US government breaks the 5th amendment

[RocketFarmer]

Here's where a little speculative fiction can help shed some light.

 

Let's say someone invents a machine that can read your mind and all of your memories.  Can the government force you to submit to such a procedure?

 

Under current law, the court can order a blood test to determine DNA evidence or such things as paternity to determine your guilt or innocence.  So the precedence is there.

 

Polygraph tests have been around for a long time, and are inadmissible because they have been proven unreliable.  Polygraphs are used by police to manipulate the witness. It's a scam.  But if a memory reading procedure was proven reliable, it may not only be determined admissible, but mandatory. 

 

So while we may now argue over passwords, the real death of the 5th amendment may not be that far off.  The day where the defendant is the prosecution.  The swiftness of such a system would revolutionize the justice system.  We may someday even see weekly confessionals to report our innocence or guilt to the authorities, with punishment being a mind wipe and reprogramming.  Afterall, once you have the means to read the mind how far are you from deleting or creating new memories from nothing.  And only authorized thoughts, memories and behaviors are permitted.

 

So I'm all for drawing a line now on passwords, and then hope enough people have the vision (and yes, paranoia) before the real hell is upon us. 

[sgloux3470]

I've never really understood why the fifth amendment covers these sorts of things.

 

It's used to cover any sort of communicative act, but to me it seems meant to apply to testimony and is outdated by modern technology.

 

If your safe has a key, police can force you to open it. If it has a combination they can't.

 

It's retarded.  If they have lawful right to search your person, property etc then you should have to provide access to those things when lawfully requested. 

 

Incidentally this is also why biometrics can be forced, but not passwords traditionally.  Difference between a physical object form of a security and one you have to communicate.

 

 

[N3v3r3nding_N3wb]

On 12/16/2016 at 2:36 PM, LAwLz said:

You got to be kidding me... That's the logic of a three year old. "He hit me so that makes it OK to hit him".

Two wrongs does not make a right. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

That was my point.

[Qwerty2323]

USA has no laws.. just got to label you as terrorist.. then no laws apply

[MadOne627]

Took me a while to get through most of this thread but I feel like ones phone should be considered as part of ones thoughts since now a days we do everything on our phones it is a little like a data  dump of ones thoughts. I mean my phone remembers what i was thinking better than i do with email, google searches, and sms. If the government or anyone really has access to my phone they know what i was thinking or doing better than i do and i was the one who did them. Reminds me of a CPG Gery video on youtube. If anyone wants to see it i can post can link to it later.

[79wjd]

10 hours ago, MadOne627 said:

Took me a while to get through most of this thread but I feel like ones phone should be considered as part of ones thoughts since now a days we do everything on our phones it is a little like a data  dump of ones thoughts. I mean my phone remembers what i was thinking better than i do with email, google searches, and sms. If the government or anyone really has access to my phone they know what i was thinking or doing better than i do and i was the one who did them. Reminds me of a CPG Gery video on youtube. If anyone wants to see it i can post can link to it later.

Everything on your phone is something that you've decided to remove from the exclusivity of your mind and create physical records of. So, I don't think the data on your phones should be protected, I just don't think law enforcement should have a legal right to force you to divulge your passcode.

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, MadOne627 said:

Took me a while to get through most of this thread but I feel like ones phone should be considered as part of ones thoughts since now a days we do everything on our phones it is a little like a data  dump of ones thoughts. I mean my phone remembers what i was thinking better than i do with email, google searches, and sms. If the government or anyone really has access to my phone they know what i was thinking or doing better than i do and i was the one who did them. Reminds me of a CPG Gery video on youtube. If anyone wants to see it i can post can link to it later.

Just put in every SMS you send any living president's name and the government will keep a backup copy for you, just in case you might need it .

 

But seriously I'm not actually kidding, my country does it too. There are key words that get all kinds of messages flagged and stored for review and kept for significant lengths of time in case they are needed as evidence and not just in SMS messages either. For serious cases they don't really need access to your phone they already have the evidence but there are things they don't want generally known so submitting the evidence in court with the source as your phone is a much more appealing option.

[Bouzoo]

45 minutes ago, leadeater said:

But seriously I'm not actually kidding, my country does it too. There are key words that get all kinds of messages flagged and stored for review and kept for significant lengths of time in case they are needed as evidence and not just in SMS messages either. For serious cases they don't really need access to your phone they already have the evidence but there are things they don't want generally known so submitting the evidence in court with the source as your phone is a much more appealing option.

