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Posted on 02/11/2010 11:08:16 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The Justice Department is poised this week to publicly defend a little-known law-enforcement practice that critics say may be the "sleeper" privacy issue of the 21st century: the collection of cell-phone "tracking" records that identify the physical locations where the phones have been.
It may come as a surprise to most of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones, but their cell-phone company retains records of where their device has been at all times—either because the phones have tiny GPS devices embedded inside or because each phone call is routed through towers that can be used to pinpoint the phones' location to within areas as small as a few hundred feet.
Such location "logs" never show up on your monthly cell-phone bill. But federal court records filed over the past year indicate that federal prosecutors and the FBI have increasingly been obtaining such records in the course of criminal investigations—without any notice to the cell-phone customer or any showing of "probable cause" that tracking the physical location of the phone will turn up evidence of an actual crime.
"Most people don't understand they are carrying a tracking device in their pockets," says Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group that has been trying to monitor the Justice Department's practice.
Much about the practice—including how many "tracking" records have been collected by the government—remains shrouded in secrecy. But in one court case in which the use of such records arose, a Philadelphia FBI agent named William Shute testified that he had obtained such records 150 times in recent years in order to track the location of federal fugitives.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
It is so far over the line that you can’t even SEE the line in the rearview mirror. You know that pesky document that you, IF you were in the Navy, swore an oath to protect and defend, the Constitution? It sets the standards to which law enforcement must rise and having statist morons cheering on the destruction of that document, in a good cause, of course, is NOT in keeping with your oath. But I guess you don’t care very much about that, do you? If, indeed, you ever took it.
Hardly. Been around hundreds of thousands of postal customers over the years. Few, if any, have ever been on their toes enough to even think that way. They’er simply cruising and doing stuff.
The fact that you are stupid enough to believe I said that suggests to me you should be examined carefully by a medical team. You may need some new blood or something.
In the aggregate: Usage and density patterns help determine resource allocation. Bandwidth, tower placement and densities etc.
Yes, they can. And they can track your cell phone location to within 5 feet with some mobile equipment. It has been that way for a while.
well gee that means a lot from you
Heaven forbid they should use call volume to manage those things.
Depends which 100 thousand.
Think of the billions of dollars they wasted on that nonsense. Do you really think "the government" is going to spend that kind of money finding out what driftdiver does?
Look, I'm not happy about the personal logs, but my life is pretty boring as of late. Not a lot of spare cash to go anywhere or do anything, so if they want to track my movements on the few trips I make (a tank of gas in the Z-71 last me about two weeks, sometime a little more), I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
Like I said; I'm not happy about the personal side of it. The question was poised about possible business use, I offered a possible example (in the aggregate). And for 911 purposes, especially with people relying more and more on wireless only, there is the safety issue. Would I like to see the logs permanently purged on a regular basis: you betcha.
You have a point. There are so many laws, you can’t help but violate some. What was it I read somewhere? That people unknowingly commit an average to three felonies a day or something totally ridiculous like that?
Sounds like a business opportunity: We don’t track your location unless you dial 911 or emergency services! (which turns on tracking until you turn it off...).
If they follow me around they’ll be bored out of their minds!
Help me out, explain this. I was walking around in Manhattan the other day when one of my neighbors in D.C. call me on my cell phone. Afterward, I began to think about it: how did Verizon know where to route the call? Did they have every cell phone tower in the U.S. ping my phone until they got a response, or was my phone constantly sending out a signal telling Verizon what cell I was in. I decided it must be the latter, and there must therefore be a possible record of everywhere that cell phone had been, GPS or no.
Anything that attenuates the signal will help and possibly work. Removing the battery is more practical since you won't be able to receive calls in either case.
Is a bear Catholic?
It isn't being done for business reasons. It's done so the feds can keep tabs on their subjects any time they want, and for whatever reason they deem "appropritate".
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