Amazon Argues Alexa Speech Protected by First Amendment in Murder Trial Fight

Vaulter98c said:
Ive been to that and listened to my own recordings, if that's all that they keep that's OK i guess. I would really like it if they only kept maybe 30 days worth, that's plenty for beta-testing new features from a sample size as large as Google has. The thing that gets me tho is what audio could come to help the police? Besides proving he was there but they would have to be recording more then what they should be for this to be any use to the police
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His contention is he went to bed at 1, leaving 2 other guys in his hot tub. Since the other guy actually left before that, it only leaves him and the dead guy at his house at that time, so any audio of him saying, "Alexa, play my Dudes in a Hot Tub Playlist" would show he wasn't asleep at the time he claimed to be. Or it would be additional evidence beyond the "butt dials" his password protected phone somehow managed to make while he supposedly slept.
 
So.
Does Amazon have the ability to edit or modify these recordings in ANY WAY?
Is it verifiable FACT that these recordings are unmodifiable in ANY WAY?
Can I work at Amazon and get people I don't like sent to prison?

There was a Star Trek episode that applies here... Trying to remember. Altered computer recorded content where computer was considered infallible... Kirk fighting for his life. Irascible old time book reading attorney... Hot prosecutor with torpedo tits and a short skirt...
 
Why wouldn't they just aim to get it treated like any other audio recording and get it dismissed for future evidence by citing wiretapping laws.

thesmokingman said:
Can they subpoena recordings off answering machines? If yes, then wouldn't this be no different?
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Well the beauty of answering machines is that everyone knows it's being recorded. Do people know that Alexa is recording them?
 
I suppose if you're the type of person to murder someone in your home, don't buy a device that records your voice and other shit.
 
otherweeb said:
I fail to see the connection. If the defendant said "Alexa, how do I murder my wife?" He has a right to say that, but circumstantially it looks very bad to a jury. But still he's not in a private conversation, he's connected to an outside source to collect information. A robot has no rights (yet) and is a glorified tape recorder in that case.
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No, he's in communication with Amazon. Just like calling a support number and being told your conversation may be recorded for quality assurance purposes, just because it is there doesn't mean the government gets free unfettered access to it.

Catboxer said:
What if your wife's name IS Alexa?!

This sounds like the police are misinformed about how the Echo works. I would be shocked (and upset) if Amazon has days and days of unprompted 24/7 audio recordings.
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Your sentiment is probably common, which is why I suspect Amazon is fighting this. They don't want anyone to know what Alexa is REALLY recording.


Zion Halcyon said:
I highly suspect this has nothing to do with the 1st amendment or freedom of speech, and more about Amazon trying to protect their intellectual property out of fear that some people in police IT may stumble on the data collection algorithms and other things the public doesn't know about these types of services that allow Amazon to engage in a massive abuse of invasion of privacy.

So they are going on the offensive under something they think the public will rally around, in order to get people not to question their unethical practices.

But that's just my humble opinion... ;)
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I think it isn't the algorithms. I suspect it is the quantity and nature of the data. At best, it is simply that they gather piles of voice input to use as a training lexicon to improve their voice recognition. Worst case they are monitoring you 24-7 without your consent, storing that data, and mining the shit out of it.


cageymaru said:
I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon, Google's voice activated service and Microsoft for their Cortana service have hired a team to go through the recordings and analyze how many times it takes for their service to understand what the correct question and answer should be. There is no better BETA test group than paying customers. Just look at Steam and their Early Access program. Some of the best game mechanics have come from paying customers beta testing software and the feedback given back to developers.
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That would be among the best case scenarios. It could be WAY, WAY worse than that.
 
Why would anyone want a listening device that feeds Amazon in their personal home. That's like having a public webcam in your home.
 
Nukester said:
Why would anyone want a listening device that feeds Amazon in their personal home. That's like having a public webcam in your home.
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except it isn't a webcam and also is not public, and it only sends voice once wake word is detected (to offload text-to-speech). I find it very helpful to control lights, check weather while getting dressed, set timers/wake up alarms, play music etc.

So for your analogy, the only thing this has in common with a 'webcam' is they both run on electricity.
 
