[privacy] Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

[Juha-Matti Laurio]

Link provided by Paul too, but thanks.
We have similar discussion ongoing here in Finland still, althought so-called Sonera case is not so fresh any more (link below).

Five get suspended sentences in Sonera telephone record case
http://www.hs.fi/english/article/1101979719153

- Juha-Matti

"Richard M. Smith" <rms at computerbytesman.com> kirjoitti: 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201
> 444_pf.html
>  
> Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request
> Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause
> 
> By Ellen Nakashima
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Friday, November 23, 2007; A01
> 
> 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.
> 
> Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal
> recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable
> cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and
> orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know
> how often the orders are issued or denied.
> 
> The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to
> offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a
> button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to
> recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide
> enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts
> that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting
> an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."
> 
> With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around,
> say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child,
> holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.
> 
> "Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in
> their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic
> Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about
> your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."
> 
> In a stinging opinion this month, a federal judge in Texas denied a request
> by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for data that would identify a
> drug trafficker's phone location by using the carrier's E911 tracking
> capability. E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a
> phone's Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals
> sent from phones to cell towers. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley, of the
> Corpus Christi division of the Southern District of Texas, said the agent's
> affidavit failed to focus on "specifics necessary to establish probable
> cause, such as relevant dates, names and places."
> 
> Owsley decided to publish his opinion, which explained that the agent failed
> to provide "sufficient specific information to support the assertion" that
> the phone was being used in "criminal" activity. Instead, Owsley wrote, the
> agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the
> phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had " 'identified' or
> 'determined' certain matters," Owsley wrote, but "these identifications,
> determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the
> agency."
> 
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