7 ms·

What's the difference between police looking up geofence data for the bank before and after a robbery to see who was there, and checking the bank's outdoor came

What's the difference between police looking up geofence data for the bank before and after a robbery to see who was there, and checking the bank's outdoor cameras to see what license plates were there?

Alive-in-2025 5mo ago
The difference is ubiquitous surveillance, which is well known to lead to false positives and inhibits freedom and protest. A world where we are all under surveillance and people actually want to increase it is not a free world.
gravypod 5mo ago
One would be scope. There's a big difference between a security camera next to a secure facility (bank, police evidence facility, school) and a 1 mi radius circle around that facility. Security cameras around a bank only track stuff within a field of view from the bank. A cell geofence could be millions of people if it's drawn in midtown. Another would be incentives. There's no reason to collect cell location data for everyone if you aren't able to use it for anything. I think just the fact that we are all monitored constantly is its own violation of our rights. We should have laws banning these practices.
- gruez 5mo ago
  >Security cameras around a bank only track stuff within a field of view from the bank. A cell geofence could be millions of people if it's drawn in midtown. Given the ubiquity of security cameras they can just canvas local businesses and ask them to give it up. Given that warrants are involved, they can't even refuse.
  - gravypod 5mo ago
    Yes! That would be fantastic! They would need to approach many people, each having the ability to question the motivation! Or, they would need to convince a judge and obtain a warrant. This is the disaggregation of power of surveillance.
  - cestith 5mo ago
    A business can refuse a warrant, but it takes a legal response in court. Their attorneys need to convince a judge the warrant isn’t necessary - that it causes a bigger burden on them than the benefit to the public. Most businesses will just comply because it’s not in their interests to spend time and money on it. Sometimes a business will challenge a court order if it’s about their own customers, employees, owners, or business dealings. The information requested should be relevant to the investigation, minimal to be helpful, and create as little burden on the business as is practical. Also, if you’re not the subject of the investigation it’s often a subpoena rather than a warrant. There are major differences between these types of order in the US. A subpoena is an order to produce the evidence. A warrant is an order that allows law enforcement to seize it, using force if needed. As someone who has dealt with law enforcement requests for business data about customers quite a bit in the past, it’s often a simple request first and a subpoena otherwise.
- rayiner 5mo ago
  Here's the text of the fourth amendment. Could you explain how "scope" and "incentives" are relevant distinguishing factors under that? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." As relevant here, there's two pieces. The threshold requirement is some sort of ownership. The right exists with respect to "their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Assuming digital data constitutes "papers," the accused has to show that it's "their" papers. The hypothetical you're responding to compares the bank's camera footage with the cell phone company's location information. Those seem indistinguishable for that prong. You have a reasonable argument that "scope" and "incentives" are relevant to the second prong of what's "unreasonable." But you don't get there if you don't get past the first prong, right?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wak90 5mo ago
    Has anything changed since the sacred texts were written or we just going to keep acting as though we can never adjust the laws
    - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
      In the context of this thread, that would (ideally) fall under Congress’s purview, not the Supreme Court.
    - rayiner 5mo ago
      Your point cuts in the other direction. The police and the judge who issued the warrant followed current Virginia law. Voters in Virginia could "adjust the laws" to ban the use of geolocation data. They haven't done so. So the plaintiffs in this case are trying to get the dead hand of the founders to smack the police and the judge. They're the ones invoking "sacred texts" written 237 years ago by a bunch of old white guys to ask the Supreme Court to overrule what police in Virginia did pursuant to Virginia law. Your post raises the question: who is the "we" you're referring to--the "we" who is empowered to "adjust the laws?" Who is empowered to decide whether circumstances have, in fact, changed? And if there has been a change--which way do those changes cut? Surely it's the current voters of Virginia who get to make that decision, right?
cestith 5mo ago
Well, one is a search and seizure of data about a great deal more people from a third party that is not the victim.
superkuh 5mo ago
A bank's cameras cannot see into private spaces in unrelated buildings as is the explicit situation in this case where most of the people caught in the general dragnet were inside a church some distance away. And to be clearer, the data search is being done on the GPS recordings of personal property (not basestation multi-lateration records). This is the private space being searched. It's like if you carried around a journal and wrote down everywhere you went. Now the government is arguing they can draw arbitrary large general regions and read everyone's personal diary even in situations without any exigency.
- seizethecheese 5mo ago
  This is an excellent point and I largely agree. I do wonder though: do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using Google mobile services?
  - traderj0e 5mo ago
    Given how many things sorta require a phone, even basic government services, yeah I would say so. It's not just Google phones, all cell carriers are collecting location data.
foxyv 5mo ago
In addition to the scope and specificity arguments, there is also the reasonable expectation of privacy. Geofence warrants catch up a ton of innocent citizens and violate their 4th amendment right to be secure in their persons and papers. Outdoor cameras around a bank, and license plates both have their own justifications. Outdoor cameras surveillance is in an area with no reasonable expectation of privacy. License plates are mandated for liability and anti-theft purposes. Your personal phone is both private and has no other pre-textual reason for law enforcement to access it.
traderj0e 5mo ago
The bank doesn't have access to my phone's camera

