Posted on 02/22/2010 12:29:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Law enforcement is tracking Americans' cell phones in real time—without the benefit of a warrant.
Amid all the furor over the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt was brewing over another type of federal snooping that was getting no public attention at all. Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be unusually sensitive records: internal data from telecommunications companies that showed the locations of their customers' cell phones—sometimes in real time, sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they needed the records to trace the movements of suspected drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public officials. But many federal magistrates—whose job is to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine court duties—were spooked by the requests. Some in New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas balked. Prosecutors "were using the cell phone as a surreptitious tracking device," said Stephen W. Smith, a federal magistrate in Houston. "And I started asking the U.S. Attorney's Office, 'What is the legal authority for this? What is the legal standard for getting this information?' "
Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional clash between President Obama's Justice Department and civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the government's relentless intrusion into the private lives of citizens. There are numerous other fronts in the privacy wars—about the content of e-mails, for instance, and access to bank records and credit-card transactions. The Feds now can quietly get all that information. But cell-phone tracking is among the more unsettling forms of government surveillance, conjuring up Orwellian images of Big Brother secretly following your movements through the small device in your pocket.
How many of the owners of the country's 277 million cell phones even know that companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint can track their devices in real time?
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Maybe this is why they are giving out free cell phones. All the better to hear you with, my dear!
I do believe that you have the option to turn that feature off.
I am typically VERY pro-law enforcement. But, why not just get a warrant?
SnakeDoc
If you’re still under the impression that the phone can’t eavesdrop and know where you are even when the thing has been turned “off”, I want you to send me money to take advantage of a great investment opportunity.
and log every website you visited in the last 2 years
IF this had happened when Pres Bush was in office,
the networks would interrupt all programming with
BREAKING NEWS.
But the MSM only exists in 2010 to serve undocumented
Emperor Obama, and to defeat the people of the
United States of America.
>> I do believe that you have the option to turn that feature off.
There’s more than one kind of tracking by cell phone.
There’s the GPS built into some cell phones. I don’t have that feature, so I don’t know for sure, but I bet you CAN turn that off.
Then, there is a form of tracking — much coarser resolution — that relies on records of which cell the phone is within. That you can’t turn off, unless you keep the cell phone itself turned off. In which case it’s not really much of a cell phone.
But as soon as you turn it on to get your messages, whammo! You’re associated with a cell, and they know (about) where you are.
You can turn off the GPS in the phone. But they don’t need that to track you.
In order for a cell phone to work its location must be constantly updated so the system knows what cell tower to use in order to connect to your phone. They use that information to track you, not the GPS.
As a matter of fact, by using triangulation of your signal from several cell towers they can pin your location down to within yards just by using relative signal strength alone.
The only way to be secure when carrying a cell phone is to remove the battery.
>>I do believe that you have the option to turn that feature off.<<
Sort of.
If your phone is on, it is constantly searching the closest tower. When the tower receives a ping, it logs it. It knows the time, the IMSI (your phones “fingerprint”), your phone number, etc. And the information is saved - for how long I don’t know.
If you drive from Seattle to Chicago and your phone is on the whole time, there is a record of where you (your phone, that is) were, when, on the entire route.
And because this information is historical, law enforcement can literally go back in time. Again, how far I don’t know, but I suspect it is at least 6 months.
Have to pull out the battery.
This is why I’ve never had a cellphone, and I don’t have one now, and won’t have one in the future.
If someone thinks it’s important enough to contact me, they can dial my land line number, and if I think the number I see on the Caller ID is important enough to answer and/or return the call, I will.
The only way that you can receive a phone call when you aren't in your "home cell" is that your phone sends a ping to each cell you enter to let the system know where to route any incoming calls.
You don't have to make a call from the new cell, your phone sends the ping on its own. Whether your phone has to be powered on, or just have the battery intact for this to happen, depends on the cell phone.
>>I am typically VERY pro-law enforcement. But, why not just get a warrant?<<
I believe they use a subpoena to get the info.
I’ve heard this repeated by others, including Rush Limbaugh, but cannot find a single technical source to prove it. If you know of a cell phone that can communicate with the cell system even when turned off, would you please pass the information along? Thanks.
This is why I’ve never had a cellphone, and I don’t have one now, and won’t have one in the future.
If someone thinks it’s important enough to contact me, they can dial my land line number, and if I think the number I see on the Caller ID is important enough to answer and/or return the call, I will.
All landline calls are tracked
Could you turn off the cell access on a phone, and just use wifi?
Someone should give the information on this thread to the Authors’ Guild. Fictional characters who don’t want their location known are still turning their cell phones off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.