Comment on Verizon Gave Phone Data to Armed Stalker Who Posed as Cop Over Email
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 9 months agoMay = just outside her home being arrested with a knife ->
When authorities later searched the Jeep Glauner had driven, they found methamphetamine and two bundles of rope.
This article is crazy if you read it. If the quality of his requests felt real, especially from a non government email address, these things must cone in shitty all the time.
ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This is the question the entire article avoids.
The article is written as if to try and get you to avoid asking it too.
“Why was no warrant required for the data?” “Why are police allowed to just ask for your personal info without a warrant”
What’s the point of warrants if they’re boo longer needed? Like, warrants are supposed to be a crucial check on police powers, and here we are rendering them pointless.
I weep for the future.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Because the telecommunications companies are eager to cooperate with the police. Since third-party doctrine applies, the privacy of the company, not the client, is considered, so Verizon happily consents to all police searches of phone records.
This has been discussed all the way up with SCOTUS (dominated by the Federalist Society at the time) so its legal.
ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Oh I’m not saying it’s illegal, just that it should be.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
On that we have no disagreement.
AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
If you give the police permission to conduct a search, they do not need a warrant.
ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 9 months ago
But she didn’t give permission.
Why does Verizon have the authority to give it for her?
solrize@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That set it up so that the material handed over was Verizon data and Verizon gave permission. The law is written so that they need a warrant for an actual wiretap (call contents) but not the metadata. Of course metadata is all you need to stalk the person, so that should need a warrant too.
It’s fairly easy to avoid giving your cellular carrier your address (get the bills sent to a PO box} or even your name (buy a prepaid phone with cash). But it’s harder to keep your call records or geolocation info away from them. :(