The pen register shown in that Wikipedia article is mine. To use it, you need physical access to a phone line, probably at the central office. You put in a blank spool of paper tape, add stamp pad ink to the ink roller, and wind it up with a big brass key. When it detects a dial pulse, the clockwork mechanism starts the tape moving, and each dial pulse produces a dash on the tape. There's a mechanical idle timer which stops tape movement after a few seconds of idle time. I built a box with a phone dial to run that brass device as a demo.
That's what law enforcement had to use in the days of electromagnetic central offices. Only long distance calls were logged. Local calls were, at most, counted. That's why the Supreme Court decision refers to a pen register as an "extremely limited" device.
Well, they do it most directly because it is a “pen register” as defined in law: …the term “pen register” means a device or process which records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted, provided, however, that such information shall not include the contents of any communication, but such term does not include any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire or electronic communication service for billing, or recording as an incident to billing, for communications services provided by such provider or any device or process used by a provider or customer of a wire communication service for cost accounting or other like purposes in the ordinary course of its business;… 18 U.S.C 3127.
You are correct that this statute was created to manage the process related to the exception identified in Smith v. Maryland, but I don’t think that there is a good-faith argument that it is either inconsistent with the scope of the exception or anything except a limitation on law enforcement compared to not having the statute.
[1] https://www.shoghicom.com/fixed-line-lawful-interception.php
I might should make a video and upload it to the Internet Archive, for historical reference. These seem to be rare devices.
The DEA has warrantless access to with no judicial oversight under "administrative subpoenas" originated by the DEA. The DEA pays AT&T to maintain employees throughout the country devoted to investigating call records through this database for the DEA. The database grows by 4 billion records per day, and presumably covers all traffic that crosses AT&T's network. Internal directives instructed participants never to reveal the project publicly.
Information that is legally collectible according to 2014 pen trap laws includes:
Phone
* Dialed numbers
* Received call numbers
* The time the call was made
* Whether the call was answered, or went to voice-mail
* The length of each call
* Content of SMS text messages
* The real-time location of a cell phone to within a few meters
* All email header information other than the subject line
* The email addresses of the people to whom an email was sent
* The email addresses of people whom received the email
* The time each email is sent or received
* The size of each email that is sent or received
* IP address, port, and protocol used
* The IP address of other computers on the Internet that information was exchanged with
* Time-stamp and size information of Internet access
* Protocol traffic analysis to obtain URL web addresses surfed on the web, emails posted or read, instant messages exchanged, and information posted onto message boards
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/us/drug-agents-use-vast-p...
[2] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013...
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Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program. It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.
Administrative subpoena authorities allow executive branch agencies to issue a compulsory request for documents or testimony without prior approval from a grand jury, court, or other judicial entity.
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Planting AT&T employees and deeply embedding them within the government like that, utilizing "administrative subpoena's" that require no grand jury OR judge (just the DEA themselves) is, in my personal opinion, a breach of my 4th amendment right.
1. Edited as per comment below.
Now, if SBF connected through a McDonalds wifi somewhere and they somehow found out it was him using a VPN, that would be concerning because there is no way they should know that its his laptop unless they knew he was on his way there ahead of time and somehow got permission to monitor their public wifi. That feels very unlikely
I didn't know this until recently -- https://www.rwjbh.org/why-rwjbarnabas-health-/ending-racism/...
https://www.etymonline.com/word/picnic
Their entries on "long time no see" and "no can do" seem pretty spurious as well, which undermines the whole page's validity. It's a shame TBH, those are really strange unforced errors to have included.
The term "peanut gallery" originated from vaudeville theater, and comes from the fact that unruly viewers who were not happy with the performance would throw their concessions at the performers, mostly roasted peanuts as these were the cheapest concessions. The attendees of early vaudeville were primarily immigrants, who would now be considered white, but were not at the time (scottish, irish, italian, and german immigrants).
There's nothing particularly racist about the term, never has been, and still isn't as it's used in modern parlance. Whether or not it's acceptable to use phrases with classist or class-based origins in your speech and writing is an exercise I leave up to you.
I did share a bad article I didn't read. I will do some more research on peanut gallery specifically. In either case, I probably still won't use it since it has this connotation to some people.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_subpoena
I'm not defending SBF. The man needs to be charged and be put behind bars for the crimes committed. I'm just stating that this article was eye opening to me.
Pen register orders require court approval [1].
I didn't say a court wasn't needed; I implied that this is a Kangaroo Court
[2] Department of Justice (DOJ) - In United States v. Parris, the court allowed the DOJ to use an administrative subpoena to obtain information from a bank in connection with a criminal investigation. The court found that the DOJ had the authority to issue administrative subpoenas under the Bank Secrecy Act, and that the information requested was relevant to the criminal case.
[3] Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - In the case of SEC v. Jerry T. O'Brien, the court upheld the SEC's authority to issue administrative subpoenas in connection with a criminal investigation. The court ruled that the SEC could use administrative subpoenas to obtain information that was relevant to the criminal case.
[1] https://casetext.com/case/federal-trade-commission-v-innovat...
[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/...
[3] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/467/735.html
The FTC case is a civil case. The DOJ case does not even mention the word subpoena as far as I can see. The SEC case is a civil case.
It makes perfect sense that they'd be monitoring his communications to ensure he was in compliance with that order.
And bail terms for SBF seem too lenient. Restriction on all computers and phones would seem appropriate.
Also, there is a forensics package that can be hot loaded on just about every router out there for law enforcement purposes.
It's a lengthy, complicated page, and I'm not a lawyer... but I think the relevant section that describes their current use is this one, which suggests to me that you do need a warrant:
> For law enforcement agencies to get a pen register approved for surveillance, they must get a court order from a judge. According to 18 U.S.C. § 3123(a)(1), the "court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device anywhere within the United States, if the court finds that the attorney for the Government has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation".
Is that in bail conditions?