-data-without-a-warrant-closes-fourth-amendment-loophole/
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deftturtle
It's my opinion that there never should have been a loophole and that the
1970s SCOTUS cases ruled incorrectly about our expectations of privacy for the
"third-party doctrine." So this law, in my view, simply restores the 4th
amendment protections guaranteed by the US constitution. I'm glad they did it,
but as noted in the article, Chief Justice Roberts had to take more
complicated positions for Carpenter vs United States, a recent case about cell
phone surveillance.

He said cell phone location information "does not fit neatly under existing
precedents," but I think the court should just re-evaluate the 1970s cases and
come to a place of consistent reasoning about our data, so everything can fit
neatly under the protection of the 4th amendment. When we use products or buy
things, we expect our data to be private. I don't expect my banker to give
away my personal financial information. Nor do I expect my cell phone carrier
to share my call history. We do have an expectation of privacy, and the 1970s
rulings are hugely flawed, especially in light of today's digital world.

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duxup
Yeah we've passed the point where there is so much third party involvement /
data that the standard read strictly pretty much eliminates the 4th amendment.
... any privacy you might hope to have.

As an individual the only option is to withdraw from society as a whole and
become a mountain man, that seems unreasonable.

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thaumasiotes
> In a concession to law enforcement, the act will let police obtain location-
> tracking information or subscriber data without a warrant if there’s an
> “imminent risk” of death, serious physical injury, sexual abuse,
> livestreamed sexual exploitation, kidnapping, or human trafficking.

A fairly reasonable exception which is then randomly extended to also cover
prostitution and porn. Oh well.

I do have to question why they needed a specific emergency exemption for
"livestreamed sexual exploitation" when that "exploitation" would not qualify
as "sexual abuse". (If it were abuse, then it would already be covered under
the exemption for sexual abuse!)

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rangersanger
Livestreamed sexual exploitation was undoubtedly included as a way to extend
law enforcement a way to act on "distribution of an intimate image" as defined
in 76-5b-203.

Abuse and exploitation do, in fact, have different legal definitions in Utah.

Livestreaming a sexual act without the consent of the 2nd party wouldn't be
covered under sexual abuse, as the party is consenting to the sexual act. But,
would be covered as exploitation, if the party doesn't consent to the
distribution of their image [2].

I'm a huge critic of the church's influence on our legislature, but it's not
an extension to porn and/or prostitution. If anything, it's a strengthening of
privacy.

[Edit] spelling, sources, and clarification [1]
[https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5/76-5-S406.html](https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5/76-5-S406.html)
[2]
[https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5B/C76-5b-P2_180001...](https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5B/C76-5b-P2_1800010118000101.pdf)

~~~
freedomben
For people who aren't familiar with "the church" mentioned above, it is the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints AKA LDS Church AKA the Mormon
Church[1].

In Utah the Church has a large (usually indirect) influence over politics.
They don't often pick sides, but with some social issues like Gay marriage and
legalized Cannabis they have specifically reached out to members encouraging
them to vote a certain way.

[1] [https://www.lds.org/](https://www.lds.org/)

~~~
ga_golfnut
> (usually indirect)

This can be disputed.

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freedomben
Are you saying you think it's usually direct, or are you saying that you don't
think they have an influence?

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coryfklein
Well, a couple years back an internal PPT and videos from "the church" was
leaked that documented how the church considered a legislator from a state in
the northwest "in their pocket".

The legislator wasn't even coerced - he would just regularly report back to
church leaders and ask for guidance on which way he should lean on specific
issues.

If the church has that kind of _direct_ influence out of state, it stands to
reason they at least have a similar level in Utah where most of the
legislature and politicians are Mormon.

~~~
freedomben
Interesting, I hadn't heard that. Do you remember where you heard about it? It
sounds like that legislator needs to be voted out of office ASAP.

~~~
coryfklein
It was from MormonLeaks, I'm sure. Look through their history. It was at the
same time as the "bubble" PPT that listed the church's largest "adversaries"
or "problems" and John Dehlin was one of the bubbles LOL.

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14
This is a good step in the right direction. What I would ultimately like to
see is mandatory, impossible to shut off, police wide body cameras. There is
no reason in this day and age to not have it.

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njacobs5074
Well there is the use case of the PO exercising his or her judgement in a
situation where there may technically be a violation, e.g. carrying an open
bottle of beer. Today, a PO can simply require the perpetrator to discard the
beer and then both parties move on.

If we have cameras in that situation, the PO will have no choice but to issue
a summons to the person and then potentially have to show up in court if the
person requests it.

Is that the best use of our police officers and the courts time? I think your
intention is to provide citizens protection against police abuse of our rights
but I think that the situation is more complex and getting the right mix of
tech and humanity in police practices requires better training and education
of both the police and the citizenry.

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dantillberg
I would love for the police to enforce the law strictly and uniformly. If the
laws are bad, then we will change them.

~~~
pnutjam
True, too often this discretion is only exercised for friends, relatives, and
the powerful. Occasionally it gets extended to people who remind the officer
of those people, because they fit the preconceptions or remind the officer of
their own youth or family.

[https://genius.com/Dave-chappelle-killin-them-softly-
annotat...](https://genius.com/Dave-chappelle-killin-them-softly-annotated)

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rocqua
I'm probably reading this wrong, but it sounds like police would be barred
from e.g. looking at a public FB profile. That would go way to far IMHO. The
police should be able to view simple public information.

In my opinion (and hopefully, this is what the law means) the warrant should
be needed whenever the police need to compel a third party to hand over
information. So, viewing a public FB profile is okay, but demanding FB to show
the private profile would require a warrant.

~~~
iNate2000
Looks like section 2... on page 5 of the PDF it lists some warrant exclusions:

    
    
        (v) if the owner has voluntarily and publicly disclosed the location information[.]; or
        (vi) from the remote computing service provider if the remote computing service provider voluntarily discloses the location information...
    

[https://le.utah.gov/~2019/bills/hbillenr/HB0057.pdf](https://le.utah.gov/~2019/bills/hbillenr/HB0057.pdf)

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JohnFen
Good job, Utah! Let's hope that more states follow their lead.

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caprese
How does this close a loophole when its merely the first of 50+ autonomous
jurisdictions in the US to do it

