Page 29 - Cyber Warnings

Bentonville Police Department seized the Echo, which was on Bates’ countertop and served
what allegedly is claimed to be an overbroad warrant of any and all audio records the Echo may
contain. In response, Amazon has declined to provide any information, as it claims the warrant
is too overbroad. While police have been able to extract some information from it, the goldmine
(if anything), lies in Amazon’s servers.

As of recent, Amazon’s Echo has been the primary subject of a murder investigation dating
back to November 22, 2015….ironically, it could be a HUGE WITNESS to the investigation, if
it’s allowed to “testify” that is. Yes, you heard me correctly.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides “the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures…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 .”

In this investigation, there are several questions pertaining to the 4th Amendment that present
themselves. First, an individual must have standing to claim protection under the 4th
Amendment. To have standing, there must be a reasonable expectation of privacy, which
contains both an objective standpoint and a subjective standpoint. To answer this question, we
must follow up with a second, but more complex question: When it comes to smart devices,
such as the Amazon Echo, is there a difference in the reasonable expectation of privacy one
may have? Better yet, should there be a difference? While I am not fit to answer this on behalf
of all of us, the most promising answer is the one lawyers know best…it depends. These smart
devices do an EXCELLENT job of informing us that they used cloud based services to connect
and store our data. This is how these devices are able to link or connect to our music libraries,
phones, calendars, notes, ect. However, while we give these devices permission to connect our
accounts, we also don’t like other people (law enforcement, users, businesses) having the
ability to connect to our devices or extract information from our devices whenever they want.
Otherwise, why would we purchase something like this? I guess my answer would be, YES
THERE IS A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY that society deems exists with these
devices, but at the same time, depending on where the device is placed, how it is used, and
why it is being used, determines how far that expectation goes. This continues to be an open-
ended question.

Second, in the event there is standing for a person to challenge an issue against the 4th
Amendment, we can look at the right of a person to be secure in their home against
unreasonable searches and seizures. The last thing any of us expects is to have to worry about
what we do in our own homes. While we know Alexa ‘listens’ for its wake word, the last thing
we’d expect is when we bring it home, worrying about her ratting our every move out to law
enforcement, albeit legal or not. This is troubling to say the least. Alexa is supposed to
IMPROVE and ADVANCE our home, not make it VULNERABLE or the subject of any sort of
legal investigation.

29 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine January 2017 Edition
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