Darunion said:
except it isn't a webcam and also is not public, and it only sends voice once wake word is detected (to offload text-to-speech). I find it very helpful to control lights, check weather while getting dressed, set timers/wake up alarms, play music etc.

So for your analogy, the only thing this has in common with a 'webcam' is they both run on electricity.
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It's hackable information sent over the public internet. There is no VPN involved, unless it is your own. But even then, it's everything you ever said, stored at Amazon. No thanks!
 
Nukester said:
It's hackable information sent over the public internet. There is no VPN involved, unless it is your own. But even then, it's everything you ever said, stored at Amazon. No thanks!
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Only after the wake word.

Here is my history typically:

"alexa, what is the weather"

"alexa, play some soothing music"

"alexa, fuck you, i said soothing music not snoop music"

"alexa stop"

"alexa kill yourself"

"alexa play reo speedwagon"
 
Darunion said:
Only after the wake word.

"alexa play reo speedwagon"
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Listening for the 'wake word' means it is ALWAYS listening. Using the wake word just initiates the script to perform a search, buy shit, etc. Any of that data could be retained by Amazon.
 
File said:
Listening for the 'wake word' means it is ALWAYS listening. Using the wake word just initiates the script to perform a search, buy shit, etc. Any of that data could be retained by Amazon.
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Absolutely!
 
Don't cell phones do this? Except you don't have control over that nor can monitor what is being sent

I guess I can't convince you otherwise.

I am fine with the little device hearing me ask about the weather. As far as I have seen from my router, no data is sent until I wake it. So amazon can have my request for weather.
 
Darunion said:
Don't cell phones do this? Except you don't have control over that nor can monitor what is being sent

I guess I can't convince you otherwise.

I am fine with the little device hearing me ask about the weather. As far as I have seen from my router, no data is sent until I wake it. So amazon can have my request for weather.
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I don't use siri, and a phone is really limited by ambient noise.

You have no idea what all is sent to Amazon when the wake word is used. You have no idea what is stored on the device. In fact, you really have no idea what is being sent. You enjoy that eves dropping device... ;)
 
Nukester said:
I don't use siri, and a phone is really limited by ambient noise.

You have no idea what all is sent to Amazon when the wake word is used. You have no idea what is stored on the device. In fact, you really have no idea what is being sent. You enjoy that eves dropping device... ;)
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Enjoy your aluminum foil hat. FYI copper works better and should be grounded to properly shield EM fields. ;)
 
Using one of these is effectively now relinquishing your right to free and private discourse in your home.

Unplug your IOT shit. Lock down the rest.
 
Darunion said:
Enjoy your aluminum foil hat. FYI copper works better and should be grounded to properly shield EM fields. ;)
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Your type loves to call everyone else paranoid. Lull yourself to sleep, let the rest of us think.
 
File said:
Listening for the 'wake word' means it is ALWAYS listening. Using the wake word just initiates the script to perform a search, buy shit, etc. Any of that data could be retained by Amazon.
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This is a difficult concept for to grasp when you dont understand how this tech works. The unit itself does none of the lifting, the AI in the server farms do the lifting, echo just records and streams that audio data live to the server farm where it is analyzed. The fact that Amazon can produce that recording means it is retained.
 
Catboxer said:
What if your wife's name IS Alexa?!

This sounds like the police are misinformed about how the Echo works. I would be shocked (and upset) if Amazon has days and days of unprompted 24/7 audio recordings.
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I wouldn't be surprised at all. They likely record everything and store/analyze on back-end. Apple and Microsoft both got into similar scenarios with always listening technology and recordings all get sent to their data center. I can almost guarantee they store that stuff forever. This is yet another wake up call to not use such products.
 
zkostik said:
I wouldn't be surprised at all. They likely record everything and store/analyze on back-end. Apple and Microsoft both got into similar scenarios with always listening technology and recordings all get sent to their data center. I can almost guarantee they store that stuff forever. This is yet another wake up call to not use such products.
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Definitely; they use all that data combined with machine learning to improve the speech recognition. They probably attempt to tag it with success/fail of recognition of users speech somehow (similar repetition of phrase just after first phrase?) to then allow the algorithm to self improve.

The more of that data, the better it gets, so they have every incentive to hold on to as much of it as possible.

