Prosecutors Have Pulled Data From More Than 100 Phones Seized From Inauguration Day Protesters
from the collect-it-all,-sort-it-out-later dept
More than 100 phones taken from arrested Inauguration Day protesters have had their data exfiltrated, apparently in hopes of pinpointing perpetrators of damage and additional (but unarrested) suspects. As Buzzfeed reports, the unusual investigative step doesn't appear to have been hampered by device encryption.
Prosecutors are extracting data from more than 100 locked cell phones seized during arrests in downtown Washington, DC, on President Trump’s Inauguration Day, according to court papers prosecutors filed on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said they had search warrants to pull data from the phones, which were taken from individuals arrested on Inauguration Day, including some who were not indicted. All of the phones were locked, according to the government, “which requires more time-sensitive efforts to try to obtain the data.” But the filing appeared to indicate that they were successful in accessing information on the phones.
Presumably, prosecutors are looking for communications and photos that will nail down charges against protesters who directly caused $100,000 worth of damage. (Or maybe they're just looking for paystubs?) Another clue can be found in the Motion for Protective Order [PDF] filed by the US prosecutor before turning over the data to defendants' lawyers.
The police were able to arrest approximately 230 of the rioters that day; all of them were charged with violating DC. Code 22-1322 (Rioting or inciting to riot). However, many other rioters evaded arrest by forcibly charging police officers and fleeing.
It looks like the government prosecutor isn't satisfied with the 214 indictments it already has. Cell phones of "unindicted arrestees" have also been searched. Unusually, the data collected isn't being separated. Instead, defense attorneys will have all the access prosecutors have: a full dump of everything and the responsibility to sort out what is or isn't relevant to their case.
According to the filings on Wednesday, the government plans to produce the information it collects from the seized phones to the defendants by way of an electronic database that would be made available to defense counsel. The extracted data includes irrelevant personal information, prosecutors said, so they’re seeking an order from the court that would prohibit defense lawyers from copying or sharing information unless it’s relevant to defend their client.
The cell phone searches sound sketchy, especially when law enforcement has apparently acquired 100 cell phone-sized warrants or, worse, one warrant to search them all. The cell phones searches aren't the government's only bulk operation. Prosecutors are also hoping to prosecute in bulk, dividing the 200+ indictees into four categories for faster processing. One of the defense lawyers involved is fighting this move, pointing out the Constitution takes precedence over the government's convenience.
Christopher Mutimer, a defense lawyer representing one of the defendants, told BuzzFeed News by email on Wednesday that he would oppose efforts by the government to hold joint trials.
“These cases should be tried individually in a manner that protects each individual defendant’s constitutional rights,” Mutimer said. “Not in groupings that make the trials most convenient for the government. Grouping individuals for trial creates a danger of wrongful convictions based on guilt by association.”
Other constitutional inconveniences will have to wait as well. The presiding judge hasn't granted the data dump court order yet but has told arrestees any unconstitutional searches will have to be sorted out during their trials, not prior to prosecution. Expect statements of expertise from law enforcement officers where the word "drug dealer" has been replaced with "protester" to explain the likelihood of finding evidence of drug dealing felony rioting on more than 100 seized and searched cell phones.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: arrests, exfiltrated, inauguration, investigation, phones
Reader Comments
The First Word
“It's like the reverse of a corporation.
The point of a corporation is to diffuse risk across the investors. Today that includes legal risk. No individual faces a penalty when HSBC gets caught knowingly money laundering for criminal organizations or helping Iran and North Korea circumvent nuclear-weapons sanctions. Instead the company pays a fine equivalent to a month's profit.
The bulk trials do the reverse. Someone commits vandalism. Police cordon off the area and arrest everyone in it. Instead of diffusing risk, they diffuse innocence. It doesn't matter that few if any of those charged were actually guilty. A lack of evidence connecting an individual to a crime no longer matters. Reasonable doubt no longer applies. Someone committed a crime, so everyone is guilty.
Corporations are people. And now, individuals are not.
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
LOTR Warrant
If they were trying to establish probable cause to search each arrestee's residence to find and search a phone, I would agree that one "Lord of the Rings" warrant to search them all would be a problem. But in this case, these phones were all in the alleged rioters' possession at the scene of the crime. The probable cause for the search likely is the same across all of the phones: they could have been used to coordinate the riot.
