They can make it possible if not outright easy to do updates that don't come from the phone manufacturer or the carrier. Ironically, one of the few things that I will say that Microsoft, to this point, has done right on their desktop computers. Whether or not this practice continues is another story.

Then make a point to push for a model where every major X. release gets X.Y minor updates and bug fixes. This doesn't mean that the latest and greatest from the app repositories have to work, but do security updates and OS-side functionality patches as support for these arguably production-stable releases for say five years. Maybe being forced to support the products for that long will make Google carefully consider changes to their products.

Prior law has made it legal to use encryption in business bands and has also made it illegal to listen-in on analog cell frequencies for the purposes of privacy, to the extent that most of the 800MHz band was off-limits. Clearly there was at least some intention to protect these conversations.

What's in their head isn't necessarily the same as what's on paper or the electronic equivalent though.

I would still like to see warrants prove necessary for the police to collect information on people from parties that those people have business arrangements with. Consider it a means to ensure that they prioritize using what resources they have for what's truly important.

So we're going to get rid of the military too?

A sysadmin is not the government.

But I am not broadcasting my location to third parties, I am communicating with one party in particular, the cellular carrier to which I have a business arrangement over a very short wave, using encrypted means of communication.

If I had a ham radio connected to a GPS receiver that'd be a different matter, but as a cell user I'm not broadcasting for all to hear. There are laws about that actually, there are bits of analog spectrum that it's still illegal to listen to because at one time telephone conversations happened on those frequencies in clear analog.

I was under the impression that my private business with my cellular phone provider was just that, private, and without a warrant this information in the form of 'papers and effects' was supposed to be subject to 4th Amendment protections unless sought via warrant process...

If the various government entities kept their warrantless monitoring exclusively to foreign places then perhaps that would work. Unfortunately there appears to be domestic warrantless monitoring too.

Thoughtcrime is generally not a crime, and conspiracy is very difficult to prove without the crime that the conspiracy planned actually being carried out, especially when it's possible for the end actor to decide at the last moment to not do anything. It is absolutely impossible to stop every crime.

I have not read on the particulars of the Texas shooting, but if the gentlemen were not US citizens and had previous run-ins with the law with convictions that should have prevented them from owning firearms, then it sounds like their being able to get firearms to carry out their attack is part of the problem. If they obtained them from otherwise legal sources then the system that should prevent the purchase failed. If they obtained them through black market means, then obviously the nature of firearms law allows for those that aren't supposed to have guns to have them.

They are not protected from punishment by due process.

All I want is for the system that permits wiretapping and other monitoring of those on all domestic soil to use the already extant system of going to the courts to get warrants. I'm okay with the warrant process being able to approve collection against the device, against the specific network access interface, or against the individual. This means that the warrant allows for collection against a specific device known to be used by the party that the government seeks to build a case against even of other individuals use that device, against a specific access interface (like their ISP connection) that the individual in question uses even if other individuals use that connection, or against other devices or connections that the individual starts to use.

What I'm not okay with is then monitoring the other individuals that use these devices or connections when those individuals use other devices or connections, without first obtaining warrants against those individuals as well. If the suspect under warranted surveillance uses a public coffee shop wireless connection then monitoring the connectivity from the coffee shop to the ISP is acceptable, and possibly incidentally catching traffic from other patrons of the establishment within the context of the original investigation only is possibly acceptable, but then going and monitoring the other patrons when they are on other connections, like their phones, their home ISP connections, etc, is not. If another patron is suspected of being involved, then a new warrant needs to be drafted for that individual.

You could get a 240V circuit (hot-hot-ground) and in code violation wire it to a NEMA 5-15 or 5-20 receptacle, and use a power supply capable of handling 240V 60Hz, so that when they splice in they brown-out the machine and it shuts off...

The British, the Americans, and the other code-breaking entities were breaking the codes of foreign countries that were hostile toward them. We celebrate Turing and his team because of that.

We can still look negatively upon the postwar years though, when the broken Enigma cypher was still being advertised as secure so that corporations would keep using it.

We can also look negatively as spying on ourselves. Whether it be the FBI keeping files on contientous objectors and other protesters that are generally operating within their rights whose opinions or objectives are legal even while contrary to those in power, or at random Joe Q Public who talks on the phone, it's not right to spy on people that are not doing anything wrong and don't intend to do wrong. The reason we have a system that's supposed to require warrants is to protect people from the state unless the state in the form of the executive branch can convince the legislative branch that there's a real and legitimate need to investigate a crime.

And don't even get me started on parallel construction. If the law enforcement entity is violating the accused's rights, then even a case in-parallel should be in jeopardy of being discarded due to the use of the non-presented evidence to provide investigative leads that let the other evidence be found.

Because letting a third-party server most definitely intentionally convert your voice to text is the solution...

Why run cable? I already have cable. Everywhere. I have so much Cat3 and Cat5 that every work area, every room, every office, every lab, everwhere has cable. Because of this I could use $15 trimline phones so long as the voice switch is good and I have enough analog cards, so moves/adds/changes cost almost nothing. Hell, even running a new cable plus trimline phone costs less than a new VOIP handset.

Just download a fresh copy of the IOS image from them directly and replace the one on the shipped equipment. Or better yet, swap-out the modular CF module and never boot the original in the first place. Hell, even the RAM is modular and could be changed if there's any concern that they messed with it.

I suspect that there's only so much that can be done without the router simply ceasing to function, and as fine as modern electronics manufacturing has become, physically tampering with the electronics is probably out. That makes it all software, and the upgrade process might be your friend.