Don't most (all?) countries have flagging system on almost every digital communication service? I am gonna try and find out that, since I work for T-Com/Mobile. It never crossed my mind to check it. 

It may be sent from your phone, but if it's a prepaid SIM card which is not registered then good luck proving that it was you. That only makes sense if it's a SIM card with postpaid service which has to be registered to someone.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Don't most (all?) countries have flagging system on almost every digital communication service? I am gonna try and find out that, since I work for T-Com. It never crossed my mind to check it. 

It may be sent from your phone, but if it's a prepaid SIM card which is not registered then good luck proving that it was you. That only makes sense if it's a SIM card with postpaid service which has to be registered to someone.

If they try hard enough they can tie the purchase of the SIM to you, and the top up. Likely even if you used cash. But that does actually bring up a point I didn't mention, chain of evidence. Another reason why getting the data off your phone is much more appealing that trying to use data collection tools and then the extra effort that may go with that if your even allowed to use it in court.

[Bouzoo]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

If they try hard enough they can tie the purchase of the SIM to you, and the top up. Likely even if you used cash. But that does actually bring up a point I didn't mention, chain of evidence. Another reason why getting the data off your phone is much more appealing that trying to use data collection tools and then the extra effort that may go with that if you even allowed to use it in court.

Considering that prepaid cards are literally being handed to people with $ of credit on them, that might be a bit harder to prove, next to impossible to prove in some situations. And that brings me to another point, the phone. There are many ways to get a phone without purchasing it. Even with you physically owning the device. I see where you're getting at, but there are so many holes to play in. That may be a good thing for consumers, to a point, and depending on the situation. 

[79wjd]

@Bouzoo @leadeater

Even phones that aren't registered to you can be linked to you. They can look for common patterns -- where you go, what times you go, how long you stay, what types of things you look up and with what frequency, etc...

[Bouzoo]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

@Bouzoo @leadeater

Even phones that aren't registered to you can be linked to you. They can look for common patterns -- where you go, what times you go, how long you stay, etc....

It may be yes, you are right, but it's not that simple as you might think. Your phone travel location is protected by your carrier as personal confidential data and they won't give it that easily. I don't know that for all carriers, but I know some do protect and take it pretty serious.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

It may be yes, you are right, but it's not that simple as you might think. Your phone travel location is protected by your carrier as personal confidential data and they won't give it that easily. I don't know that for all carriers, but I know some do protect and take it pretty serious.

Ehhh.... Have you been living under a rock?

There has been lots and lots of leaks showing that the US government has hacked into corporate systems to steal user information, as well as ordered courts to give warrants which forces carriers to give out information (more than 99% of all warrant requests to the secret FISA court has been approved, and they have made over 20,000 requests during 2001 alone, and a lot of those requests can be used against several people, not just individuals).

 

Hell, the NSA even went as far as to take over delivery trucks that were delivering networking equipment to Cisco customers, and then installed their own firmware with backdoors before delivering the routers/switches to the customers (without ever telling them what had happened).

Cisco started sending equipment to fake/abandoned addresses as a counter measurement, so that the NSA can't just look for transports destined for let's say AT&T's buildings.

Quote

Here’s how it works: shipments of computer network devices (servers, routers, etc,) being delivered to our targets throughout the world are intercepted. Next, they are redirected to a secret location where Tailored Access Operations/Access Operations (AO-S326) employees, with the support of the Remote Operations Center (S321), enable the installation of beacon implants directly into our targets’ electronic devices. These devices are then re-packaged and placed back into transit to the original destination. All of this happens with the support of Intelligence Community partners and the technical wizards in TAO.

 

Saying that "it's protected by the carrier" is like saying you're protected from bullets because you're holding a wet piece of paper in front of you.

[Bouzoo]

13 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

snip

Interestingly but I haven't. I've been pretty active here. 

Just to clarify what I meant. I said I don't know about all carriers, and I'm aware that US is arguably one of the worst countries when it comes to things as this, but I wasn't talking only about US.

When I said that I know that carriers protect it, I do mean that. Do I have sources? Well that's not something you 'll be able to find online isn't it? I'm gonna pull out a patrick out here and say that my only source am I myself since I've seen cases that were exactly about things like this in this time that I've been working in the telecom industry, and I know how protective carriers are (read: can be).

I'm not saying the scenarios that you mentioned are impossible, on the contrary, but my specific post was about carriers were just not handing that kind of data away because they can, which is what my understanding of the post I was referring to was. That's what the parts "It may be yes, you are right, but it's not that simple as you might think" and "but I know some do protect and take it pretty serious" were about. 

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that carriers care about you either, per se.