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

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Amazon has entered into a fight to protect consumer data. Amazon's Echo will record voices when listening for commands to answer questions or order products from Amazon. The device was installed into a home where a murder took place and the police are seeking access to 48 hours of recordings from the device. Amazon is arguing that responses of the artificially intelligent Amazon Alexa speech program embedded into the device is covered by the First Amendment and thus has rights.

Amazon handed over the subscriber and purchase history of the registered owner of the device. But the audio recordings are what it is claiming are covered by the First Amendment. It wants the warrant for the information thrown out. Amazon is stating that Alexa is Amazon's speech which is already covered under the First Amendment. Also Google set a precedent with it's ranking search results as those are covered as "constitutionally protected opinion" and entitled to "full constitutional protection." Amazon seeks to block the government from treading on a citizen's constitutional right to free speech within their own homes.

This brings up an interesting point. Many times we fantasize about having robot waiters, autonomous cars, robotic maids, etc. If a citizen were to have a conversation with a robotic entity and command it to perform a murder, would this not be covered by the First Amendment? Or would it be open season on the owner because his robot recorded the conversation? Could the robots of the future be programmed with a backdoor to automatically contact the police if certain keywords are used within earshot of it? What rights are we willing to give up with new privacy laws and which would we want to preserve? Amazon says that the government should supply compelling data to justify the warrant. How would you see search warrant laws changing in the future?

Toni Massaro, professor at the University of Arizona College of Law, said that "the free speech arguments that favor 'machine speech' are surprisingly plausible under current doctrine and theory," pointing to a paper she co-authored on the subject.

"Of course, Amazon itself has free speech rights. As long as Alexa can be seen as Amazon, there is a protected speaker here," she noted.

Professor Massaro added that algorithms are tough to categorize and may not class as speech. "And even if they are speech, they may not always be protected from government regulation. That something may be covered by the First Amendment does not mean it is protected."
 
I think this is one of the most important topics of the new age of technology where we can command cars, robots, TVs, thermostats, lights, ovens, etc by our voice. That's why the topic is long; I didn't want to lose the essence of the argument.

Express your thoughts.
 
IRobot covers this. :) Wait till I hack into your system and turn all your lights ,heat, air conditioning, order enough food to fill your fridge twice over, etc. while your on holidays.:p
 
Uncle said:
IRobot covers this. :) Wait till I hack into your system and turn all your lights ,heat, air conditioning, order enough food to fill your fridge twice over, etc. while your on holidays.:p
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Oh man watch out for my next news post in 30 mins or so. :)
 
The recording of the customer' voice isn't Amazon's speech. It's the speech of those recorded. If there is a warrant to get that, I don't see the problem in them supplying it.

I'm not sure I even see how the first amendment comes into play. You have the right to free speech, doesn't mean it cannot be subpoenaed.
 
I'm all for privacy in the home, however I believe the timeframe of audio surrounding the murder should be handed over. They're not asking for days or months. Just the time surrounding the murder in case Alexa heard the murder go down.

Now if this was a fraud case or similar, then it shouldn't be handed over. Period.

Literally the only reason I'm behind this is because a murder actually did take place with Alexa in the room and it's the star witness.
 
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.
 
I think the bigger issue here is how much audio do they have saved up that isn't using the go word? Why does Amazon have recordings, did they spend every waking second for 2 entire days saying Alexa or did he just start asking Alexa how to murder his wife and then confess to Alexa? IF the later, then obviously it makes sense but it's not like in any key parts of the murder they talked to Amazon. If someone is gonna shoot you or is choking you or is stabbing you, are you going to yell out for Alexa? fuck no. So, besides being the dumbest mother fucker on the planet what could this actually serve to gain for the case that normal police work couldn't? Find out he listened to a song and then they blame the music for his evil? What the fuck was Hitler asking Alexa for then?
 
Vaulter98c said:
I think the bigger issue here is how much audio do they have saved up that isn't using the go word? Why does Amazon have recordings, did they spend every waking second for 2 entire days saying Alexa or did he just start asking Alexa how to murder his wife and then confess to Alexa? IF the later, then obviously it makes sense but it's not like in any key parts of the murder they talked to Amazon. If someone is gonna shoot you or is choking you or is stabbing you, are you going to yell out for Alexa? fuck no. So, besides being the dumbest mother fucker on the planet what could this actually serve to gain for the case that normal police work couldn't? Find out he listened to a song and then they blame the music for his evil? What the fuck was Hitler asking Alexa for then?
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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.
 