This isn't a "whatever devices we might happen to find at the location" warrant, as in the Lancaster, California case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: LOTR Warrant
One Warrant to Search them?
No.
One Warrant to to bring them all, and in the Darkness Bind Them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
In the land of D.C. where the feds lie...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: LOTR Warrant
Heh, I somehow doubt that.
I didn't realize that being in downtown Washington, DC, on President Trump’s Inauguration Day was enough to loose your fourth amendment rights. I guess it might depend on what you look like.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
Please read the article, it states:
It's not merely being in downtown DC, it's being arrested for being involved in an act that is being criminally prosecuted. If you were arrested at the scene of a burglary would you expect your phone to be searched? I sure would.
As I guy who works on chips, I'll say this: unless your passcode is actually a passphrase and a long one at that, even perfect encryption software won't protect you if the phone is in my possession. Give me access to the hardware and I can almost certainly bring some industry standard tools to bear and read the data off the chips. (Yes, Apple does blow the JTAG fuse, but I can rebuild it and read all the data off the memory chips with some fancy but standard machines, just as an example.) Not that given the state of software today that I'd expect you'd need to go to those lengths, but they are available if you don't have a software crack in your back pocket and you have deep (government) pockets.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
It's not "for being involved in." It's "for being in the same area as."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
No, you are involved if a riot breaks out and you don't leave the area. The Federal definition of a riot is:
So being a part of the crowd when violence breaks out and staying with the crowd makes you subject to criminal arrest.
You have the right to peaceably assemble. You do not have the right be a part of a violent assembly even if you are acting peacefully.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
Police "kettling" often prevents the peaceful protesters from leaving the area. Also bystanders just going about their business without being part of the peaceful protest, let alone any vandalism.
Think about it: The Tea Party announces a Washington rally weeks ahead of time. They spend a small fortune organizing it. Tens of thousands of people take time off work and travel to attend.
Should one person (three at most) be able to stop the whole thing on the spot with a act of vandalism? Force everyone to leave the area or be arrested for rioting?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: LOTR Warrant
However, it also doesn't seem to say anything about the other persons in the assemblage being subject to arrest. (Or, indeed, even about the persons committing the act(s) being so subject.) This seems to be purely a definition of an event, saying nothing about consequences of falling within that definition, or about participating in that event.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
However, such tactics never work in a 'police state' or military occupation, in which case anyone who even remotely fits the profile will be treated as guilty until proven otherwise.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Ahhh, I was going to gripe about this ("destructive rioting"? WTH?) but then I remembered about the Boston Tea Party.
Still, "No Taxation Without Representation" isn't quite the same as "Not My President" (Read: I don't like the results of the election and I'm going to do something about it AFTER THE FACT.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
But then the tax on tea was dropped too. Which made legally imported tea cheaper. Which in turn was putting smugglers of Dutch tea - like John Hancock - out of business. Which is why the tea was thrown in the harbor rather than "liberated."
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against *lower* taxes. One of the things that's always confused me about the modern Tea Party.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
So yeah, I'd like to know your source for that because... daayyyyum!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, it wasn't. The Tea Act remained in effect in the colonies. The reason the taxes were "lower" was because they effectively were "prepaid".
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against any taxes imposed by Parliament in the absence of colonial representation. The "lower" taxes (i.e., prepaid taxes) were a trick by the British to get the colonists to concede that Parliament had the authority to levy taxes in the first place.
Now, did tea smugglers and competitors of the British East India Company join in for their own competitive reasons? Yes. But without the primary cause of opposing all taxation by Parliament without representation, the Boston Tea Party never happens.
P.S. Wendy, keep in mind that Roger is from Canada. They use different history books.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
And when they're willing to fill a hundred cells with innocent warm bodies in hopes one of them will be the right warm body, such tactics will backfire. I'd say hilariously backfire, but it's not funny at all to the other 99 people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: they are all guilty
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Is accessory not in your vocabulary?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
To what end?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
A dozen or so professionally masked thugs arrive all at once, act very efficiently to generate photo ops, and then move on queue to another street block. Too good to be true.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You mean like police agent provocateurs?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
... And in the database bind then.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://gangscope.com/
Replace the word "gang" with any organized group of your choosing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We're familiar with this in Canada. At the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto, "230 rioters" would mean "one or more vandals plus all the innocent bystanders in the area when police cordoned it off." It was the same in Washington.
