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Posted on 02/11/2010 8:58:30 AM PST by Cheap_Hessian
Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.
FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.
Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
Track ordinary Americans, but not terrorist cells.
Incompetent, freedom-hating boobs.
I will go for this if I am allowed to audit all of Obama’s cell phone calls and e mail every day.
Note to bank robbers: use pay as you go. lol
Conversely, cell phone records have been ruled inadmissible in court to establish an alibi since such records only establish the device’s whereabouts not its owner’s.
Rush leading off with this one.
There are many Statist Freepers that agree with Obama’s ‘no expectation of privacy’ rationale. I get that line thrown at me constantly on threads dealing with privacy issues.
Haven’t drug dealers already solved this problem with throwaways? The feds are soon going to push for limited-use cell phones to be banned, thereby closing the “Throwaway Loophole”.
“Note to bank robbers: use pay as you go.”
Or just take the battery out.
pay as you go requires no contract, and they do not verify your ID.
“There are many Statist Freepers that agree with Obama’s ‘no expectation of privacy’ rationale.”
I feel that way. Not in a moral sense, but for practicality’s sake. Anyone who thinks they have privacy on the internet or the telephone is an idiot.
“There are many Statist Freepers that agree with Obama’s ‘no expectation of privacy’ rationale.”
In before the “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from the government” idiots.
mmmm mmmmm mmmmmm!
There is a way to get those on the left to fight this.
California should announce that if the Feds can do it Cali can do it also.
California can then track the cell phones of all the Hollywood players who claim tax residence in no tax states - Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming - and prove they spend more than 50% of their time in their California residence. Then make them pay for all the liberal nonsense they push down the throats of other taxpayers.
GIVE ‘EM AN INCH AND THEYY’LL TAKE A MILE EVERY TIME! WATCH OUT, AMERICA!
Practically? Anyone who believes that in practice no privacy exists is an idiot. Wow, it IS easy to put up bovine scat in place of a real argument. And it’s FUN too!/s
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