Posted on 11/23/2007 6:13:24 PM PST by Dubya
WASHINGTON – 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.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Is this good or bad?
Sounds like even the DOJ agrees with the privacy advocates. IMO, there's no question that probable cause should be the standard.
Do you like Big Brother?
another hobgoblin....
there are 200,000,000 cell phones times 5-10 conversations per day....
exactly how many “government goons” are listening in????
use yer brain for a minute...
Jesus saith, it be good, dude!
at some point in the future law enforcement will be able to track the whereabouts of a given phone/chip with few obstacles, and maybe even if the phone is turned off?
“there are 200,000,000 cell phones times 5-10 conversations per day....”
A more rational concern is keeping all phone movement data forever, meaning where you go with your phone today and every day can be dragged out years down the road for whatever reason. This disturbs me for many of the same reason the plan in the UK to log all car trips does - it essentially means government records everywhere you go.
It may seem strange, but many of us do not want the government knowing our every move in our daily lives.
For politics it would be dynamite - a new candidate is making trouble? have his phone location data tracked (and correlated with the numbers he calls), see if there is a pattern, maybe a hidden girlfriend, a bar, who knows what, then use the info to actually get the details. Certainly makes the investigative work a bit easier.
With the “catch phase”, and “catch word” software the government uses, this, perhaps, would not be to much of a stretch. ???
AKA GPS tracking, not listening on your calls.
Phase = phrase
Your credit card companies, your freaking grocery stores know every goddamn thing about you, you paranoiacs, and you don’t complain a beep!
Terrorists will simply use strong encryption. Many of us forget that many of the information technology education and jobs (systems, software development,...) went to Arabs/Persians to keep business bosses’ American neighbors from being elevated to those jobs.
Big difference between a contract one voluntarily enters into v. a mandatory government program.
IIRC - Homland security, and the DIA (CIA) have 10 years worth of data that will take 135 years to sort through. The government simply does not have the resources to waste on the “average joe”. Hell, they cant even find their own assets in the field, much less care where you and your precious cell phone are...
Seriously you need to ask? Contrary to the 'boogeyman is living next door and we need to track him' crowd, any surveillance by governments except of those that are suspected of a criminal activity, with definitive probable cause, is bad. And of course there will be the partisan hacks trying to refute any doubt because the idiots in charge currently happen to be Republican. Yet if a Democrat were to call for half the crap the goober in command (your screen namesake) has implemented they'd be screaming to high heaven
After this gang has left office, it'll take years to return the protections the Constitution was intended to afford us against the federal government, if ever.
“The government simply does not have the resources to waste on the “average joe”.”
Correct, this would be used on a selective basis.
“Hell, they cant even find their own assets in the field, much less care where you and your precious cell phone are...”
You are confused. I do not own a (working) cell phone. What’s with the berating tone?
“at some point in the future law enforcement will be able to track the whereabouts of a given phone/chip with few obstacles, and maybe even if the phone is turned off?”
Slip it into a Mylar bag?
worth adding that all new federal surveillance powers will pass to Hillary if she wins.
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