Phone search law struck down in Ontario

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that Section 99(1)(a) of Canada's Customs Act, which allows border agents to search personal digital devices without consent on mere suspicion, is unconstitutional as written, and has given Parliament six months to rewrite the law. 

Law Allowing Phone, Laptop Search at Borders Unconstitutional, Ontario Court Rules | Epoch Times | Chandra Philip:

August 10, 2024 - "A law that allows border agents to search personal electronic devices, including computers and smartphones, violates Canadians’ charter rights, Ontario’s top court has ruled, telling Parliament it needs to rewrite the law in six months. 

"In an Aug. 9 decision of the province’s Court of Appeal, Chief Justice Michael Tulloch and justices Jonathon George and Patrick Monahan said the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 'guarantees everyone the right to be secure against unreasonable searches.'.... [O]ne section of the Customs Act 'offends this basic guarantee.' ..  section 99(1)(a) of the act allows border agents to search 'some of the most private information imaginable on the lowest possible standard to justify a search,' based merely on suspicion.... 

"The charter requires more, Tulloch wrote in the decision. 'A reasonable search in this context requires a reasonable suspicion,' which means the suspicion must be based on facts indicating reasonable possibility officers will find evidence of law violations on the device, the chief justice said.

"I conclude that the law infringes s. 8 of the Charter and is unconstitutional,' Tulloch wrote.... He also said a less restrictive alternative — requiring border agents to rely on facts that show travellers could be violating laws, as opposed to 'good faith purpose' — 'would not jeopardize its mandate.'"

Read more: https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/law-allowing-phone-laptop-search-at-borders-unconstitutional-ontario-court-rules-5703594?ea_src=ca-frontpage&&ea_med=top-news-top-stories-1-title-0

Huawei sues over U.S. ban on its products

Huawei sues US over government ban on its products | World news | The Guardian - Lily Kuo:

March 7, 2019 - ""Huawei is suing the US over a government ban on its products.... In a statement on Thursday, the Chinese telecoms equipment and smartphone manufacturer said it had filed a lawsuit in the US district court in Plano, Texas, home to the company’s US headquarters, calling for the ban on US government agencies buying Huawei equipment or services to be overturned.

"'This ban not only is unlawful, but also restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition, ultimately harming US consumers. We look forward to the court’s verdict, and trust that it will benefit both Huawei and the American people,' said Guo Ping, Huawei’s chairman.

"The ban, a provision of the National Defence Authorisation Act signed by Donald Trump in August, also prevents government agencies using third-party contractors who use Huawei products. Huawei alleges it amounts to a 'bill of attainder', a legislative act forbidden under the US constitution in which an individual or group is declared guilty of a crime without trial."
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/huawei-sues-us-over-government-ban-on-its-products

Huawei is Defending Libertarian Economic Principles in The Heart of America - Eurasia Future - Adam Garrie:

March 7, 2019 - "While it may be well over a year before the ... verdict ... Huawei has already won in the court of common sense. The US Constitution guarantees one’s basic freedom to engage in commerce without facing arbitrary governmental restrictions and burdensome regulations. These basic principles which are fundamental to the US Constitution, tend to be classed as economic libertarianism.

"Libertarianism can be defined as a political philosophy that stresses the necessity of little to no governmental interference in the lives of individuals and the businesses they operate. As such, there is a particular emphasis on free markets, free trade and freedom of choice for entrepreneurs, business owners and consumers, within the libertarian political philosophy....

"Although the US Constitution specifically enshrines these values into law, ... American politicians in both major parties ... often argue for less economic liberty, less freedom of choice and for more creativity stifling regulation.... Ron Paul and his son Senator Rand Paul continue to fly the flag of libertarian principles [but] for the rest of America’s political and media class, big government regulation is very much the rule ... both in respect of Donald Trump’s opposition to free trade and ... Democrats who argue for monstrously bloated (to the point of being ridiculous) initiatives such as the so-called 'green new deal'....

"[T]he Huawei lawsuit ought to open up the hearts and minds of average Americans who have allowed themselves to be bamboozled by fear.... Huawei is defending the liberty of ordinary Americans, more so than most American politicians."

Read more: https://eurasiafuture.com/2019/03/07/huawei-is-defending-libertarian-economic-principles-in-the-heart-of-america/

'via Blog this'

5th Amendment covers biometric phone locks, California judge rules

Feds Can't Force You To Unlock Your iPhone With Finger Or Face, Judge Rules - Thomas Brewster, Forbes:

January 14, 2019 - "A California judge has ruled that American cops can’t force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger....

