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[Thad]

I haven't used any, but a quick search suggests that Android's built-in encryption is probably Good Enough.  It can be brute-forced and won't deter someone who actually steals your phone and has some time to break it, but if you're just being stopped on the street it should keep your data safe.

Again, that's just what a quick look tells me; I could be wrong.  XDA Developers probably has good information, and EFF and other privacy-focused organizations might have some links too.

[Dooly]

Can't authorities just force you to decrypt all encrypted data on whatever device they want to check?

[Thad]

That's a serious constitutional question that's still making its way through the courts.

The more practical question is, if you do get stopped, is, is it worth it to refuse?

If you've got actual incriminating data on your phone, or phone that's easily misconstrued as incriminating, then the answer is probably Yes.  It's worth risking arrest to refuse to decrypt your phone.  (It bears noting that people have been threatened with sex offender raps for pretty damn innocuous comics on their laptops.)

But if your data's boring, it might be worth it to you to play along.  Especially if you're not a clean-cut white guy.

I don't like advising people to submit to what I consider to be a clear case of unreasonable search and seizure.  But I also know that, realistically, going to jail and potentially spending years on a wrongful arrest suit are not worth the trouble for most people -- and, again, I realize that it's a sign of privilege that I personally probably wouldn't get arrested just for refusing to unlock my phone.

[Thad]

Arizona Bill Would Ban Police Use of Drones Without a Warrant

That's good!

HB 2574 also states that private citizens are allowed to own their own drones.

That's bad.

However, according to the bill, "It is unlawful for a person to use drones to monitor other persons inside their homes or places of worship or within the closed confines of their property or other locations where a person would have an expectation of privacy."

That's...

...well, at least there's a provision for not spying on people in their homes, but I'm still going to go with "bad".

[Thad]

So remember that bit in the PATRIOT Act about how the government could issue a National Security Letter and the recipient was prohibited from even telling anyone they'd RECEIVED an NSL?

Well, it only took a little over eleven years for a court to strike that provision down.

Not over yet.  Assuming the Ninth Circuit upholds this ruling (which is probably a safe assumption), that creates a circuit split with the Second Circuit, which also rejected the NSL language as originally written but held that it would be constitutional if recipients were given a chance to challenge the gag order.

This could still go to the SCOTUS.  And while obviously there's no certainty in predicting a Supreme Court ruling for a case that hasn't even made it to the Ninth Circuit yet, I think that whatever its flaws this court has been pretty good about the First Amendment.

[Ted Belmont]

Supreme Court says police can take DNA samples after arresting someone.

[JDigital]

This is already standard practice in the UK. They're also allowed to keep the DNA on record even if the person is found innocent.

[Ted Belmont]

So uhh

The Supreme Court handed down another decision last week that didn't get much attention:

Salinas v Texas

Now, I'm not a scholar of the law, but if I'm reading this right, it means that a suspect isn't granted their 5th amendment rights unless they specifically invoke them, and silence can now be construed as an admission of guilt in a court of law.

...please tell me I'm not reading this right.

[Smiler]

Nah that's about it.

[Ted Belmont]

Well, as someone in #finalfight explained it to me, it's under a very narrow set of circumstances, where the suspect had already voluntarily spoken to police without being put in custody or Mirandized, and then went silent.

So it's still troubling, but less troubling...I guess?

[Thad]

NYT: Holder Tightens Rules on Getting Reporters’ Data

Congress has generally forbidden search warrants for journalists’ work materials, but the statute makes an exception if the reporter is suspected of committing a crime. An F.B.I. agent wrote that Mr. Rosen qualified for that exception because he had violated the Espionage Act by seeking government secrets to report.

No American journalist has ever been prosecuted for gathering and publishing classified information, so the language raised the prospect that the Obama administration was taking its leak crackdown to a new level. The administration insisted that it never intended to charge Mr. Rosen and that it had portrayed him as a criminal merely to get around the prohibition on accessing his e-mails.

The revision to the guidelines would bar such a tactic by saying that the “suspect exception” may only be invoked “when the member of the news media is the focus of the criminal investigation for conduct going beyond ordinary news-gathering activities.”

Search warrants invoking the exception, the revision adds, will not be allowed “if the sole purpose is the investigation of a person other than a member of the news media.”

Also, the new guidelines will require the attorney general to sign off on invoking the exception. Previously, a deputy assistant attorney general could do so.

Page 2 is about making it more difficult for the Justice Department to subpoena records from the press without advance notice.

It's a start.

[Mongrel]

Kabbage might have seen this one already, but it's new to me and I'm sure to some of you too:

Lab tech in Boston worked far too closely with prosecutors, forging evidence, fabricating evidence entirely, overstating quantities of drugs, dreamed up imaginary titles for herself and testified as an expert in over FOURTY THOUSAND CASES IN A TEN YEAR PERIOD

Holy Christ. This woman has robbed literally centuries of human lives, maybe even millenia to feed her ambition. There'll be work for lawyers for over this for decades.

(more details and a claim that more lab techs were involved can also be read on this website of unknown provenance)

[Thad]

Yeah, heard about that one on Popehat.  Utterly disgusting.

Needless to say, she will not receive a punishment equivalent to any of the innocent people she helped convict.

[Cait]

Sentencing her to live with the people she helped convict for 3-5 years? That's a lot of watching your back.

[Zaratustra]

Yeah, heard about that one on Popehat.  Utterly disgusting.

Needless to say, she will not receive a punishment equivalent to any of the innocent people she helped convict.

Don't forget all the guilty people that will now get a mistrial because she was involved in the process.

[Catloaf]

Yeah, heard about that one on Popehat.  Utterly disgusting.

Needless to say, she will not receive a punishment equivalent to any of the innocent people she helped convict.

Don't forget all the guilty people that will now get a mistrial because she was involved in the process.

Truly a grand disservice to all.  There really ought to be some way of catching this kind of thing faster.  Not only for the direct reason of catching the criminal, but also because it's been shown that it's not the punishment so much as the timeliness of being caught that deters others from committing similar crimes.  Or, y'know, just prevent it in the first place.

PS: Yay! I managed to suppress my urge to say something horrible/stupid long enough to forget what the profoundly stupid thought was!