The article I'm replying to is the parent comment's "Exclusive: Evidence of cell phone surveillance detected at anti-ICE protest"; not the HN OP.

IMSI catchers aren't observing things in plain sight; they're invasive searches that the Fourth Amendment prohibits outside of narrowly-defined circumstances.

The First Amendment precludes protected political speech from being used as a basis for such a search.

The Fourth Amendment further prohibits dragnet searches of indefinite groups of people, such as a protest, because it requires a warrant to "particularly describe" the "persons or things to be seized". (The "Particularity Clause").

I fully agree with your comment in the different case, which is not this case, where government merely passively observes things happening in a public space. IMSI catchers are different; one way being, in that a Stingray *actively interacts with* a device, without authorization, by sending it corrupted packets. (So I understand). A second way being that it violates general social expectations of what's in "public" and what's in "private"; by analogy, if police used laser microphones to listen in on faraway conversations; or in public crowds, used terahertz radiation to look under people's clothes; those are non-public searches, any pedantic interpretations of physics notwithstanding.

Courts have repeatedly held that the government cannot chill lawful protest activity by imposing undue surveillance or intimidation. Sure, there is no explicit “right to anonymity,” but the Supreme Court has recognized in cases like NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that forced disclosure of membership lists can violate First Amendment rights, because it deters participation and chills association.

Of course, the Fourth Amendment also has clauses against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but it's easy to see, from modern cases like Carpenter v. United States (2018) (which limited warrantless cellphone location tracking) why this could be perceived poorly.

But the Constitution tries to ensure that risk doesn’t come from government retaliation against lawful expression. I would ask why you're so keen to allow it.

> What part of the constitution guarantees me the right to be anonymous while I protest?

The fourth amendment: unreasonable searches and seizures. This is an unreasonable search.

Also, protests aren't civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is civil disobedience. Protests are explicitly protected by the first amendment and you can protest all day long.

Start at the Fourth Amendment. (I guess the First would be more appropriate place to start, but the Fourth is quite pertinent.)

Also,

> [...] if you disagree with me and think the government is fascist and thus can't be trusted not to throw you in prison just for saying things they don't like

this is happening:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general/tourist-refused-entr...

edited for phrasing / completeness

Whether an action has gotten a legal thumbs-up or not is of little relevance here.

I'd like to leave the question of why that's true as an exercise for the reader, but your comment makes it sound as if you have trouble with this concept, so let's be explicit - a state operating autocratically can, and often will, rubberstamp whatever it decides it wants to do.

Had a quick look for the numbers from FISA to give you an example of this. https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2013/06/fisa-co... says that they denied 11 requests for surveillance warrants out of 33,900 requests over 33 years of operation.

That's a pass rate of 99.07%!

So allow me to say - a warrant wouldn't have changed anything, they give them out like nothing.

In the article though, it does say: "ICE did not respond to requests for comment from SAN. It is not clear whether ICE or any other law enforcement agency obtained a warrant to use an IMSI catcher — commonly referred to as a “Stingray” — to conduct surveillance."

It'd be flatly unconstitutional to approve a dragnet warrant targeting a protest.

When you treat with someone you know to be a compulsive liar, the onus of proof is on them.

If this government has not proven that they had one, you'd be mad to trust that they did.

There are no consequences to it for lying, or for not following the law, or not acting in good faith. It has a well-documented history of doing all three, and is headed by a convicted criminal.

Can we stop sanewashing these people?

They clearly don't care for legality, constitutionality, anything positive or good.

A warrant for several thousand people at a spontaneous event ?