As for First Amendment, I don't see how that makes any sense. The person has every right to say what he wants to Alexa about the government. However if there is a reasonable cause to search and seize his stored electronic communications, like, say....a murder...first amendment doesn't give you an unlimited shield against any government search of your records.
 
The guy approved, so no foul, but if everything you say within earshot of the device could potentially be subpoenaed, who's going to use it? Got an Echo? You've agreed for your house to be bugged all times and the government merely has to get a judge to say they can access it. Talk about a complete loss of privacy.
 
It being said that this isn't a 1st amendment issue, I think it does need to be a large legal issue.

The 1st Amendment was incredibly brave, because it essentially gave a huge right to potentially be negative to a government but still hold the government powerless against it.

We're moving to a society where soon enough every breath, bowel movement, actual movement, utterance, sentence read, etc, will be logged by some type of device we choose to use. We need a populace and a government, to exhibit similar courage and craft reasonable limits to have some of this stuff untouchable by anyone, even companies. No idea how to implement or what it looks like. But something needs to happen, personal mail used to be practically inviolate because of the depth of the personal violation of reading someone's inner thoughts - now it's routine to think that level of intrusion, and more, is somehow the only thing keeping terrorists from invading the territory of the US. Sigh.
 
TwistedAegis said:
It being said that this isn't a 1st amendment issue, I think it does need to be a large legal issue.

The 1st Amendment was incredibly brave, because it essentially gave a huge right to potentially be negative to a government but still hold the government powerless against it.

We're moving to a society where soon enough every breath, bowel movement, actual movement, utterance, sentence read, etc, will be logged by some type of device we choose to use. We need a populace and a government, to exhibit similar courage and craft reasonable limits to have some of this stuff untouchable by anyone, even companies. No idea how to implement or what it looks like. But something needs to happen, personal mail used to be practically inviolate because of the depth of the personal violation of reading someone's inner thoughts - now it's routine to think that level of intrusion, and more, is somehow the only thing keeping terrorists from invading the territory of the US. Sigh.
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The problem is that none of that has anything to do with the first amendment. The first amendment doesn't stop your spouse from telling the people something you did. It doesn't prevent the cops from using a video tape of you committing a crime as evidence against you. All it does is say that the government can not prevent you from having an opinion different than that of the government, and can not prevent news it doesn't like from being reported. None of that applies to the government spying on you, none of that applies to a company spying on you, and none of that applies to what a company can do with data that they own. That doesn't mean any of that is right or should be done, but the first amendment doesn't prevent it any more than it allows you the right to own a gun.
 
cageymaru said:
I think that they KNOW that people won't buy a device that can record random conversations and have them used against them in a court of law. Imagine a law firm having an Echo and a murder suspect's admission of guilt being recorded by accident. The lawyer goes to court with the idea of protecting his client by defending him, but the police are waiting there with the recording playing in the courtroom. So the whole defense is thrown out.
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That is usually protected under Attorney Client Privilege, anything you discuss between you and your Lawyer, even outright admission, cannot ever be used as evidence.

The main problem though, is the side effect. If that attorney client conversation ever gets out and the Jury hears it, the defendent is effectively condemned, jury won't ever think otherwise than a truthful confession from the defendant, no matter how good the defendant case. I have no idea what happens if material pertaining to privileged information gets released publicly.
 
Exavior said:
The problem is that none of that has anything to do with the first amendment. The first amendment doesn't stop your spouse from telling the people something you did. It doesn't prevent the cops from using a video tape of you co mmitting a crime as evidence against you. All it does is say that the government can not prevent you from having an opinion different than that of the government, and can not prevent news it doesn't like from being reported. None of that applies to the government spying on you, none of that applies to a company spying on you, and none of that applies to what a company can do with data that they own. That doesn't mean any of that is right or should be done, but the first amendment doesn't prevent it any more than it allows you the right to own a gun.
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Right, that's what I'm trying to say. The only comparison I was trying to make was that, the 1st Amendment was brave from a government point of view because it's a broad power of the people to criticize their government. It would also be brave to blanket exempt, or make much less easy to access, swaths of data that modern society needs to operate, but WILL mean that some crimes are harder to solve with hitting the "EZ" Alexa button. Which is why it's unlikely to happen.
 
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