""The order came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in the denial of a search warrant ... filed as part of an investigation into a Facebook extortion crime, in which a victim was asked to pay up or have an 'embarassing' video of them publicly released. The cops had some suspects in mind and wanted to raid their property. In doing so, the feds also wanted to open up any phone on the premises via facial recognition, a fingerprint or an iris.

"While the judge agreed that investigators had shown probable cause to search the property ... judge Kandis Westmore ruled ... that the government did not have the right, even with a warrant, to force suspects to incriminate themselves by unlocking their devices with their biological features. Previously, courts had decided biometric features, unlike passcodes, were not 'testimonial' ... because a suspect would have to willingly and verbally give up a passcode, which is not the case with biometrics. A password was therefore deemed testimony, but body parts were not, and so not granted Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination....

“'If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide one’s finger, thumb, iris, face, or other biometric feature to unlock that same device,' the judge wrote. 'The undersigned finds that a biometric feature is analogous to the 20 nonverbal, physiological responses elicited during a polygraph test, which are used to determine guilt or innocence, and are considered testimonial....'

"Andrew Crocker, senior staff attorney at the digital rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the latest California ruling went a step further than he’d seen other courts go....

"The magistrate judge decision could, of course, be overturned by a district court judge, as happened in Illinois in 2017 with a similar ruling. The best advice for anyone concerned about government overreach into their smartphones: Stick to a strong alphanumeric passcode that you won’t be compelled to disclose."

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/01/14/feds-cant-force-you-to-unlock-your-iphone-with-finger-or-face-judge-rules/
'via Blog this'

NSA deleting millions of unwarranted call records

NSA Purging Millions of Improperly Collected Call Records Is Important (and Not About Trump) - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

July 3, 2018 - "The National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that it is deleting millions of phone and text records it has gathered since 2015, because it is holding a bunch of records it was not supposed to have....

"In this case, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in 2015 to better control (and potentially limit) the NSA's access to the metadata (that is, everything but the conversations' actual content) of Americans' communications. This reform was part of a backlash against the mass surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden, and the bill was passed after some privacy-minded lawmakers, such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), forced a part of the Patriot Act to expire that was being used to justify mass amounts of domestic snooping.

"Under the USA Freedom Act, the NSA no longer collects and combs through our communications metadata itself. Instead it now has to request records from telecommunications companies using strictly defined search terms....

"The problem, as Charlie Savage of The New York Times uncovered, is that the telecom companies were accidentally sending too many records in response to NSA requests. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine:

"As a result, when the agency then fed those phone numbers back to the telecoms to get the communications logs of all of the people who had been in contact with its targets, the agency also gathered some data of people unconnected to the targets. And so the agency was receiving private personal information about Americans' communications data that it neither asked for nor had the right to examine.... 'If the first information was incorrect, even though on its face it looked like any other number, then when we fed that back out, by definition we'd get records back on the second hop that we did not have authority to collect,' [an NSA spokesman] said....

"The NSA requested more than 500 million telecom records just last year. It is unable to determine which records it has the authorization to collect, so it is purging all of them....

"Many of the same privacy-minded lawmakers who managed to force some of the surveillance authorities of the Patriot Act to expire also opposed the USA Freedom Act. Congressmen like Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) voted against the bill because they believed it still gave the government too much power to collect our records without warrants. Sen. Paul rejected the USA Freedom Act for the same reason....

"Unfortunately, Trump has shown that he's perfectly fine with snooping on Americans  ... [as he] happily signed a bill in January renewing and expanding the government's authority to secretly spy on Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/03/nsa-purging-millions-of-improperly-colle
'via Blog this'

Warrant needed for cell location info, SCOTUS rules

Carpenter v. United States Decision Strengthens Digital Privacy | WIRED - Louise Matsakis:

June 22, 2018 - "In a highly anticipated decision released [June 22], the US Supreme Court ... decided in Carpenter v. United States that the government generally needs a warrant in order to access cell site location information [CSLI], which is automatically generated whenever a mobile phone connects to a cell tower and is stored by wireless carriers for years....

"'We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. 'In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection.'

"Roberts was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented....

"At issue was an antiquated legal principle called the third-party doctrine, which ... comes from United States v. Miller, a 1976 case in which the court ruled that law enforcement doesn't need a warrant in order to access bank records because 'the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party.' Three years later, in 1979, the court ruled ... that the third-party doctrine also extends to call records collected by phone companies.

"But on Friday, the Supreme Court said that cell site location information is a 'qualitatively different category” of information. CSLI allows law enforcement to paint a nearly complete picture of Americans' movements. Last year, AT&T and Verizon jointly received nearly 125,000 requests from law enforcement for CSLI data, according to their transparency reports. Law enforcement officials will now only be able to make such requests after obtaining a warrant, which will require them to demonstrate probable cause....

