New Limits to FBI Tracking of Cell Phone Users

EvilTwinSkippy writes "According to the Washington Post (free registration), Two Federal Courts have seperately ruled that the FBI may not track the location of cell phone users without proof that a crime has been committed, or is in progress. The cases involve the FBI seeking court orders to track suspects in real-time using the mobile phone network as part of an ongoing investigation."

Comments

Re:Terrorist

[aj50]

The article would suggest that they have to show evidence that a crime has been comitted before they're allowed to track you, just suspecting you isn't enough.

Re:Things that...

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly went "HMM", but not at the ruling. I went "HMM" at the submitter who didn't read the fracking article.

The FBI may not track the locations of cell phone users without showing evidence that a crime occurred or is in progress, two federal judges ruled, saying that to do so would violate long-established privacy protections.

Showing evidence is not proving a crime.

Explaination and link to one decision.

[will_die]

Here is the New York decisions.

Unfonatly that link in the OP is very lacking on specific and explaining some details. Here is a quick description and judges reasoning.
1) the FBI asked for the cell towers used so they would have a rough idea of the location the person was located.
2) In most cases this has been easy to get since the Supreme Court has declared that a person has no expectation of privacy with the numbers that are dialed so also as the FBI says the information is relavent the courts allow easy access. The FBI claims that the tower being used for "control codes" is at the same level of expected privacy as phone number, they also used some other laws such as the Stored Communication Act to prove they should have that level of access.
3) in the New York case the judges ruled that this was not the case and the tower being used is different. "When the government seeks to turn a mobile telephone into a means for contemporaneously tracking the movements of its user, the delicately balanced compromise that Congress has forged between effective law enforcement and individual privacy requires a showing of probable cause,"

So it looks like Congress will probaly need to give some more specifications on what they mean.

Re:Just turn it OFF

[j1mmy]

Not quite. All cellphones have this thing called an IMEI number, which is unique per phone. It's also broadcast to the cellular network.

Re:Battery

[dada21]

No batteries, SIM cards.

I recently found a huge phone company selling 5000 $50 prepaid SIM cards for $50,000 with NOTHING MORE than filling out a form that isn't verified. $50,000 gets you 5000 anonymous sim cards with nearly 500,000 minutes. $1500 cash gets you 100 used phones with 100 IMEI numbers.

So a gang has nothing to worry about, yet an innocent person can easily break hundreds of laws without realizing it.

I'm no tin foil conspiracy theorist, but I work 2 days a month near a federal courthouse and love to sit in on trials. Sit through just one and you'll never vote again.

Want More Rulings Like This?

[Landaras]

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