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ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

"Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide," ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. "No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure."

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags," a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. "The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps."

The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

"With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity," Fancher wrote. "A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched."

The national ACLU is currently suing the Department of Homeland Security for its policy of warrantless electronic searches of laptops and cell phones belonging to people entering the country who are not suspected of committing any crime.

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In relatively brief remarks Monday night, President Barack Obama sought to strike a delicate balance, justifying his decision to use force in Libya while assuring a doubtful nation that the U.S. military actions would be limited and low-risk. Obama built his case for intervention by arguing that swift intervention in Libya was necessary to avert a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of the 1990s Bosnia genocide. But while Obama repeatedly attacked Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi for creating that impending catastrophe, he insisted that international military action would stop well short of toppling the Libyan dictator, and declared that U.S. allies would soon take over leadership of the operation.

"I said that America's role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. Tonight, we are fulfilling that pledge," Obama said, saying the 28-member NATO alliance would take over command of all military functions in Libya starting on Wednesday.

With Gadhafi's forces closing in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi ten days ago, "the United States and the world faced a choice," Obama said at the National Defense University. "Gadhafi declared that he would show 'no mercy' to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment."

"We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi -- a city nearly the size of Charlotte -- could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," Obama said. "It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen. And so nine days ago, after consulting the bipartisan leadership of Congress, I authorized military action to stop the killing."

While making the case for action to skeptics, Obama also defended the limited U.S. military mission in Libya from critics on the right who argue the mission will not succeed until Gadhafi is overthrown.

"There is no question that Libya — and the world — will be better off with Gadhafi out of power," Obama said. "But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."

"If we tried to overthrow Gadhafi by force, our coalition would splinter. We would likely have to put U.S. troops on the ground, or risk killing many civilians from the air," Obama said. "To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq."

Libya's former envoy to Washington Ali Aujali - who broke with the Gadhafi regime - praised Obama's remarks and his decision to intervene in Libya.

"On behalf of the Libyan National Transitional Council, I would like to express deep gratitude to President Obama and the American people for their commitment to protect and assist the Libyan people," Aujali said in a statement Monday. "While the situation in Libya still remains very fluid, the intervention of the United States and the international community has saved tens of thousands of lives."

Washington foreign policy observers said Obama had walked a fine line in his first major -- and some critics charge belated -- address to the American public on the Libya intervention.

"Obama effectively made the case for the urgency of U.S. and international action in the face of an impending humanitarian catastrophe," said George Washington University Middle East expert Marc Lynch, who has consulted with the White House on Libya. "He also was right to include the crucial point that not acting would have been not only a stain on America's image but would have given other dictators in the region a green light."

Lynch said that he is not sure, however, how the president "will deliver on the promise to not escalate or use ground troops if this doesn't work ... and how the U.S. will act if things get ugly in other Arab countries."

"What I think is vital is that [Obama] paint for Americans a picture about how this kind of American leadership, in which we lead by letting others lead, works in practice," said former Clinton administration speechwriter Heather Hurlburt, now with the progressive National Security Network. And that he "make the point that from the standpoint of limited, humanitarian objectives endorsed by the international community, it is working rather quickly and well.

"It's understandable that, given recent history, Americans experience some uncertainty with this model," Hurlburt continued. "But it is the kind of progressive leadership we were in fact promised."

(President Barack Obama delivers his address on Libya at the National Defense University in Washington, Monday, March 28, 2011: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta.)

Ninety-five-year-old Leeland Davidson discovered recently that he's not a U.S. citizen, despite living nearly 100 years in the country and serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII.

Davidson, from Centralia, Washington, told KOMO News that he discovered he wasn't a U.S. citizen when he was turned down for an enhanced driver's license he needed for a trip to Canada to visit relatives.

"We always figured because he was born to U.S. parents he's automatically a U.S. citizen," said Davidson's daughter, Rose Schoolcroft.

Davidson was born in British Columbia in 1916. He checked up on his citizenship before joining the Navy and was told by an inspector at the U.S. Department of Labor Immigration and Naturalization Service he had nothing to worry about. Now he worries that he won't be able to prove his citizenship, because his parents were born in Iowa before local governments started keeping records of birth certificates in 1880. "I want it squared away before I pass away," he says.

Schoolcraft says they tried to dissuade him from pursuing the matter. Employees at the local passport office scared them, telling her father "If he pursued it, (he could) possibly be deported or at risk of losing Social Security."

"We keep telling him, leave it alone, leave it alone, and he won't, like a dog with a bone," Schoolcraft told the Centralia Chronicle. But Davidson says: "I want to get it done before I die." He also still wants to visit his friends and family in Canada. Sen Patty Murray's office is helping him with his application.

You can watch the interview below:

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