progression of technologies

[John Young]

Jim aptly notes the cheating use of technology and law, practiced
by lawyers and technologists, prosecution and defense, hardly
limited to millions of secretkeepers, litigous-technologicus ubquitious,
so to paraphrase Dr. Geer, we are all corner cutting opportunists,
highly trained and credentialed dual hatted techno-legalistic tricksters
now. Once IANAL prevailed, now IAATLT.


At 02:53 PM 7/12/2015, you wrote:
>From: Tom Ritter <tom at ritter.vg>
>On 10 July 2015 at 10:58,  <<mailto:dan at geer.org>dan at geer.org> wrote:
> >> Well, now we are into dueling Supreme Court cases; see
> >>
> >> 
> <http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html>http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html
> >>    Kyllo v. United States (2001)
> >>    Despite the Court's attempt to draw a line that is "not only
> >>    firm but also bright," ante, at 12, the contours of its new rule
> >>    are uncertain because its protection apparently dissipates as
> >>    soon as the relevant technology is "in general public use," ante,
> >>    at 6-7. Yet how much use is general public use is not even hinted
> >>    at by the Court's opinion, which makes the somewhat doubtful
> >>    assumption that the thermal imager used in this case does not
> >>    satisfy that criterion. In any event, putting aside its lack
> >>    of clarity, this criterion is somewhat perverse because it seems
> >>    likely that the threat to privacy will grow, rather than recede,
> >>    as the use of intrusive equipment becomes more readily available.
>
> >Yes! That's the case I was obliquely referring to. Sorry, I kind of
> >glazed over that part of your argument in the article.
>
> > That reads, to me, that what the public adopts limits what I can
> > do or expect.
>
> >I guess where we quibble is I'm skeptical that the general public (as
> >defined by the courts?) will (ever?) adopt the types of tools you
> >refer to (uniquely identifying individuals based on electromagnetics,
> >tracking tire pressure sensors.)  I don't think the 'general public'
> >has adopted thermal imagers.  These will make their way into
> >industry... (advertisers tracking WiFi probes in malls obviously).
>
>Months ago, FLIR announced an IR-imaging add-on for IPhones, which 
>is tiny.  However, just a month or two ago I saw a media reference 
>to a (very tiny) T-shaped device, intended to plug into the 
>micro-USB jack of a cell phone, that did IR imaging.  As I recall, 
>very economical, but even then the majority of the population won't 
>buy, simply because they have no need for such a thing most of the time.
>
>
>
>
>
> >So my wonder now is if industry adopting a technology is sufficient
> >for the courts to qualify as 'general public'. But this, at best, only
> >affects exotic technology.  We're already fighting this battle.
>
> >Automated license plate readers have never (?) been challenged
> >(successfully?). They are an extension of "a police officer just
> >watching a highway" which is legal.  And the courts like extensions of
> >things that are already done - see bulk collection of metadata!
>
>
>This 'extension' principle doesn't always work.  In 2012, the 
>Supreme Court ruled (US v. Jones) 
><https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/united_states_v._jones_%282012%29>https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/united_states_v._jones_%282012%29 
>that police could not place a GPS tracking device on a car without a 
>warrant.  One argument that has been rejected in lower-court cases 
>was the idea that in principle, a car's movements could be tracked 
>with an army of police, one per street corner, so that a GPS 
>tracking bug simply automated that process.  One problem that 
>argument is that society not only doesn't have the resources to 
>accomplish such a blanket coverage of an area, and that even if 
>practical, society may not necessarily want such an intrusive system to exist.
>
>This issue was (secretly) quite relevant to me.  Federal authorities 
>apparently installed a tracking device on a car I used, probably in 
>about April 2000, without a warrant.  Presumably, if challenged they 
>would have been claiming to follow a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals 
>decision from 1999,  U.S. v. McIver, which had allowed the placement 
>of a GPS tracking device on a truck seen at the location of a 
>marijuana growing operation.  The problem with this justification, 
>however, is that at least in McIver, there was an actual crime 
>involved, and the truck was plausibly involved in that crime.  In my 
>case, after my release from prison in April 2000, nobody alleged 
>that I was engaging in any crime.  The McIver case didn't rule that 
>police could simply choose to place a GPS tracking device on ANY 
>car, for no reason, and even without 'probable cause' or 'reasonable 
>suspicion'.
>
>What was particularly devious (and I call illegal) was that later, 
>probably in October 2000, the Feds actually obtained a warrant for 
>the placement of ANOTHER tracking device on the same car (which, of 
>course, may have ended up being the same device!) WITHOUT telling 
>the judge that a tracking device was already on the car, and had 
>been so since at least as early as April 2000.  Why the 
>subterfuge?  They later used the result of the tracking device (at 
>least, the portion taken after the October warrant) against me in 
>court.  But they continued to conceal the fact that a GPS device had 
>been placed since perhaps April 2000.  Presumably, they concealed 
>that because they would have had to explain, in court, why they were 
>tracking me, without a warrant, and despite the fact that they had 
>no 'probable cause' nor 'reasonable suspicion' to do so.  To conceal 
>that, they obtained the warrant, making it appear that the GPS 
>surveillance started in October 2000.  This was fraud, because in 
>order to obtain a warrant, they have to explain WHY they need the 
>GPS device installed.  Clearly, since a GPS device was already 
>installed in the car, there was no need to place one.  THAT 
>misrepresented the need to the judge.
>
>You might ask, "Jim, why didn't you complain about this during the 
>trial".  As you might know, I was given a long series of lawyers 
>who, rather than being the first line of defense for me, were 
>actually the first line of OFFENCE for the government.  What the 
>average person doesn't understand is that a defense attorney, 
>colluding with the government, has virtually unlimited power to 
>sabotage his client's case, and that was precisely what happened to 
>me.  The crooked attorney was Robert Leen.
>
>And it turned out that the government had a powerful motivation, or 
>at least some of its employees:  They had faked an 'appeal' case in 
>the 9th Circuit, 99-30210, forging at least two filings as if I had 
>done them 'pro se', as if I was bring that case.  I did not, and I 
>wasn't aware of the pre-May 2000 existence of that faked case until 
>June 2003, when I first saw that case's docket.  The crooked 
>attorney who concealed this from me was Jonathan Solovy.
>              Jim Bell
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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