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Feds Have Access To Cellphone Tracking On Request
Mike writes "According to a Washington Post article, federal officials are routinely asking and getting courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data on subscribers. The data is used to pinpoint the whereabouts of 'criminal suspects', according to judges and industry lawyers. In some cases, judges have granted the requests without even requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause 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.'"
...and in unrelated news, Reynolds America Inc. ( http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RAI ) reported a rise in their stock price following record sales in their aluminium and tin foil divisions.
The data is used to pinpoint the whereabouts of 'criminal suspects', according to judges and industry lawyers. In some cases, judges have granted the requests without even requiring the government to demonstrate probable cause that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime
And if we put everyone in jail, then there would be no criminals on the street. Problem solved!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
You guys are so fucked. No oversight, no probable cause. Land of the free eh? Good luck with that.
-- Please insert another quarter
How unlike the government to track us in ways we have not thought of.
Finally, the REAL reason why just about every phone nowadays comes with a built-in GPS receiver...... so the phone can tell the carrier-- and thus the government-- where it is.......
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets? It's alarming that so many people are so docile.
Another reason I prefer not to own a cell phone. Modern ones all have at least rudimentary location tracking built in. With the way the US Govt. abuses powers it shouldn't have, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they will try to exploit it so they can track people "in need of public safety"... because we all know how the average American (and yes, I'm an American citizen, so I'm bashing my own country, not yours) will roll over and play dead anytime the Govt. pulls out the safety card. It's pathetic.
I think we have to realize that a surveillance society is an inevitable consequence of surveillance capability. If anything, history should show us that when groups of people are granted powers over other groups, they tend to abuse them (see the "Stanford Prison Experiment" for psychological evidence). Thus, any monitoring, surveillance, or other oppressive capabilities, are likely to be realized. As technology removes the barriers to total surveillance, in terms of both the monitoring itself, as well as information processing, I do not see any option rather than for a total surveillance society to emerge.
Call me paranoid, but I still think that the above is a rational assessment given historical evidence.
What exactly makes you think that a revolution will help in any way?
Meet your new boss, same as old boss. But with bigger guns.
Not happening. Joe Apathetic is more worried about his dumb ass ring tones.
This will occur when you try to pry the cheeseburger from his cold dead fingers... or would, if he wasn't already dead at that point. But not before.
Gee you watched Fight Club one too many times...
There is an element of truth to this. The practical effect of this is to spread fear and apprehension among "innocent nobodies" who happen to be paying attention. The myth of government omniscience (and, by extension, omnipotence) is a powerful tool of preemptive social control.
It's like torture. Newsflash: the people who torture know it doesn't really "work" on (i.e., produce valuable information from) the victims. It's a form of state terrorism -- it works best on the rest of us.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Probably when they get too impatient to grab ALL the power that's left in one shot like Musharraf did in Pakistan.
The Corps and the rich folks behind them are trying to sneak control and $ away from the people gradually so that Joe Apathetic doesn't see anything wrong until it's too late. When they'll be done, the US will look like the Alphaverse in Charlie_Jade. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jade)
I doubt it will happen because Greedy people can only hold back for so long...
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Good. It's about time they weed out the criminally stupid.
What moron doesn't know they can buy a throw away cell from Walmarts for cash?
If you're dumb enough to be a crook AND use a traceable (i.e. contracted) cell phone you deserve what you get.
that the requirement of a warrant from a judge is a worthless safeguard?
Judges are just officials, they just happen to wear stupid gowns and effeminate wigs.
I *just* heard a news story about this a day or so ago- take it seriously!
A car was stolen by three guys, and the guys rammed a police car during the chase.
The police opened fire on the vehicle, killing the driver. They also wounded one of two other guys in the car who bailed and ran off into the night.
Here's the part that made me take notice: The news guy said that by using the cellphone number of the driver, they located and captured the other two guys within 20 minutes... by using location tracking of the fugitive's cellphones.
