At Least It Isn’t Implanted…Yet
Here’s one for the “fig tree” watchers (see Matthew 24:32).
Check out this article, Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request:
Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause, by Ellen Nakashima.
The article provides interesting insight into yet another potential opportunity for some “Big Brother” of the future to step into a ready-made infrastructure for the exercise of abusive power. Click on the link to read it all. My comments and article excerpts follow.
The article reports:
Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.
While this is a useful spying tool for the sorts of characters referenced above, other sorts of characters (ie. you and me), may not be exempt from unknown scrutiny at some point:
In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.
The ability to use a cell phone as a tracking device has marketable aspects.
With Verizon’s Chaperone service, parents can set up a “geofence” around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.
But we have a two-edged sword here. Consider that these “good” uses demonstrate the possibilities available to those with other intentions.
To make matters even more interesting, you don’t even have to be using the phone to be spied on. Notice the word “routinely” in the following quote:
“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,” wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA — the Wireless Association
Some courts are demanding probable cause warrants, but not all. The “majority of districts” do not. Also note the argument that the decision to carry the “tracking device” can be construed as permission to be spied on:
But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the “tracking device” and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.
Seems like a practice that is only going to get worse:
The trend’s secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.
Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval.
Just “trust us.” They are, after all, acting in behalf of the federal government, right?
Well, I’d love to stay and discuss clues upon which to speculate about possible future scenarios, but I gotta go. I think my wife is looking for me and my phone is ringing.