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... ;)
 
Vaulter98c said:
If someone is gonna shoot you or is choking you or is stabbing you, are you going to yell out for Alexa? fuck no.
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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.
 
This is why you don't let "the cloud" record your every word. Alexa, Siri, voice activated remotes, all bad ideas.
 
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 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.
 
I'm seeing a surprising amount of confusion here. Free and protected speech, the right as given in the First Amendment, applies to people (or, in today's tech speak, "sentient and reasonable beings") making political statements for or against the government. The intent is that government will not make a law that stifles peoples' right to free speech against it. It really doesn't seem to have much application here; it's still a crime to yell FIRE in the crowded theater, and it's still a crime to conspire for murder. Amazon's argument is spurious at best.
 
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But wouldn't this logic apply to ANYTHING?

If "somebody" has 1 constitutional right applied to them, then all constitutional rights are applied to them. There is no picking and choosing.


If "somebody" has the 1st Amendment, it means they also have the 5th amendment. This means these inanimate object would not be able testify against themselves (like doing a bullet rifling test to determine if a bullet came from a specific gun). It also means an inanimate object could not be charged for the same crime (double jeopardy).

So these idiots what to apply this to goods made by companies. Companies are protected by the Constitution because some judges decided at some point that companies are people (though one has never served jail time or been executed). So now we are looking at things made by people having the same rights as people themselves (drugs, bombs, etc).

These "intellectuals" need to get it through their minds that anything we make with our minds, is the same as anything we make with our minds (meaning 1=1). Asking a robot to go kill someone is the same as pulling a trigger on a gun. They are both objects doing what they are designed to do when they are instructed to do so. Neither object has any individual moral understanding of the thing they are doing. Same reason we do not charge animals with crimes. We do execute animals for some crimes, but they are not charged with anything.

They are NOT sentient beings.....a corporation is at least made up of sentient beings.
 
dj_spanmaster2 said:
It really doesn't seem to have much application here; it's still a crime to yell FIRE in the crowded theater, and it's still a crime to conspire for murder. Amazon's argument is spurious at best.
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Steven Crowder (Louder With Crowder) recently had an interesting take on this cliché. He said yelling fire in a theater is a call to action and not a statement. Call to actions are not protected speech. His interpretation, but I liked it.
 
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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It's definitely not good optics, that's for sure.
 
Here's an article with some better background info: http://5newsonline.com/2016/02/23/bentonville-pd-says-man-strangled-drowned-former-georgia-officer/
This guy's entire alibi is he was asleep from 1am- 8:30am when he found the guy dead in his tub. His password protected phone already made several calls during the time he was supposed to be asleep, so if Alexa recorded him talking between those times, it would negate his alibi and seem pretty incriminating.
I also fail to understand how this has anything to do with the First Amendment. Can anyone enlighten me?
 
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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If the idea of the justice system is to have justice, I don't see an issue with this. But I don't think any of these mega corps do anything to protect the constitution or freedom of speech - its always to cover their own ass, no matter how they try to frame it. People need to stop giving companies a pass every time they play out their "for the little man" speeches and drape themselves in a nation's flag, metaphorically speaking.
 
GoodBoy said:
The recording of the customer' voice isn't Amazon's speech. It's the speech of those recorded. If there is a warrant to get that, I don't see the problem in them supplying it.

I'm not sure I even see how the first amendment comes into play. You have the right to free speech, doesn't mean it cannot be subpoenaed.
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Yeah, guess I don't see where the 1A protection is relevant here. Pretty sure the prosecution doesn't give a fuck what the defendant's music interests or Amazon purchase history is here. They've subpoenaed a pretty specific and relevant timeframe of the audio recording.

Seems to me this is the equivalent of the court issuing a subpoena compelling a witness to testify.

[H] lawyers, could you explain do us legal dummies what the relevance of the 1A argument is for Amazon?
 
Amazon better hope it wins because this is one of those cases that will determine how far people are willing to trust technology in their home. Due to judicial ignorance, a lot of questionable precedence has been set regarding electronically stored information, this would further push the bounds of what the government feels entitled to and will result in a lot of people blocking voice-activated technology in the future.
 
