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New York drivers might get mandatory 'textalyzer' phone scans (1 Viewer)

Not only no, but hell no. This is a constitutional challenge waiting to happen. We have a right to privacy.
 
Huh, sounds like the NSA's penchant for mining "meta-data" is being spread to other areas....
 
Liberal paradise! Oh yeah!
 
Kal'Stang said:
Huh, sounds like the NSA's penchant for mining "meta-data" is being spread to other areas....
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This is even further, it is flat out reading your private text messages.
 
Carjosse said:
This is even further, it is flat out reading your private text messages.
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Might want to read the article a bit closer.

On Thursday, a company representative told CNNMoney that Cellebrite supports the legislation. In a statement, Cellebrite marketing executive Jeremy Nazarian said the device could be designed to check phone logs -- a record of metadata that would show a text message was sent, but not the actual contents of that message
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I don't support meta-data mining without a properly authorized search warrant. But unfortunately our country is moving in that direction. Hopefully this goes to court and it gets struck down. But I'm not holding out much hope that it will be. Especially with judges like this...

For all of these reasons, the NSA's bulk telephony metadata collection program is lawful. Accordingly, the Government's motion to dismiss the complaint is granted and the ACLU's mostion for a preliminary injunction is denied.
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United States District Court Southern District of New York ~ UCLA v James R. Clapper
 
Kal'Stang said:
Might want to read the article a bit closer.



I don't support meta-data mining without a properly authorized search warrant. But unfortunately our country is moving in that direction. Hopefully this goes to court and it gets struck down. But I'm not holding out much hope that it will be. Especially with judges like this...



United States District Court Southern District of New York ~ UCLA v James R. Clapper
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It is a slippery slope. I also wonder what happens if someone sent a message using speech to text.
 
Carjosse said:
Not only no, but hell no. This is a constitutional challenge waiting to happen. We have a right to privacy.
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Not for the most part, these days...
 
The goal of the bill is to give police a device that plugs into a phone and scans logs to see if a driver was texting or calling during the crash. And if drivers refuse to hand over their phones, they would lose their driver's license, under the proposed bill -- just as suspected drunk drivers are required to submit to breathalyzers.

Beaudreaux said:
Definitely a 4th and maybe even a 5th Amendment violation. It would never stand up in court. Any lawmaker that supports such a thing should never be re-elected to office, and in fact should be eliminated from running for office under the banner of either party - the parties control who can run under their banner.
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Curious what cases you'd rely on for that proposition, because I'm more or less completely certain that it is dead wrong.

As the article itself notes, states already have laws that place you in the position of voluntarily agreeing to submit to a breathalyzer test OR to face automatic license suspension. These laws have been upheld as perfectly constitutional because to the extent it is a search, it is a consent search.

As for the 5th Amd., the Supreme Court has even held that it does not violate the 5th amendment to admit evidence in court that you refused the test, because they don't see blowing into a breathalyzer (or the refusal to do so) as being on par with being forced to provide incriminating testimony against yourself. (Contrast Massachusetts, where in 1992, the SJC held in Opinion of the Justices that evidence that you refused a breathalyzer is not admissible under the state constitution because it is the equivalent of testimonial evidence that the driver knows or suspects he has consumed enough alcohol to have committed OUI).


This would be the same thing, but for plugging the phone into a device to provide physical evidence that you were violating the law. With a breathalyzer, it's the percentage of alcohol in your blood stream. With this, it's whether a text function was active at a particular time.
 
A wreck seems like probable cause to me. As long as the device doesn't log the contents of the messages.
 
I'm all for it but I dont know why they need the device. Like they said in the article, they can already get that info from the service providers. And there's a good chance they can retain more individual privacy that way too.
 
Mr Person said:
The goal of the bill is to give police a device that plugs into a phone and scans logs to see if a driver was texting or calling during the crash. And if drivers refuse to hand over their phones, they would lose their driver's license, under the proposed bill -- just as suspected drunk drivers are required to submit to breathalyzers.



Curious what cases you'd rely on for that proposition, because I'm more or less completely certain that it is dead wrong.

As the article itself notes, states already have laws that place you in the position of voluntarily agreeing to submit to a breathalyzer test OR to face automatic license suspension. These laws have been upheld as perfectly constitutional because to the extent it is a search, it is a consent search.

As for the 5th Amd., the Supreme Court has even held that it does not violate the 5th amendment to admit evidence in court that you refused the test, because they don't see blowing into a breathalyzer (or the refusal to do so) as being on par with being forced to provide incriminating testimony against yourself. (Contrast Massachusetts, where in 1992, the SJC held in Opinion of the Justices that evidence that you refused a breathalyzer is not admissible under the state constitution because it is the equivalent of testimonial evidence that the driver knows or suspects he has consumed enough alcohol to have committed OUI).


This would be the same thing, but for plugging the phone into a device to provide physical evidence that you were violating the law. With a breathalyzer, it's the percentage of alcohol in your blood stream. With this, it's whether a text function was active at a particular time.
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This is not a breathalizer, it is a monitor and potential restriction of freedom of speech by an unlawful search and seizure - there is software and hardware in modern vehicles that allow a person to talk on the phone without holding it and to text without reading or typing which is required to break the laws. The phone will still show that a call was made or a text was received or sent but the fact that the person did so through a hands free voice recognition program is not logged on the phone and is potentially a violation of the person's Constitutional rights.

What the proposed legislation does is give the government power it does not have regarding both restrictions on the 1st Amendment rights of citizens and increases in government power to search and seize without a warrant which is a 4th Amendment violation, and potentially a 5th Amendment violation if they gain access to what was texted or stated over the phone by eliminating the choice of the person to choose to remain silent.
 
Aside from potential privacy and 4A issues it is not illegal to use a hands-free phone while driving in NY. Many modern cars interface directly with phones and allow for sending text messages via voice command. How does the legislature propose to discriminate between those or cases where the driver dictates a message to a passenger who does the typing?
 
Carjosse said:
Not only no, but hell no. This is a constitutional challenge waiting to happen. We have a right to privacy.
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Mr Person said:
Not for the most part, these days...
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Actually, no we do *not* have a right to privacy (sadly), although some of what we believe to be privacy is sometimes found under 'unreasonable search and seizure'.

But unless my undergrad Con Law professor was in error, the Constitution is silent on the issue.
 
Chomsky said:
Actually, no we do *not* have a right to privacy (sadly), although some of what we believe to be privacy is sometimes found under 'unreasonable search and seizure'.

But unless my undergrad Con Law professor was in error, the Constitution is silent on the issue.
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The Roe court thinks we do. The right to privacy is inferred from other enumerated rights........
 
Gaius46 said:
The Roe court thinks we do. The right to privacy is inferred from other enumerated rights........
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Are you speaking of in the Justices' comments?

Any links?
 
This is going to become a big mess, and probably challenged the very first time it is used.
 
Chomsky said:
Actually, no we do *not* have a right to privacy (sadly), although some of what we believe to be privacy is sometimes found under 'unreasonable search and seizure'.

But unless my undergrad Con Law professor was in error, the Constitution is silent on the issue.
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I would say accessing my texts, even metadata as unreasonable search. We are in the digital age, we need to re-define these rights.
 
Carjosse said:
I would say accessing my texts, even metadata as unreasonable search. We are in the digital age, we need to re-define these rights.
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Does the content need to be accessed?
 
Carjosse said:
What do you mean?
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Do they have to read the content of the texts? Isnt just the proof of accessing the text enough? Or sending?
 
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