Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union published a 2009 IRS handbook in which the agency states that Americans “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in [e-mail] communications.” Yesterday, the IRS’s acting commissioner appeared before lawmakers to clarify the agency’s actual stance on the issue. [More]
warrants
IRS: Just Because We Said We Can Read Your E-mails Without A Warrant Doesn’t Mean We Did It
By 4.17.13
ACLU Files Suit To Stop Police From Searching Cell Phones Without Warrant
By 3.20.13 — Updated: 1.17.14
A decade ago, searching someone’s cell phone would give you a list of names and numbers, maybe some recent texts. But now, the average smartphone could contain as much personal and sensitive information as a desktop computer, yet many law enforcement agencies argue they don’t need a warrant to search these devices. That’s why the American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the city of San Francisco and its chief of police. [More]
What Can Cops Look At On Your Phone Without A Warrant?
By 3.1.12
Ten years ago, most of us had little more on our mobile phones than other phone numbers. Then cames texts, photos, video, web pages, passwords, credit card info, and most importantly Sudoku scores. But how much of that should be readily available to police if you are believed to have run afoul of the law? [More]
Sprint Served Customer GPS Data To Cops Over 8 Million Times
By 12.3.09
An Indiana University grad student has made public an audio recording of a Sprint employee who describes how the company has given away customer GPS location data to cops over 8 million times in less than a year. Ars technica reports that “law enforcement [officers] could log into a special Sprint Web portal and, without ever having to demonstrate probable cause to a judge, gain access to geolocation logs detailing where they’ve been and where they are.” Update: Sprint says the 8 million figure refers to individual pings of GPS data, and that the number of individuals involved is in the thousands. [More]
CenterPoint Energy Thinks Your Fish Tank Is A Meth Lab, So Police Kick In Your Door
By 4.30.08
You’d think between the reactionary CenterPoint…