My thought: Given Alexa connects to the Internet, which is in essence a public network, you could easily make the technical argument that what was done was the equivalent of doing a google search. So the real question is basically: "Is a persons search history protected speech"?.
 
Why wouldn't this fall under a surveillance/wire-tapping law? You can't illegally bug a place and then retroactively make it legal. So now your phone, television, smart refrigerator, etc., will be considered humans?
 
westrock2000 said:
Steven Crowder (Louder With Crowder) recently had an interesting take on this cliché. He said yelling fire in a theater is a call to action and not a statement. Call to actions are not protected speech. His interpretation, but I liked it.
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I think he's missed the point, it's a FALSE call to action. If the theater were truly on fire your a hero.
 
I would imagine it would trend more toward the wire tapping or recording against your will, but then would bounce back and forth in EULA land
 
Nytegard said:
Why wouldn't this fall under a surveillance/wire-tapping law? You can't illegally bug a place and then retroactively make it legal. So now your phone, television, smart refrigerator, etc., will be considered humans?
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I thought this for a second, but consent comes with usage of the device.

It would be super easy to convince a jury that asking something a question implies you understand that the something is listening.
 
Can they subpoena recordings off answering machines? If yes, then wouldn't this be no different?
 
Nytegard said:
Why wouldn't this fall under a surveillance/wire-tapping law? You can't illegally bug a place and then retroactively make it legal. So now your phone, television, smart refrigerator, etc., will be considered humans?
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The guy was the one who willingly bugged his own house in the first place. If police notice there is a device capable of recording audio present at the scene of a crime, they have a duty to see if that device captured evidence of that crime. This seems more like if you owned a store, and your own security cameras caught you carrying a gas can and matched whole saying, "I'm going to burn this place down!" and we're surprised to see that evidence used in your insurance fraud trial.
 
westrock2000 said:
Steven Crowder (Louder With Crowder) recently had an interesting take on this cliché. He said yelling fire in a theater is a call to action and not a statement. Call to actions are not protected speech. His interpretation, but I liked it.
Click to expand...

That's a good point, it is definitely a legal cliche, and outdated. More up-to-date, the Brandenburg v. Ohio ruling in 1969, limited the scope of banned speech to that which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action (e.g. a riot). I believe that also applies to inciting lawless action that directly involves harming another, such as murder.
 
Uncle said:
IRobot covers this. :) Wait till I hack into your system and turn all your lights ,heat, air conditioning, order enough food to fill your fridge twice over, etc. while your on holidays.:p
Click to expand...
I always have to wonder about too many devices that are Internet connected. I mean technology isn't always the answer.
 
The easier fix would simply to be to discard the audio after it's processed. It should not be stored in the first place.
 
I'm about as rabid at opposing government surveillance of private citizens as they come, but even I can't side with Amazon in this. This is a request for one specific device, not a blanket request that encompasses many devices. The device was willingly purchased and installed by the suspect, with full warning that it would send info back to Amazon. There is clear probable cause to reasonably expect that the device might have information on one specific crime. The crime has already been committed; it's not a crime that might happen in the future. There is a warrant from an actual, real, non-secret court that covers this specific device for this specific investigation.

This is the government doing things right. (Now, Amazon deciding to keep a log of Alexa's users' recordings... not so right, but at least they're upfront about it)
 
In this case, Alexa is acting like an audio-only security camera.

What Amazon is doing would be no different than a gas-station owner refusing to allow the police to see his CCTV footage of a crime that (may have) happened outside his store. There is no connection to free speech whatsoever.

I think the real reason Amazon doesn't want to help, is because they don't want to reveal just how much audio was recorded.
 
Spidey329 said:
The easier fix would simply to be to discard the audio after it's processed. It should not be stored in the first place.
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Did you know that google saves the audio for "ok google" searches forever? Buried in your google account there is a page where you can listen to them and delete them.
 
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
 
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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In my 'ok google' record, there are a lot of times that it recorded silence (or pocket noise) because it thought I said 'ok google' even when I didn't. Once triggered, it listens for at least 5 seconds before giving up if it hears no more words.
 
I've only had that happen when it's things that start with the "hey g" sound, then it tells me it can't do that right now lol. I've got 7 of the damn things tho so I can only imagine the kind of shit it picks up once my daughter is old enough to figure out hey google lol
 
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