Considering that a) the driver was dead and b) they didn't know who the other two guys were when they bailed out of the car and took off, 20 minutes seemed awfully fast. But how can you track down a cell phone's location without knowing the number or who the owner is?
This means (obviously) that there must be an easily accessible database tracking both caller history (to find out who you called, or called you) AND those people's current locations. I knew things like this were in place for DHS and the FBI (a lot of bank robbers get caught because they have cell phones on them or in their cars), but that local LE had access to this stuff was a surprise.
That means that you and I, joe geek guy, are already in this thing.
Pretty cool, huh? It's *way* too late for tinfoil.
duh, he posted about it on slashdot. and maybe his blog.
As a radical drug-dealing terrorist pedophile, I have to disagree.
I feel like privacy issues are incredibly important... and that I'm the only one who feels this way. Well, me and my friends who read slashdot. And the four libertarians I know.
The government only does this stuff because they feel like they can get away with it, that's what kills me.
spacefem.com
government agency or some giant corp
Why the redundancy in that expression?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You fucks are too fat to move.
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets? It's alarming that so many people are so docile.
When the actions of the government affect the TV viewing and high fructose corn syrup eating of the American public. Until then? Everyone will continue to sit on their asses smiling that they did "great work" at their pointless jobs and consider themselves successful.
Hey, im bored today lets track down soandso and see where that hot girl is today.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
when do we get our required RFID tags? I still can't believe that some companies actually require their employees to be surgically implanted with these little tracking devices under the guise of security. Hopefully the precedent that California set will stand, unless of course the Supreme Court tries to take a look at it and decides that our privacy means nothing in terms of die Staatssicherheit (national security).
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Just curious, why does every US crime show say that they found the person via GPS tracking ? The last time I checked no phone had a GPS system inside (unless it had tomtom or garmin inside). Do they mean tracking via cell towers ?
Every day it's either some government agency or some giant corp that is tightening the screws on US citizens. When will there be a tipping point where Joe Apathetic says "enough!" and takes to the streets?
I'll tell you the answer, but you won't like it.
The reason people are apathetic about these things is because it doesn't affect normal citizens to any great extent. There will ALWAYS be government abuses -- that's just the nature of power. The question is whether there are widespread enough abuses to make people notice (i.e., it happens to someone they know), and there just aren't.
When government power really does get out of hand, then it'll be reigned in (see: the 1950s communist witch hunts). People don't care because there's nothing to care about yet.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
People know they can leave me a message.
I'm a lot less uncomfortable knowing the feds can monitor me 3-4x a day when I check messages than 24x7.
Yes I'm an anonymous coward dammit. You would be too if the feds were trying to monitor your cell phone.
A rubber-stamp judge slows things down for no useful purpose. You might as well just let the FBI write their own warrants.
A real judge that does his job will slow things down to make sure only people who really should be under surveillance are put under surveillance.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The Corps and the rich folks behind them are trying to sneak control and $ away from the people gradually so that Joe Apathetic doesn't see anything wrong until it's too late. When they'll be done, the US will look like the Alphaverse in Charlie_Jade. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Jade)
Actually, controlling you is way more trouble than it's worth. We don't want control over you, we just want your money.
There was a time when we rich people could make money by controlling poor peoples' lives, but that was a long time ago, back when your labor and your loyalty was actually worth something in the world. We'll cheerfully leave the job of "controlling" you to your priests.
(posted A.C. due to breaking the first and second rules of Bilderberg Club)
I could think of this possibility.
1. Cellphones can be tracked very accurately.
2. Government can tap the records at will.
3. Bank robbery happens at 4th and main.
4. Police notify FBI.
5. FBI calls the cell carriers and says "we need all active numbers in grid 34,53 at 12:03 pm when a robbery occurred" List please.
6. FBI asks for the above mentioned numbers, "Which moved away from grid 34,53 at 12:05 at where are they now" List Please.
