Free Republic

Civil liberties advocates have long argued that “geofence” search warrants are unconstitutional for their ability to ensnare entirely innocent people who were nearby at the time a crime was committed. But errors in the geofence warrant applications that go before a judge can violate the privacy of vastly more people — in one case almost two miles away. Attorneys at the ACLU of Northern California found what they called an “alarming error” in a geofence warrant application that “resulted in a warrant stretching nearly two miles across San Francisco.” The error, likely caused by a typo, allowed the requesting law...

Attorneys at the ACLU of Northern California found what they called an “alarming error” in a geofence warrant application that “resulted in a warrant stretching nearly two miles across San Francisco.” The error, likely caused by a typo, allowed the requesting law enforcement agency to capture information on anyone who entered the stretch of San Francisco erroneously marked on the search warrant. “Many private homes were also captured in the massive sweep,” wrote Jake Snow, ACLU staff attorney, in a blog post about the findings. It’s not known which law enforcement agency requested the nearly two-mile-long geofence warrant, or for...

Code is law, they say. ... Geofence warrants are warrants to obtain the location data that Google users let Google collect if they opt in to Google's location history service, which about a third of Google users do. Geofence warrants have been possible because, if you opt in, Google keeps a copy of the location history. And records are kept can be compelled, at least if the legal process is valid. All of which makes this Google announcement from yesterday of great interest. Google will no longer keep location history even for the users who opted in to have it...

Back in the day, cops had to put physical “bugs” (recording devices) in criminals’ houses and cars. Now, they just use your phone, especially if you’re on Android. No worries, even if you’re using Apple, you probably have apps installed that can be used to listen to you and track you. At one point, in one of the WikiLeaks dumps, it was revealed that cops were using Angry Birds to invade people’s privacy. So, there’s no privacy, regardless of what you’re using. With all things considered, check this out: whenever you read “no suspects were arrested,” what they are telling...

Geofence warrants are also known as “reverse-location” warrants, since they seek to identify people of interest who were in the near vicinity at the time a crime was committed. Police do this by asking a court to order Google, which stores vast amounts of location data to drive its advertising business, to turn over details of who was in a geographic area, such as a radius of a few hundred feet at a certain point in time, to help identify potential suspects.

Sweden plans to use digital “geo-fences” in larger cities to protect against potential terror attacks. Infrastructure Minister Tomas Eneroth hopes to introduce the “geo-fences” in urban areas next year and which use technology that can digitally stop large vehicles or reduce their speed. In April, a stolen van was used to mow down pedestrians on a Stockholm street in a terror attack which killed five people. Since then, Swedish authorities have worked to increase security against these kind of attacks, including the implementation of more physical barriers in pedestrianized areas, increased video surveillance and tightened security at large public events....