Feds push for tracking cell phones

democrat-logoRegardless if you have nothing to hide or have “not done anything wrong” do like like the idea of the fed monitoring and tracking your cell phone? So what difference does it make if they watch / eavesdrop / spy / track me if I haven’t done anything wrong? The difference it makes it is that the government has absolutely no business in OUR business, no matter what scare tactics they want to use to try to play the “safety” card. More from CNET

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.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Not long ago, the concept of tracking cell phones would have been the stuff of spy movies. In 1998′s “Enemy of the State,” Gene Hackman warned that the National Security Agency has “been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the ’40s–they’ve infected everything.” After a decade of appearances in “24″ and “Live Free or Die Hard,” location-tracking has become such a trope that it was satirized in a scene with Seth Rogen from “Pineapple Express” (2008).

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February 12, 2010 · Filed Under General Politics


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  • Ross Wolf

    Where U.S. Justice Department Is Headed With This GPS Case:

    In 2008 Telecoms were granted government immunity after they helped U.S. Government spy on millions of Americans’ electronic communications. Neither Congress nor the courts—determined what NSA electronic surveillance could be used by police or introduced into court by the government to prosecute citizens. In 2004, former Attorney General John Ashcroft asked government prosecutors to review thousands of old intelligence files including wiretaps to retrieve information prosecutors could use in “ordinary” criminal prosecutions. That was shortly after a court case lowered a barrier that blocked prosecutors from using illegal-wire tap evidence in Justice Dept. “Intelligence Files” to prosecute ordinary crimes. It would appear this information, may also be used by government to prosecute civil asset forfeitures. See: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/5452

    Police too easily can take an innocent person’s hastily written email, fax or phone call out of context to allege a crime or violation was committed to cause an arrest or asset forfeiture. Under federal civil forfeiture laws, a person or business need not be charged with a crime for government to forfeit their property. The Patriot Act specifically mentions using Title 18USC asset forfeiture laws: those laws include a provision in Rep. Henry Hyde’s 2000 bill HR 1658—for “retroactive civil asset forfeiture” of “assets already subject to government forfeiture”, meaning “property already tainted by crime” provided the “property” was already part of or “later connected” to a criminal investigation in progress” when HR.1658 passed. That can apply to more than two hundred federal laws and violations.

    Obama’s recently signed executive order EO 12425 that will now allow U.S. police to circumvent the Fourth Amendment by working with INTERPOL in criminal and Civil Investigations. U.S. Police can now bring INTERPOL into a civil or criminal investigation to circumvent the Fourth Amendment to share in assets seized from Americans and Europeans. There are over 200 U.S. laws and violations mentioned in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 and the Patriot Act that can subject property to civil asset forfeiture.

    Since the U.S. Patriot Act passed, several European Countries entered into Asset Forfeiture Sharing Agreements with the U.S. With such a weak U.S. statute of limitations and the low standard of civil proof needed for U.S. Government to forfeit property “A civil preponderance of Evidence”, it is problematic INTERPOL working with U.S. law enforcement and private contractors will want access to Foreign Bank Records, telecom/NSA and other government wiretaps perhaps illegal, to secure evidence to arrest Americans and Europeans and or civilly forfeit their assets under Title 18USC and other laws.