- Pacific
The American Civil Liberties Union said on Thursday it wants to know how the Michigan
State Police have been using devices capable of downloading text messages, address books
and other data from cell phones.
The Data Extraction Devices are commonly used to transfer data from an old cell phone to a
new one, but are also a law enforcement tool for obtaining information such as erased text
messages.
The state police said in a statement on Wednesday it will respond to a Freedom of
Information Act request from ACLU for information, but that complying costs money.
Police said they are using the devices in certain criminal cases, but after obtaining a
search warrant or with the cell phone owner's consent.
"The implication by the ACLU that the (state police) uses these devices 'quietly to
bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches' is untrue, and this
divisive tactic unjustly harms police and community relations," the state police
said.
"We only wanted assurances that these devices were being used lawfully," ACLU of
Michigan attorney Mark Fancher said in a telephone interview on Thursday, adding that the
group had made its first request for the information in 2008.
To comply with the ACLU's initial request, the state police demanded more than $500,000 to
cover expenses, the ACLU says.
The requests have since been honed down by the two sides, but the ACLU has yet to get the
information it seeks.
"The result has been we're not getting the documents," Fancher said.
He said the devices cost around $3,000 each, and the Michigan State Police have five.
(Reporting by Andrew Stern and Bernie Woodall. Editing by David Bailey and Peter Bohan) http://www.dailypress.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-usreport-us-michigatre73k5cb-20110421,0,5821147.story
"To Achieve World
Government it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism,
their loyalty to family traditions and national identification" Brock Chisholm - Director of the World Health Organization
"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to
believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a
reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police
State Dictatorship it's going to
get." Ian Williams Goddard
The fact is that "political correctness" is all about creating uniformity. Individualism is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the New World Order. They want a public that is predictable and conditioned to do as it's told without asking questions.
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." Thomas Jefferson