
EFF Fights for Answers About Massive Government Phone Database - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/thursday-hearing-san-francisco-eff-fights-answers-about-massive-government-phone
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nxzero
What I don't get about the whole meta-data debate is that if there's no
expectation that meta-data is private information, and therefore requires a
legal reason to access and store, then why isn't all meta-data required to be
public; and by all, I mean all.

More to the point, as it relates to the DEA and local narco units - they do
illegal stuff all the time and if historic meta-data was made available to the
public, heads would roll.

~~~
rayiner
That's like saying that just because the government is allowed to walk by your
house and see if anyone is home without a warrant, then a webcam pointed at
your front door should be broadcasting on the Internet. The fact we don't do
the latter isn't a valid argument to justify requiring a warrant for the
former.

Since there are degrees of privacy, "not private" for the purposes of the 4th
amendment doesn't necessarily mean "totally public." The line that has been
drawn is that if information is "not private" enough to share with your
thousand closest friends at AT&T, it's "not private" enough for the government
to see it without a warrant.

With regards to meta-data, you don't even have to get into the whole
expectation of privacy inquiry. It's not even your data, it's AT&T's data. The
4th amendment explicitly states that people will be secure in _their_ houses,
persons, papers, and effects. That implies ownership or at least control. But
call metadata is AT&T's property; the digital records are _their_ papers,
generated by their computers, for their internal purposes. If it were up to
you, you probably wouldn't even want those records to exist, but they do,
because they're not _yours_.

Regardless of where you draw the line on public versus private, it's clear you
cannot have a reasonable expectation of privacy in someone else's property.

Don't get me wrong: I wish Congress would pass a law requiring telecoms to
erase such data immediately, keeping only aggregate data for billing purposes.
But the Constitution says what it says, not what you want it to say.

~~~
nxzero
What's reasonable is defined by law, not some magical force.

It's clear that meta-data is being used in ways that compromise generally
expected forms of privacy.

The very fact you're against making all meta-data public provides evidence of
this.

Claiming the meta-data belongs to AT&T is false, since the data is generated
by the users actions, not AT&T; it's like saying the phone number belongs to
them, which we both know is not true.

Please explain why you feel it'd be illegal to follow you or have you followed
in public, watch your front door, etc.

~~~
tptacek
Every time I walk into the local 7-11, my actions generate a videotaped record
of my presence, what I bought, and what I was wearing. That's extremely
personal. Are you therefore claiming I have a property right to that section
of the 7-11 security tape?

~~~
omginternets
>Every time I walk into the local 7-11, my actions generate a videotaped
record of my presence

This is completely, and I mean _completely_ different. There's no expectation
of privacy in a 7-11. As such, the two situations are incomparable despite
their superficial similarity.

Whether there's an expectation of privacy online is unclear, and the
government is trying to capitalize on this by setting a precedent.

~~~
rayiner
With regard to phone records, the relevant precedent was set almost 40 years
ago in _Smith v. Maryland_ , which held that the government can subpoena phone
records without a warrant. And that case was correctly decided for two
different reasons:

1) The "expectation of privacy" must be _objectively reasonable._ It's
objectively true that phone call records are not private: they are kept by the
phone company in the ordinary course of business and many people have access
to them. As a purely factual matter, a lot more people (people who, unlike the
7-11 clerk, you've never even met!) have access to your data at a phone
company than at a 7-11. So any subjective belief that those details are
private is not objectively reasonable.

2) Callers have no ownership or control over call records. Even if you don't
subscribe to the "property rights" view of the 4th amendment, you have to
admit that it's less reasonable to have an expectation of privacy in something
someone else owns and controls. It's not reasonable to expect privacy as to a
7-11's recordings of what you do on its premises because they own the
recordings and control the premises. Similarly, it's not reasonable to expect
privacy as to AT&T's records of what you do on its telephone network.

~~~
smokeyj
> objectively reasonable

Why am I not surprised that our laws are underpinned by a paradox.

> It's objectively true that phone call records are not private

By this standard, is anything private? If I have a home security system run by
a third party, does that mean my front door is not private because I share it
with ADT? Maybe instead of getting a warrant LEOs can request ADT to unlock
the front door.

> you have to admit that it's less reasonable to have an expectation of
> privacy in something someone else owns and controls

My phone is controlled by apple. My car is controlled by on-star. My money is
controlled by visa. It sounds like the only reasonable expectation to privacy
is in your own brain.. for now.

~~~
tptacek
Unlocking your front door is an action, not information that ADT has generated
about you. Also, whether or not your door is unlocked has little bearing on
whether investigators can enter your private house. Can you generate a better
example?

~~~
smokeyj
My point is people expect privacy even when sharing information with third
parties. Just because your xbox kinect is always watching and amazon echo
listening - doesn't mean the average consumer doesn't expect privacy.

My question is, why limit dragnet surveillance to only metadata? It seems
arbitrary to not also record full transcripts -- if we really don't have any
expectation to privacy.

~~~
rhino369
People don't expect privacy when sharing information with third parties, they
expect confidentiality. But the law doesn't respect that. If you tell me in
confidence, that you kidnapped the Limburg baby, I can legally tell whoever I
want. I can even be forced by the government to tell them everything I know.

The difference is that phone companies don't record full transcripts. Just
like my kinect isn't recording my room right now. That's why I have a
reasonable expectation of privacy even though there is a kinect in the room.

But I don't have an expectation that the requests I make to xbox is private.

~~~
april1stislame
So... You're telling us Snowden isn't guilty of treason. All he did was leak
CONFIDENTIAL files...

~~~
zimpenfish
cf Petraeus.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/penta...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/pentagon-decides-no-further-punishment-warranted-for-
petraeus/2016/01/30/b503348e-c767-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html)

> Specifically, Petraeus acknowledged providing eight notebooks containing
> highly classified material to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, in the waning
> days of his Army career.

And yet

> In April, after a lengthy investigation by the FBI that disgraced the
> onetime military hero, Petraeus pleaded guilty in federal court in North
> Carolina to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials. He was
> sentenced to two years of probation and fined $100,000.

~~~
april1stislame
And yet all you have as a rebuttal is someone who PLEADED guilty, not who was
convicted... I love the US kangaroo courts, where hardly anybody ever goes to
trial.

