So that begs the question. Which would you rather have? Police who are focused on getting into an individual’s phone for evidence or police who are hell-bent on making telcoms and others cough up data
so they can sift it for what they want out of it?
Well, one of the problems is that this debate has been framed as a series of “either” choices. We are asked to either chose privacy or security. To chose to lose this or that. Mostly this is caused by the battleground. Most of these battles are fought in court, and courts primarily yield yes/no answers.
The result of decades of “either/or” decisions in the courts have been a steady erosion of privacy. Yesterday we lost “privacy of association”, today we lose our “privacy of communication”, tomorrow we lose our “privacy of thought” and so forth.
The better place to fight the privacy battle is in politics and at the legislature. This allows you to create nuanced alternatives. It also allows you to alter the economics that enable and support mass surveillance.
For example, we could create legislation that says: “When the constitution says: “no general warrants”, we damn well mean it. Any attempt to request or grant a general warrant results in judicial sanctions and disbarment. You need a different warrant for each person and each place.” This creates continuing bureaucratic expense surrounding the process of utilizing mass surveillance.
Other legislative changes that would deter mass surveillance and improve privacy include:
- Mandatory large fines for each breached record of private information. This would create large economic disincentives for collecting and hoarding private information.
- Aggressively taxing private information. If it is valuable, and groups collect it, it must be a taxable asset. The greater the taxes, the less groups will harvest and retain private information.
- Clear statements from the legislative branch that mass surveillance is not compatible with “assumed innocent until proven guilty” or “rule by consent of the governed”. Especially by the Intelligence community. These statements then must be followed by aggressive budget cutting each time the Intelligence agencies conduct mass surveillance on the American public.
Finally, back to your question. I have done IT and IT Security for decades. This includes lots of traffic analysis and analysis of systems. I would much rather restrict law enforcement’s access to communication metadata than their access to the tiny amount of private info present on a dormant cell phone. But, enabling unrestricted, cheap access to either is a irreparable loss of privacy and liberty.
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I’d agree that a search warrant that narrow (Specific time and location) makes sense. It is the broad dragnet that is just rife for abuse.
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