7. FBI asks what was the duration of movement, and speed of numbers in list 2 please, and where are they RIGHT NOW.
why again can we not see our OWN triangulations?
Maybe we should get a big hippy jam circle together. That will show them.
Maybe Joe Apathetic has a better grasp on the situation and isn't alarmed at everything. Maybe he is one of the old school naive people who still think the government for the most part is good and that cops protect you from bad guys. Maybe every day, this idea is reinforces with him because he sees cops dealing with bad guys on the TV, hears how the government is going to protect him from something he otherwise wouldn't be able to, and he has a decent job making decent money with a halfway decent family. You know, he could just be content and liking life. Maybe Ring tones is the biggest upset in his life.
You know, how good would you feel if ring tones was the biggest upset in your day to day life.
But Big Brother is always looking out for us! He sees everything! He loves us so he watches over us always, awake or asleep. He even loves us enough to bring us back into the fold when we stray.
SRSLY.
Come on folks. We've watched enough '24' and 'CSI' to know how tracking works. We know better then to carry our own cell phones while committing a crime.
Have gnu, will travel.
Richard Stallman is famous for being very careful when he makes predictions. They always seem to turn out to be true. But, in one of his interviews, the interviewer's cell phone rang and RMS said "Will you please turn off your tracking device?". (sorry, couldn't find a link) He went on to talk about cell phones being used by the government to track people.
Now, when I saw this, I was thinking, "I doubt it. He has got to be wrong about this one. This is just tinfoil-hat stuff." But it turns out Stallman was right all along... again.
Then law enforcement should have no problem supplying the courts with probable cause and getting a warrent legally then.
Simple encryption should make it easy to avoid eavesdropping. Encrypted VOIP, from PC, or mobile through Wifi, or else convert sound into data which is transmitted through cell phone company as data, ought to keep any eavesdropping 100% at bay.
I've been saying this for about five years. This is pretty much a So Nineties article.
The FBI, at least the pre-Bush FBI, required a search warrant to tap into the GPS signaling that phones and OnStar provides. So as a work around they employed the cellular companies to provide them with regristration information on the cell and node that your phone has recently passed into/out of as you travel. This won't give the resolutions to 10 feet, but they certainly know when you are one the move and where you are going. It makes building out your social network rather trivial.
And the best part about this is that they never need to actually touch the phone. The phone provides all the information that they need without violating the legal definition of privacy.
If you want your where abouts unknown, turn off your phone while you go to your local neighborhood crack house. Even Bin Laden knows this much.
From the story to which the link goes:
/=============
Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is "consistent with the probable cause standard" of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
\=============
Regardless of which side of the question you're on, how can you not frightened by the idea that judges will talk about important current issues of law only under cover to anonymity?
I'd feel pretty damn good if the biggest upset in my day to day life was a bad ring tone. Unfortunately that is not the reality we live in.
Whether someone chooses to stick their head in the sand about the problems we face in our society is their business. But when enough of them do it then it become my business and everyone else's for that matter. "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing" - Unknown, but often attributed to Edmund Burke.
We see this happening in our society today (much like the Romans before their fall) where apathy and "Bread and Circuses" take over society. Several years ago, I used to be blissfully ignorant of the country we live in. Other than what appeared to be some minor problems here and there (nothing endemic), I didn't see anything majorly wrong with this country and the direction it was heading. I saw this country for what it has been idealized in the media rather than what it actually was. Now things are coming into focus.
The road we currently walk as a country is one that's going blindly over the cliff. We are such a strong nation but like strong nations before us, it is ultimately the internal problems that destroy us not the external threats.
There will have to be some event, or series of events, for people to wake up and see the decaying corpse for what it is. But it will have to be something that affects their everyday lives or it won't work. That is what it will take for "Joe Apathetic" to realize that it does matter what the government does.
I realize that most of my post has been very "doom and gloom" but you have to look for the light to keep going. I know there are still plenty of good people in the world and I do what I can to help them get into the right positions to help change things for the better.