"The court declined to decide on whether law enforcement seeking a smaller window of records — fewer than seven days ... constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. The opinion also allows for exceptions for emergencies, like 'bomb threats, active shootings, and child abductions.'

"Carpenter v. United States began in December of 2010, when a series of robberies hit Michigan and neighboring Ohio.... Timothy Carpenter, who was later convicted of committing several of the robberies and sentenced to 116 years in prison ... argued that obtaining the records constituted a Fourth Amendment search, and therefore the police should have needed a warrant. His motion was denied, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear it last year....

"Fourteen of the largest US tech companies — including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft — filed a brief in support of updating the Fourth Amendment for the digital era. It was technically not filed in support of either party, but largely backed Carpenter's position. The cohort even included Verizon, which cooperated with the National Security Agency as part of its broad bulk surveillance programs for years."

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/carpenter-v-united-states-supreme-court-digital-privacy/
'via Blog this'

With Vault 7 revelations, paranoia is justified

Vault 7: What it Means for You - The Libertarian Institute - Thomas Knapp:

March 9, 2017 - "On March 7, the transparency/disclosure activists at Wikileaks began releasing a series of documents titled 'Vault 7.' According to the New York Times, Vault 7 consists of 'thousands of pages describing sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the [U.S. Central Intelligence Agency] to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions.'

"If the documents are authentic — and WikiLeaks has a sterling reputation when it comes to document authenticity — every paranoid thriller you’ve ever watched or read was too timid in describing a hypothetical surveillance state. Even the telescreens and random audio bugs of George Orwell’s 1984 don’t come close to the reality of the CIA’s surveillance operations.

"In theory, the CIA doesn’t spy on Americans in America. In fact, digital traffic pays no heed to national borders, and the tools and tactics described have almost certainly been made available to, or independently developed by, other US surveillance agencies, not to mention foreign governments and non-government actors.

"Bottom line: You should accept the possibility that for the last several years anything you’ve done on, or in the presence of, a device that can connect to the Internet was observed, monitored, and archived as accessible data.

"Paranoid? Yes. But the paranoia is justified....

"If you’ve got nothing to hide you’ve got nothing to fear? Everyone has something to hide. Somewhere, some time, you’ve said or done something you regret or wouldn’t want the world to know. And you probably said or did it within a few feet of your smartphone, your laptop, or your Internet-connected television. Maybe nobody was listening or watching. Or maybe someone was. The only plausible conclusion from the Vault 7 disclosures is that you should assume the latter.

"Vault 7 confirms that as a state entity, the CIA answers to philosopher Anthony de Jasay’s description of the state as such. Just as a firm acts to maximize profits, the state and its arms act to maximize their own discretionary power. Even if it doesn’t do some particular thing, it requires the option, the ability to do that thing. It seeks omnipotence."

Read more: https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/blog/vault-7-means/
'via Blog this'

Inside the FBI's encryption battle with Apple

Inside the FBI's encryption battle with Apple | Technology | The Guardian - Danny Yadron, Spencer Ackerman and Sam Thielman:

February 18, 2016 -"Two weeks ago, the FBI called Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, with a jarring message: the agency wanted Apple to help them hack an iPhone. Apple refused.... 16 February ... a federal magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock a single iPhone – the phone belonging to one of the killers in the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Apple again refused.

"But this carefully planned legal battle has been months in the making, ... as the government and Apple try to settle whether national security can dictate how Silicon Valley writes computer code....

"On 2 December a husband and wife opened fire on a local government office building in southern California.... One of the suspects, Syed Farook, had worked for the county, which meant the government owned his iPhone 5C. With a search warrant, Apple provided the FBI data from weekly backups Farook made with Apple’s iCloud service. But those backups stopped on 19 October, according to a federal search warrant request.

"FBI investigators believed there was more data about Farook’s motives in the phone but couldn’t get to it without unlocking the device. The phone’s contents were encrypted and Apple didn’t have the four-digit passcode. Modern iPhones also have an optional feature that will erase all data on the phone with 10 incorrect passcode entries. FBI agents weren’t willing to take the risk....

"In the 16 February court order, Apple was told to build software that, when combined with the unique identification number, would allow the FBI to guess Farook’s password as many times as it wanted. The court also ordered Apple to disable a feature that added a delay after multiple incorrect passcode entries. And since a four-digit passcode has only about 10,000 possible combinations, a powerful computer could plow through guesses fairly quickly, a technology executive said.

