With Independence Day approaching, Grits still laments this session's near-miss loss for the Fourth Amendment regarding warrants for cell-phone location data, legislation carried by state Rep. Bryan Hughes and state Senators Juan Hinojosa and Craig Estes that nearly passed as an amendment. This NY Times headline yesterday would have looked a lot better with Texas in the title than Montana, that's for sure.
The public faces increasing commercial pressure to utilize cell-phone location data that right now is not covered by Fourth Amendment protections under the Supreme Court's third party exception. But location data is only the spearpoint of the issue. To me, eventually the entire third-party doctrine spawned from the court's Smith and Miller cases in the '70s (see here for an example of an Obama apologist using those cases to justify the NSA gobbling up everyone's cell-phone metadata ) must be reconsidered in light of the advent of cloud computing in the digital age, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor rightly argued in US v. Jones. These were already going to be some of the biggest Fourth Amendment issues of the decade before anyone ever heard of Edward Snowden, though he certainly heightened their profile.
Approaching a holiday celebrating our freedoms, I am gratified the Lege offered its own contribution to the national debate over digital Fourth Amendment protections, making Texas the first state to require law enforcement to get warrants for cloud-based email and other content. Grits expects other states to follow our lead, just as other states are already following Montana's on cell phones. Maybe in 2015 the Texas Electronic Privacy Coalition can convince the Lege to pick up the cell-phone location data bill like a bowler picks up a spare. But it sure would have been nice to get both of them this time. Rep. Hughes and Co. were awfully close to have it peter out at the end.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
9 comments:
All of these Amendments seem to be rolled back these days. In the last few years we have been living in a new world, in a different country.
Gets me to wondering if ballots cast via electronic voting machines are no longer private, either...
Seems to me that a lot of people are blaming this administration for something the last administration signed into law. The Patriot Act basically took away any expectations of privacy we might have had left. Too many fingers are pointing in the wrong direction and complaining instead of getting off their butts and doing something. Who keeps electing the nimrods in Congress? I was told years ago that insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Looks like we could use a sanity check.
unspan5:48, we are not "blaming" anyone. We are just realizing the road we are on and where it could be leading. Limits on freedom rarely just "happen", though the Patriot Act was a over reaction in my opinion. Please get over the Demo/Repub view and look at the big picture. The road is going to get very narrow and heavily monitored unless we wake up.
The Patriot Act, Gitmo and drones are just a few of the weapons against terrorism initiated during the Bush administration that have been embraced and expanded by the Obama administration. Just because my older brother mugged an old lady down the block, it does not mean I get to mug the old lady's grandchildren. I voted for Obama in 2008 because he promised to restore our freedoms. I voted for him in 2012 as the lesser of two evils. We are repeating history; it is 44 BCE.
Of course it's a Rep/Dem view, because they are dangerously huge. IF folks would stop stockpiling guns & ammo & toys and use it to buy Legislators and eventually Congressjacks, THEN we could play with the big boyz---the corporations. But we can't get along enough to organize, because we're not libtards. We all think we have the right way, even though the next guy has nearly the same thing in mind. Living by principle leaves you short of compromise, where as the left's living by outcome unites them in actions. It's a left/right thing, but really it still is a rich/poor thing. I don't mean rich like anyone you know; i mean the CEOs who make in a day twice what I make in a year; I mean the bankers and investment flying monkeys who were bailed out. They "voted" themselves the Treasury; and the only remaining right they recognize is when you "lobby." "Ya Got Trouble, my friends! With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with" 'B' and that stands for BRIBE. Pay to play; you can't afford justice. Or we could riot?
Oh-oh, somebody bribe captcha:
no, try the next one...
Who needs all them amendments anyway. I suppose the Bill of Rights had an expiration date on it after all.
Timothy McVeigh was the real head of Homeland Security...
Regardless of the administration that implanted whatever - its only going to get worse - Yes it can happen in America and it will if the Government is not put in their place- Leaves us alone- you have no right to take away our freedoms-Until people stand up - expect more this-
Post a Comment