We should all do the same where ever we can.
*Steps off the soap box*
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
I think your missing the point. Your in the minority of opion for a reason. Now the questions can be is that reason because you see things differently then others do and it isn't near as bad as you want to make it, or somehow, did you all the sudden wake up and become smarter then everyone else and now are able to spot immoral acts and bring them to everyone else's attention.
I'm going to put my money on a combination of both to some degree. You seem to be at an extreme end of the spectrum. This typically means that you are going overboard. The chances of being right in the face of all the other eyes on the picture is mindbogglingly low.
While I'll admit that I'm in the minority, that do not mean that I can't be right about an opinion.
In my daily interactions with people I know in person and online, I see a growing number of people waking up and seeing that things have been getting worse here as a more systemic problem and not something limited to a minor issue here or there. We talk about lots of the negative things going on in our society here on Slashdot on a daily basis. Sure, some of it is overblown or completely false and many people point out when something like this comes up.
But overall we are faltering as a nation. We have the most terrible sock-puppet president I could imagine with several of "his" people behind the scenes trying to take away our liberties in the name of security. I believe we very well could be months away from war with Iran which will almost certainly mean a draft. We've almost doubled our national debt in the last 7 years. Our currency is in a freefall as well as our economy. More people care about American Idol than electing good leaders. Of the less than half of eligible people that do vote, most will just vote along party lines and not care who it is as long as it's "their party".
There is plenty more which I won't get into but suffice to say we are decaying as a nation and something like what happened to Roman or Germany (post WWI) is likely to be in our future unless we can steer this country back on course. Of course it's hard to predict the future and I'm not claiming to be a profit of any kind. But it doesn't take a genius to take what you are seeing and follow it to it's most likely conclusion. A lot of people don't do this in their daily lives and that is why I made a reference to "Bread and Circuses". They just worry about their own little world and as long as nothing comes along to disrupt it then in their view they don't have to worry about it.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
No, it doesn't mean you cannot be right, it just means that you aren't likely to be right. there are people a lot more intelligent then we are that don't have a bias on the situation who just don't see it in the same light as you do. Most people who see things as negetive as you have expressed, have an agenda or bias on the situation. Those that see it as a bed of roses do to. But here is something to keep in mind, if it doesn't happen 8 in years, it isn't going to happen unless it isn't as bad as you think. A lot of things, don't even effect you or anyone around you but we are led to believe it does for the simple reason of recruiting support for their cause.
Sure. You will find that it is more rare for political opposites to hang with each other then it is for like minded people to do the same. Like minded people tend to find things they have in common to talk about. But who and what you talk about can also influence your opinions and positions greatly without even knowing it.
After reading the story of Jobe(?) in the bible, Some friends and I started talking and decided to see how loyal other people would be to the company at work. So we started trash talking some mythical guy who was supposed to be the head of current management at work. We made him sound like the devil incarnated and you wouldn't believe how many people started taking normal every day policies that they slightly questioned as the worst thing since Hitler. It only took about 6 months and they all seemed to blame it in this guy we made up. Long story short, I ended up getting fired from that job. But these people were perfectly content with the attendance policies, the amount and frequency of breaks, the selections of hot soup in the dispenser in the break room, until they had an evil genius to accuse of being behind everything. Do you think something like that is remotely working in your interactions with the people you know and talk about? I mean it starts early in life, in the schoolyard where something happens and someone isn't "liked" anymore then other tend to either like or not like them, at least to your face, they might have another opinion behind your back. And it isn't really childish, it is instinct to stay away from certain things because people that you take cues from do so. You would just be surprised at who you take cues from and who takes cues from you.
I don't seriously think someone is sitting behind the scenes rubbing their hands together going, "pretty soon, we will have all their liberties". I mean what is the end game? Eight years at the most and someone else is in office. There are as many democrats as republicans that have to somewhat support the Ideas in order for it to have some lasting effect. Otherwi