Watchdog: MADISON, Wis. – A Wisconsin conservative’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court has huge implications for any American with a smartphone.
“Digital searches have changed everything,” said Todd Graves, of Graves Garrett LLC, the Kansas City-based law firm representing Kelly Rindfleisch. “The way we live now, our entire life is on our iPhone. It has changed everything.”
Graves’ appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday put it this way:
“Does the Fourth Amendment permit a search warrant authorizing the unfettered seizure of all of an individual’s emails from her internet service provider for a specified period of time, without limiting the seizure to communications containing evidence of a crime?”
Rindfleisch was deputy chief of staff for Gov. Scott Walker when Walker was Milwaukee County executive. Her crime: while working in Walker’s office, Rindfleisch answered email for the campaign of a candidate for lieutenant governor. more
I have never sent an email to anyone. It is so obvious not to type anything into a computer that could get you into trouble. I don’t use any social media. I never will. Google is able to listen to any conversation near your phone.
Big brother is watching. Pay attention or go to jail.
Sounds like Rindfleisch has a real beef
with the authorities.
(Some of you will get that.)
🙂
The Plain View Doctrine was created for traffic stops. WTF? Tar, feathers, now. But hey look at the bright side. With “The Cloud” they probably won’t even need a warrant.
Sooo, they do this to her but can’t get info from Killary’s server?
You can’t really get away from them.
About 2-3 months ago my 11 year old daughter got onto the phone kick, primarily because we do not maintain a land line. My initial response was she needed to be 13 like her older brother was when he got a cheap slider phone. My reasoning that many independent online activities require kids to be 13 years of age.
I finally caved. She was assembling presentations highlighting her achievements and responsibility. She’s smart and does really good.
So I looked into prepaid and found it was going to cost $35/month + and didn’t offer a lot of time or texts. I then went to my provider, verizon, to see about adding her to my unlimited and shareable plan my wife and son are also on.
I went in with the basic goal of a cheap flip phone or slider. Turns out a samsung galaxy core prime smart phone was about $10/month cheaper than a flip phone.
Outrageous in my opinion to give an 11 year old a smart phone, but they want to hook them early I guess. I also like to save money where I can.
I have a smart phone and actually consider it to be quite stupid because I don’t connect with it. By this I mean I don’t use 90% of the features it offers. I connect an uncared for email account and I don’t store anything really personal on it, so it doesn’t interface with anything else and if it does, it’s a one time deal. No passwords or user id’s, I turned off all the Google crap, it cannot predict my next move, etc.
Even still, I would find my old Nokia or blackberry of old to be too restrictive. The technology is good, but it’s the back end bullshit that sucks. You really have to work at maintaining some privacy on today’s phones and that really sucks.
Ooh! A rare bilingual pun!
Well done, Vietvet! Rib-tickling, indeed!
Reminds me of the interrogation scene in the Matrix.
Gather ALL the information on someone. You’ll find some felony. Do what they say and, “the slate will be wiped clean.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D7cPH7DHgA
I dont feel sorry for her. If you’ve ever worked for the govt. you know you can’t use the computer/phone for campaigning. Those computers don’t belong to her. But it sounds like there’s a snitch in the office.
I have an old-fashioned flip-type electronic leash – er, I mean, cell phone – and it does what I need it to do: It makes and receives phone calls when I’m away from the house. It can take pictures too, but I rarely use it for that. Nobody’s going to steal it or stick me up for it, because nobody wants it. If the authorities seize it, all they’re going to get is a boring list of the yo-yos that I talk to.
It’s cheap and easily replaced if I lose or break it. If I need to access the Interwebz,
I have a PC at home for that.
I wouldn’t trade it for a smart phone
even if I could.
: )
I tried edit button but it didnt work for me. Anyways, if she was using Her phone during work hours and campaigning, that is a no no.
Vietvet, the one and only time I ate rindfleisch was 25 years ago in the restaurant at the top of the TV Turm in East Berlin. Commie shoe leather.
I think the issue is Illegal Search and Seizure.
@ Ted, leaving comments on a web site such as this is considered engaging in social media, or have you not kept up with the DOJ’s latest effort in ramping up the Panopticon process when they subpenaed the ID of commenters on Reason?
Ted? Where’d you go, Ted?
John Chisholm is long over due for his own custom fitted jail cell.
Its called world wide web, I thought we are to always watch what we put on it. But what Im saying is I dont care that she got caught or how. Ive worked with women that texted all day, I wanted to throw their phone on the ground and stomp it. If you’re especially working for the taxpayer you should be doing your job not on personal emails campaigning or having sex in the office.
Reread the article.
All that I’ve heard, is that she was answering campaign emails. Nothing about what answer she was giving. Could it been something along the line of “for inquiries of this nature, please contact” someone else? Was she originating the emails? Don’t forget that Chisholms wife was some high muckity-muck in a union that took it on the chin from Walker and the Repubs with their Act10. John Doe, my ass. It was always about Scott Walker. Too bad he had to alert the DA about the Veterans fraud. If not, this would have never happened, the DA was looking for an excuse and got a BIG one.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”
I got $10,000 iOTW bucks that says the SCOTUS will find for the totalitarians and further diminish our rights and protections.
@Farmwife
I would much rather have government workers campaigning or having sex than dreaming up new regulations to put me out of business or spying on me, but I think of government jobs as just a high class form of welfare anyway.
@Majorityofone
The govt is already spying on us. I dont see anything new here. If you’re not doing anything illegal or unethical no problem. I do think there is more to this story thats not being told. And also as farmers we’re so used to having the govt involved in our day to day life that I just dont get all the spying turmoil. My hubby has to keep track of every ounce of chemical put on fields for EPA. We’re forced to report what we’ve planted to the USDA, how many acres. Before we tile or cut trees down we have to get permission from NRCS. Satellites takes pics of our farms every year. We havent been subsidized for couple years now. It kept food prices down, thats reason for high grocery bills. (Thanks obama- not) But you probably think thats welfare too. I look at it that if govt wants all this valuable info from us they need to pay for it!
Same here. To hell with smart phones. I use an older Motorola VA76r Tundra. Waterproof and shockproof to military standards, and has push to talk and gps capabilities. Plus it fits right in the cell pocket of my 5.11 pants. I never turn it on until I need it.