Click pic to watch the video

You’ve got nothing to hide, right? So, if you don’t want to hand it over, you’re obviously guilty of something.

The Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is questioning the Michigan State Police’s use of cellphone “extraction” devices. The ACLU said MSP has used the devices to access information from cellphones that officers ask drivers they have pulled over to give them.

“It can contain information that many people consider to be private, to be beyond the reach of law enforcement and other government actors,” said Mark Fancher, an ACLU attorney.

The ACLU is asking why the state police is using devices that can gather data stored on cellphones, and why it is not telling the public about it. The ACLU said the devices could violate Fourth Amendment rights.

“There is great potential for abuse here by a police officer or a state trooper who may not be monitored or supervised on the street,” Fancher said.




  1. bobbo, Republicans are constantly LYING on EVERYTHING. says:

    #30-Backwater Eddy, a substitution in itself==can’t you read and comprehend more than one sentence at a time? A bit awkwardly, monkey first said he thought the liberal bias was too one sided, then he said he liked to get his own sources, then he said he like to see how stupid the right wing sources were.

    Muddled and not linguistically coherent, but not a bad start for someone looking to make up his own mind rather than spout dogma. Give the boy a little bit more time and he will save time by skipping the puke dogcrap right from the gitgo and look for the truth somewhere in the mix of liberal opinion sources.

    Yea, verily.

    The Republicans want to Kill America but they can’t do it without your vote.

  2. eca says:

    IF you do not Stand up for your RIGHTS, do you have any?

    Common LAW is based on the idea, that the MAJORITY, will abid by certain conditions..

    THE PROBLEM, is who is counting the VOTES..

    IF everyone starts handing over cellphones it becomes a CUSTOM, and the START of a regulation, then into LAW..

  3. Harry says:

    Michigan is slowly becoming a police state, the new GOP governor is a real piece of shit. He has the ability to come into your town and take it over if he doesn’t like the way it is being run.

  4. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Well this kinda sucks. The linked article is confusing, but it sounds like maybe they have five of the damn things. And, where I live is a great location for drug busts on the interstate between Detroit and Chicago, meaning my local troopers probably have one of the damned things.

    BTW, I did read something on ARS Technica that putting a password on your phone may indeed be a good way to keep them out. You don’t have to give up the password…they can’t arrest you for refusing to incriminate yourself.

  5. John Mc says:

    This is America? I just don’t understand why people are tolerating any of this. Spread freedom through out the world (cough) and give up and lose your own. Just make sure the rich are taken care of.

  6. Animal Mother says:

    Hell, they already get this information from the phone companies. They probably just want to cross-check it.

  7. endigo says:

    Another reason not to go to Michigan.

  8. Nobody says:

    @27 – they use a complex algorithm to determine drug dealer.

    if ( car==mercedes && driver!=white )

  9. sargasso_c says:

    Smart phone users need to be gently reminded to audit the security and privacy settings of their devices every now and then. Disable location services on apps that monitor and record your location 24/7. Clear call histories. Use VPN services on public WiFi hotspots. Never save account passwords on the device. Screen savers should have passwords to unlock. Disable automatic email update every few minutes but allow message pushes to your device. Minimise message headers. Delete photos as soon as they are uploaded. etc. Mobile devices are “hot” for corporate and state, not because they are cool but because they are a cheap and available portal to your private information.

  10. Norman Speight says:

    So if you work for the FBI or the CIA and they have your phone records, is that not a breach of State and Federal Security? Or, if you are not a member of either, but someone else has a recorded phone call listing your number is that not a breach? I understood that disclosure that a person worked for the CIA is a Federal Offence so if some plod accesses these phone records and puts anything in writing which discloses this…..
    Unless, of course, you believe that Michigan State Police couldn’t possibly put the national security at any risk by having access to information which is not central to any ongoing investigation.
    Yes. I think I would believe that. But then I’m heading towards that Great Long Sleep being pretty ancient.

  11. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Comments stolen from another blog on this story….anybody know if this is accurate:

    The vendor has totally oversold what this product can do: it’s not actually all that easy to read data from a device’s datastore and memory at roadside over a USB (or bluetooth, as they advertise) connection, not without knocking the phone into diagnostic mode first. At best you could copy certain, select bits that the manufacturer of the phone makes available (which isn’t that much).

    The catch is, you’d then need to take it back, open it up and analyze it in a useful way, which would take a very, very long time. This isn’t easy, and it’s next to impossible on, say, a Blackberry with an encrypted datastore. It’s not like, at roadside, the officer would be able to pull GPS logs and tell if you’re speeding, and if they’re looking to see if you have Osama Bin Laden on your speed-dial or a Google Maps pin labelled “Where we dump the bodies” they’re going to need to spend a lot of time and effort doing so.

    I think what’s likely happened is someone at the police department played golf with someone at Cellebrite, bought a bunch of Easy-Bake Forensics kits and now they’re trying to make it look like the device is actually useful.

  12. Pays2Think says:

    #9

    The irony of your statement is that words are actually meaningless, it’s only actions that should be judged on a daily basis. People’s opinions don’t really mean much at all, they’re just their opinions based on information they receive that is more often than not completely void of facts. For me these words are just noise, complete nonsense. I’m only interested in people’s actions and observing their actions and understanding the results of their actions. Words are overpriced.

    The only thing that count are results.

    Try for a month to judge everything around you by the result of someones actions, then go back and read their words and see if they match.

    Very few people say what they do.

  13. Pays2Think says:

    # 36

    Sadly we are not really fighting for democracy around the world. Our government wraps the flag around everything that we do but in reality the controlling interest of both our government and of us are the big-money corporate interests, and for sure they are not interested in anything that resembles democracy.

  14. Annoyed says:

    I look forward to the day my phone is requested without reason. I will probably end up in custody for not handing it over (and a few choice words), but I’m sure I’ll be released without charges.

  15. MI_PI says:

    Just say NO. They have NO authority to force someone to hand over their personal property without a warrant. Regardless of whether you feel you have nothing to hide, JUST SAY NO!. What’s next, kicking in your door and tossing your residence because you “may” have evidence of a crime that they are unaware of???

  16. chris says:

    #11 is right, this is voluntary disclosure. Once you agree all bets are off.

    I am white, so most cops are generally friendly to me. I know that that isn’t the case for everyone. There have been two times when I have been pulled over for the obvious purpose of searching my car. On neither occasion did they press it when I did not consent to a voluntary search.

    Everyone needs to understand that in different regions and for different people there is an amazing variation on how rules are enforced.

    I guess if you are in an area where calm refusal will get your ass kicked… well, then you are screwed regardless.

  17. Glenn E. says:

    I can almost guarantee the cell phone data will be abused. Since when are the cops sworn not to exploit anything they learn about you, for personal gain? And if so, is it ever enforced when violated?

    The cops can’t be bothered to keep breathalyzers properly calibrated. But they’ve all up to speed on invading your privacy, for a traffic stop. Anyway. What are they going to do when the phones are built into the cars? I wonder if these cell phones can be hacked, physically or thru software, NOT to spill the beans on you?

  18. unplugged says:

    Well at least I can still cling to my religion and guns. 😐


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