At the 2007 North American leaders summit in Montebello, Quebec, it was undercover police carrying rocks and trying to provoke a riot. They were identified because they were still wearing very distinctive police footwear.
This is why they want bulk trials.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
https://www.usbkill.com/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's like the reverse of a corporation.
The point of a corporation is to diffuse risk across the investors. Today that includes legal risk. No individual faces a penalty when HSBC gets caught knowingly money laundering for criminal organizations or helping Iran and North Korea circumvent nuclear-weapons sanctions. Instead the company pays a fine equivalent to a month's profit.
The bulk trials do the reverse. Someone commits vandalism. Police cordon off the area and arrest everyone in it. Instead of diffusing risk, they diffuse innocence. It doesn't matter that few if any of those charged were actually guilty. A lack of evidence connecting an individual to a crime no longer matters. Reasonable doubt no longer applies. Someone committed a crime, so everyone is guilty.
Corporations are people. And now, individuals are not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Such concern
The extracted data includes irrelevant personal information, prosecutors said, so they’re seeking an order from the court that would prohibit defense lawyers from copying or sharing information unless it’s relevant to defend their client.
Not mentioned: Any steps taken to keep the police from looking through that 'irrelevant personal information', but hey, I'm sure they're being very careful to narrow the scope of their searches and immediately deleting any data unrelated to the investigations that they stumble upon on accident during their narrow searches.
As for the bulk trials, if the judge gives that abomination of the legal system a pass they might as well resign on the spot and just let the prosecution hand out convictions as desired, because allowing something like that will have indicated that they don't give a damn about even the most basic tenants of the legal system, 'Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law', where the prosecution has to demonstrate guilt of the accused, not just guilt of the group the accused might have been lumped into.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Such concern
just let the prosecution hand out convictions as desired
They don't now?
They threaten to prosecute for crimes that will get you 1,000 years in solatary, or cop to a 2 year conviction via a plea deal from a segment of society that:
1a. Normally doesn't have enough money to eat regularly or live in a nice neighborhood, let alone retain a competent lawyer
1b. Miranda council that is pressured to get their clients to accept a plea deal and avoid trial
After which they will be embroiled in a "justice" system that in many states is designed (via being outsourced to private industry) that has absolutely no interest or ability to "reform" those that are in need of it, with a financial interest in making sure they never complete their prison sentences (continuing revenue).
In a lot of ways, it would be more honest to actually let the DA simply hand out convictions. At least that way most would have proof to go with the lack of doubt that the system really is rigged against them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
violent protests
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: violent protests
Bulk trials are about punishing peaceful protesters by grouping them in with a much smaller number of violent ones.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
http://on-t-internet.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/fear-my-boogeyman-politics-of.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And now they're bed wetting because the government isnt playing "fair".
Screw 'em.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
When John Franklin McGraw sucker-punched another man at a Trump rally, should police have cordoned off the area and arrested everyone there too, charged them all, and held a bulk trial?
Would you have applauded the government not playing "fair" there too?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Breaking or subverting the rules is only acceptable for the "little guy".
An action taken by the "little guy" can have significantly different character, and thus acceptability, from the exact same action taken by the mighty behemoth - and all the more so when the mighty behemoth takes actions not even available to the little guy.
(This is part of why many of Microsoft's tactics, at least historically, have been a problem; Microsoft continued, and possibly continues, to see themselves as the little guy trying to get ahead rather than as the 800-pound gorilla abusing its power.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RICO and Conspiracy
They can fetch their text messages and emails to see how the planning was done and how they updated each other on their changing location and numbers.
When little white Suzy Creamcheese from Boston weeps and says, "I just came to DC to see the event", they can show who she traveled with, who she texted, how her team moved together through the DC streets and who was walking side-by-side with her.
Slam dunk RICO and conspiracy charges.
George Soros had better update his "democracy building" kiddies with cell phone instructions, quick!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RICO and Conspiracy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mr. White, if you would...
IT'S NOT RICO, DAMMIT.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
/s
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]