Seems like a good bill despite being introduced by Boebert. Does this have a chance of passing? We’ll see. Could be worth contacting your reps. Not sure what sane person would be against this honestly.
Why not make exchange of information which police need warrent for illegal by default?
I thought this was already the law and it was just being ignored.
It requires a warrant for the government to force entities to hand over information. What’s happening now is that companies are giving the government people’s private data voluntarily.
It’s not even that. Data companies sell your information on an open market. The government can just buy it.
Well, yeah: a sale is a type of voluntary exchange.
Sadly no. A warrant is only required to compel someone to hand over information.
The issue is that often information can be gathered in “public”, which doesn’t require anyone to be compelled to hand something over, so no warrant was required. This precedent made sense when it was established–it would be silly to require a sheriff to have a warrant to simply observe something happening in front of them. But it has become deeply problematic as surveillance technology has emerged, since they can now legally track almost everything you’re doing by buying information from various tech companies who retain all sorts of data on you.
It almost certainly is the law, right to be secure in your effects, but basically the way things are set up currently is… you have to sue the government and then win at the Supreme Court.
You know, based on the information the government has on you that you almost certainly do not provably know they have.
All kinds of government agencies just do whatever the fuck they want untill some judge tells them to stop.
Because cops and such exist in a privileged and elevated legal status under US laws, so they can more or less regularly do things that would get normal people thrown in prison.
… anyway, theoretically this might actually fuck with the secret court system that signs the secret warrants for things like this, that emerged after the PATRIOT ACT… if its worded precisely.
Also: I’m genuienly shocked that Lauren Boebert may have actually done something good.
EDIT:
oh hey, the article links to a website that actually explains the current status quo snd the proposed changes, in non legalese:
https://www.surveillanceaccountability.com/about
EDIT 2:
Yeah, this would require actual warrants for cases under specific investigation, it would ban Gov agencies from going through a third party to say, buy everyone’s cellphone location data, or networks of cameras that scan biometrics or liscense plates.
I’m sure all the databrokers would try their damndest to find loopholes around such restrictions, but this does generally seem to me like the right direction to be moving in.
EDIT 3:
The bill
https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr8470/BILLS-119hr8470ih.pdf
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