 "US officials on Wednesday stressed that their request for Apple is only limited to Farook’s phone. 'The judge’s order and our request in this case do not require Apple to redesign its products, to disable encryption or to open content on the phone,' the Justice Department said in a statement on 17 February.

"But Apple said that it would be impossible to limit the technology to this case. Once Apple built such an investigative tool, any iPhone’s security system – even the most modern ones – could be weakened by it, an Apple executive said.... Additionally, Apple’s lawyers are concerned that if a judge validates the FBI’s use of the All Writs Act in this case, it will give the government sweeping authority to dictate how Silicon Valley builds products in the future....

"To Justice Department officials, San Bernardino is a long-awaited test case. In October 2014, the FBI’s James Comey first told a Washington audience that encryption on mobile devices effectively left law enforcement 'dark' to emerging threats. Ever since, officials believed it was only a matter of time until they came upon a case like the San Bernardino shootings: a device from a terrorist whose lock screen they couldn’t bypass by guesswork to get at the data held on the phone, and not in Apple’s iCloud....

"Senior law enforcement officials were briefed on the decision to go after Apple in such a high-profile way, sources said. The FBI also appears to have been preparing its press strategy for the search warrant for weeks."

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-the-fbis-encryption-battle-with-apple
'via Blog this'

Apple CEO defends encyption with 'no backdoors'

Apple’s Tim Cook Lashes Out at White House Officials for Being Wishy-Washy on Encryption - Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept::

January 12, 2016 - "Apple CEO Tim Cook lashed out at the high-level delegation of Obama administration officials who came calling on tech leaders in San Jose last week, criticizing the White House for a lack of leadership and asking the administration to issue a strong public statement defending the use of unbreakable encryption.

"The White House should come out and say 'no backdoors,' Cook said. That would mean overruling repeated requests from FBI Director James Comey and other administration officials that tech companies build some sort of special access for law enforcement into otherwise unbreakable encryption. Technologists agree that any such measure could be exploited by others....

The Washington Post reported in September that the White House had decided not to pursue legislation against unbreakable encryption. But the intelligence community’s top lawyer was quoted in an email saying that that the administration should be 'keeping our options open … in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.'

"And Comey has been urging technology companies to voluntarily alter 'their business model' and stop offering end-to-end encryption by default.

"Despite the growing pressure tech companies are feeling from governments worldwide to stop letting terrorists take advantage of their services, Cook has continued to defend the importance of encryption in protecting all digital transactions — from text messages and emails to bank information and medical records.

"Cook has been outspoken in his opposition to the idea that we need to sacrifice privacy and digital security for the sake of public safety. During an episode of 60 Minutes on December 20, he said, 'We’re America, we should have both'....

"[T]echnologists and cryptographers have been insisting for decades almost unanimously that trying to pierce impenetrable end-to-end encryption to provide the government with access would be more dangerous than beneficial."

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/01/12/apples-tim-cook-lashes-out-at-white-house-officials-for-being-wishy-washy-on-encryption/
'via Blog this'

Canadian charged for not giving up phone password

Man charged for refusing to give border guards his phone password | CTV News - Josh Dehaas:

March 5, 2015 - "Canadian border officials in Halifax have charged a man after he refused to hand over the passcode for his smartphone, but an expert in the law says it’s not clear whether such demands are legal.

"Alain Philippon is charged with 'hindering' under section 153.1 of the Customs Act, according to Canadian Border Services Agency representative Cindy MacKenzie.

"That section of the Customs Act, which governs border inspections, reads: 'No person shall, physically or otherwise, do or attempt to do any of the following: (a) interfere with or molest an officer doing anything that the officer is authorized to do under this Act; or (b) hinder or prevent an officer from doing anything that the officer is authorized to do under this Act.'

"Rob Currie, Director of the Law & Technology Institute at Dalhousie University’s law school, said it’s [an] 'open question' whether border security can demand passcodes and then search electronic devices, because the question has not been tested in Canadian courts....

"'Customs officials do have quite a license to fish,' he said. 'They have a fairly broad discretionary power and we have said through parliament that that’s a good thing, that we want them to have those powers to search things where they have reasonable grounds at all (to) suspect something untoward.'

"He said that the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent 4-3 decision that police can conduct limited searches of suspects' cellphones without warrants does not apply here.

"If found guilty, Phillipon faces a minimum fine of $1,000 and a maximum fine of $25,000, 'and could include possible jail time,' according to the CBSA’s MacKenzie."

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/man-charged-for-refusing-to-give-border-guards-his-phone-password-1.2266576
'via Blog this'