Telephone numbers: do I have --
-- a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to my telephone number(s)? I mean, it's eminently discoverable. Might as well post it beside my door, along with my street address.
Most people who go online do so without masking their IP address. Like a phone number (sort of).
What about an unlisted phone number? Can that be considered protected information -- does the act of asking that a number be unlisted mean that the FBI is barred from searching it out?
Well, then, what if you intentionally buy a throw-away cell phone and use it as anonymously as possible? Does that mean that the FBI or CIA is legally barred from discovering your phone information?
In other words, does your intent to hide what is otherwise quite public create a legal bar to its discovery? Whether it is a phone number or an IP?
"'The court finds that Defendant possessed no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer's IP address, so the Government's acquisition of the IP address did not represent a prohibited Fourth Amendment search,' the ruling reads."
OTOH, "...the FBI took over the Playpen child abuse website and used it to infect visitors with a 'network investigative technique' (NIT). This revealed their IP addresses and details of the computers they were using."
This is much more like burglarizing a house than like discovering a phone number, it would seem to me. The NIT is malware, and it was loaded onto the suspects' computers without their consent -- whap. That's illegal for citizens, and it otter be illegal for plods without a clear and carefully delineated warrant.
Otter. In a better whirled.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
