warrantless monitoring, of web use Options

[Divergent Realit...]

they know you click this

Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

In a drug case from San Diego County, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco likened computer surveillance to the "pen register" devices that officers use to pinpoint the phone numbers a suspect dials, without listening to the phone calls themselves.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of pen registers in 1979, saying callers have no right to conceal from the government the numbers they communicate electronically to the phone companies that carry their calls.

Federal law requires court approval for a pen register. But because it is not considered a search, authorities do not need a search warrant, which would require them to show that the surveillance is likely to produce evidence of a crime.

They also do not need a wiretap order, which would require them to show that less intrusive methods of surveillance have failed or would be futile.

In Friday's ruling, the court said computer users should know that they lose privacy protections with e-mail and Web site addresses when they are communicated to the company whose equipment carries the messages.

Likewise, the court said, although the government learns what computer sites someone visited, "it does not find out the contents of the messages or the particular pages on the Web sites the person viewed."

The search is no more intrusive than officers' examination of a list of phone numbers or the outside of a mailed package, neither of which requires a warrant, Judge Raymond Fisher said in the 3-0 ruling.

Defense lawyer Michael Crowley disagreed. His client, Dennis Alba, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being convicted of operating a laboratory in Escondido that manufactured the drug ecstasy.

Some of the evidence against Alba came from agents' tracking of his computer use. The court upheld his conviction and sentence.

Expert evidence in Alba's case showed that the Web addresses obtained by federal agents included page numbers that allowed the agents to determine what someone read online, Crowley said.

The ruling "further erodes our privacy," the attorney said. "The great political marketplace of ideas is the Internet, and the government has unbridled access to it."

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do not want.

[James]

Hmm. While I don't mind the ruling, I think the reasons are a little flawed. There's a bit more information contained in an ip address than in a phone number. As long as this information is inadmissable in court and only used to provide a basis for probable cause and a search warrant/wiretap, then I see no problem.

[impala454]

i'm just curious how they get that information.

i mean, it says "The search is no more intrusive than officers' examination of a list of phone numbers or the outside of a mailed package, neither of which requires a warrant", but where do they do this search I wonder? I guess the ISP of the person.

[James]

They could use wiretapping and just not view any information other than what is authorized. Honor code and all that.

[impala454]

but how do you "wiretap" a computer without doing anything that would normally require a warrant? I'd guess they just get the info from the ISP.

[Seeker]

In Telecom we had something called CALEA which by law we had to include in our phone switching/routing products. I worked on it at Nortel and basically it gives the FBI/law enforcement people a backdoor where all they have to do is plug in their equipment and they can listen in on any call.

There was a bill in Congress not too long ago that was going to require CALEA for Internet switching/routing products but I believe it failed. My guess is currently they just install a sniffer at your ISP to sniff your packets.

[impala454]

yeah we had those devices as part of a service for emergency interrupt calls at my old company. i.e. one of our customers provided a busy line verification service (basically the operator hooks into your phone line to see if someone is on it) then if the caller wishes they can do an emergency interrupt, break into the persons call and let them know that the person is trying to reach them.

i think this case is a little different though. this doesn't look so much like listening to the call (or analyzing the packets) as it does just looking at dialed digits (or the URL of the page/email address of the recipient).

[Hartmann]

If calls are made from landlines can't the authorities look at LUDs and MUDs to see who people call?

[impala454]

i don't know what a LUD or MUD is, but every call placed with any carrier has basic call info stored. usually ani & dnis (caller's number and the number they dialed), time of call, various carriers the call went through, time answered, which party hung up and when, etc.

i don't know about hte phone companies but we kept call data for nearly 5 years I believe.

[Hartmann]

LUD = Local Usage Detail
MUD = Metro Usage Detail

[Spectatrix]

Seeing a phone number dialed or email address mailed tells law enforcement nothing about the content of the communication. Seeing URLs, on the other hand, means they can determine exactly what content was being viewed. It's not as incriminating as phone/email content (big difference between reading about bomb creation online and emailing someone to purchase bomb-making components), but it's still content and should be subject to a warrant, IMHO.

[impala454]

Seeing a phone number dialed or email address mailed tells law enforcement nothing about the content of the communication. Seeing URLs, on the other hand, means they can determine exactly what content was being viewed. It's not as incriminating as phone/email content (big difference between reading about bomb creation online and emailing someone to purchase bomb-making components), but it's still content and should be subject to a warrant, IMHO.

eh to an extent. seeing that someone went to yahoo.com/superxxxbabydoll117 obviously is easy to see where they went, but most websites related to any private stuff like email or other sites where you have to log in, just having the URL will not give them anything. i.e. if someone sees i went to www.bankofamerica.com/fasjdf893j20fj2309320952039u523jf09j302fj3029fj, they will not be able to see that site because the session data is on my computer and not on theirs.

[Spectatrix]

That is true. I'd still prefer them to have a warrant for that stuff, but eh, I'm not gonna get my panties in a bunch about it.

[Testm0nkey]

you used to need warrants for LUDS etc that may be different now. how much "expectation of privacy" does the public really have nowadays
seeing a pattern of phone calls made or a series of calls to an unknown number, a call around an important timeframe wont show content of call but can be further circumstancial evidence. that could possibly get you a warrant to further search into stuff

just like new rules strengthening say of informers and coercion- i dont agree with it

a crime may or may not have taken place but in the process to find out the police and court system bent the freedoms an innocent man until proven guilty had. and the more and more bending that takes place further erods any rights of a potentionally free person. in my mind the ends doesnt qualify the means

[Testm0nkey]

prove it!