Alive-in-2025 5mo ago

The difference is ubiquitous surveillance, which is well known to lead to false positives and inhibits freedom and protest. A world where we are all under surveillance and people actually want to increase it is not a free world.

gravypod 5mo ago

One would be scope. There's a big difference between a security camera next to a secure facility (bank, police evidence facility, school) and a 1 mi radius circle around that facility. Security cameras around a bank only track stuff within a field of view from the bank. A cell geofence could be millions of people if it's drawn in midtown. Another would be incentives. There's no reason to collect cell location data for everyone if you aren't able to use it for anything. I think just the fact that we are all monitored constantly is its own violation of our rights. We should have laws banning these practices.

gruez 5mo ago
>Security cameras around a bank only track stuff within a field of view from the bank. A cell geofence could be millions of people if it's drawn in midtown. Given the ubiquity of security cameras they can just canvas local businesses and ask them to give it up. Given that warrants are involved, they can't even refuse.
- gravypod 5mo ago
  Yes! That would be fantastic! They would need to approach many people, each having the ability to question the motivation! Or, they would need to convince a judge and obtain a warrant. This is the disaggregation of power of surveillance.
- cestith 5mo ago
  A business can refuse a warrant, but it takes a legal response in court. Their attorneys need to convince a judge the warrant isn’t necessary - that it causes a bigger burden on them than the benefit to the public. Most businesses will just comply because it’s not in their interests to spend time and money on it. Sometimes a business will challenge a court order if it’s about their own customers, employees, owners, or business dealings. The information requested should be relevant to the investigation, minimal to be helpful, and create as little burden on the business as is practical. Also, if you’re not the subject of the investigation it’s often a subpoena rather than a warrant. There are major differences between these types of order in the US. A subpoena is an order to produce the evidence. A warrant is an order that allows law enforcement to seize it, using force if needed. As someone who has dealt with law enforcement requests for business data about customers quite a bit in the past, it’s often a simple request first and a subpoena otherwise.
rayiner 5mo ago
Here's the text of the fourth amendment. Could you explain how "scope" and "incentives" are relevant distinguishing factors under that? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." As relevant here, there's two pieces. The threshold requirement is some sort of ownership. The right exists with respect to "their persons, houses, papers, and effects." Assuming digital data constitutes "papers," the accused has to show that it's "their" papers. The hypothetical you're responding to compares the bank's camera footage with the cell phone company's location information. Those seem indistinguishable for that prong. You have a reasonable argument that "scope" and "incentives" are relevant to the second prong of what's "unreasonable." But you don't get there if you don't get past the first prong, right?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- wak90 5mo ago
  Has anything changed since the sacred texts were written or we just going to keep acting as though we can never adjust the laws
  - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
    In the context of this thread, that would (ideally) fall under Congress’s purview, not the Supreme Court.
  - rayiner 5mo ago
    Your point cuts in the other direction. The police and the judge who issued the warrant followed current Virginia law. Voters in Virginia could "adjust the laws" to ban the use of geolocation data. They haven't done so. So the plaintiffs in this case are trying to get the dead hand of the founders to smack the police and the judge. They're the ones invoking "sacred texts" written 237 years ago by a bunch of old white guys to ask the Supreme Court to overrule what police in Virginia did pursuant to Virginia law. Your post raises the question: who is the "we" you're referring to--the "we" who is empowered to "adjust the laws?" Who is empowered to decide whether circumstances have, in fact, changed? And if there has been a change--which way do those changes cut? Surely it's the current voters of Virginia who get to make that decision, right?

cestith 5mo ago

Well, one is a search and seizure of data about a great deal more people from a third party that is not the victim.

superkuh 5mo ago

A bank's cameras cannot see into private spaces in unrelated buildings as is the explicit situation in this case where most of the people caught in the general dragnet were inside a church some distance away. And to be clearer, the data search is being done on the GPS recordings of personal property (not basestation multi-lateration records). This is the private space being searched. It's like if you carried around a journal and wrote down everywhere you went. Now the government is arguing they can draw arbitrary large general regions and read everyone's personal diary even in situations without any exigency.

seizethecheese 5mo ago
This is an excellent point and I largely agree. I do wonder though: do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using Google mobile services?
- traderj0e 5mo ago
  Given how many things sorta require a phone, even basic government services, yeah I would say so. It's not just Google phones, all cell carriers are collecting location data.

foxyv 5mo ago

In addition to the scope and specificity arguments, there is also the reasonable expectation of privacy. Geofence warrants catch up a ton of innocent citizens and violate their 4th amendment right to be secure in their persons and papers. Outdoor cameras around a bank, and license plates both have their own justifications. Outdoor cameras surveillance is in an area with no reasonable expectation of privacy. License plates are mandated for liability and anti-theft purposes. Your personal phone is both private and has no other pre-textual reason for law enforcement to access it.

traderj0e 5mo ago

The bank doesn't have access to my phone's camera