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Speculation On Large-Scale Phone Location Snooping
An anonymous reader recommends a speculative blog entry by Chris Soghoian up on CNet. Soghoian makes a convincing case that the NSA could be using loopholes in the law to gather real-time location information on the mobile phones of millions of people. There is no hard evidence that this is happening, but the blog post sheds light on the dense undergrowth of companies populating the wireless space that could be easy pickings for a National Security Letter with a gag order attached. "While these household names of the telecom industry [AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint] almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of."
You jest, but isn't it a little sad that one must be an amateur cryptographer to have some privacy?
that's how i used to view owning a car, but after a while people stopped inviting me to get-togethers...
but seriously, there's relying on your friends when you accidentally leave your phone at home or in the car, and then there's treating your friends as walking pay phones. perhaps it's not as bad as telling people that you quit smoking and then bumming cigarettes off of everyone else. but it's still a pain in the ass trying to reach someone who doesn't have a cellphone.
i guess it all depends on your social life. maybe your friends are cool with it, or maybe you just don't need to use a cellphone very often. but i couldn't live without my cellphone. since getting a cellphone in high school i've lost the ability to remember people's phone numbers. this led to a rather embarrassing situation at the hospital when i couldn't tell the nurse what number to dial to reach my girlfriend.
the NSA could be using loopholes in the law
Why use loopholes when they don't have any qualms about outright breaking the law?
You don't watch them. You just keep a log.
After a leak occurs, you cross-reference the reporter's path with the paths of everyone that had access to the information. When you find one person who was in the same place as the reporter for a half hour the day before the story broke, chances are you've identified the whistleblower to retaliate against.
Or you pick out whoever your most vocal critic is for the day and find out where their dirty little secrets are. Use whatever you learn to discredit them.
If you need something done, find a random person's secrets and blackmail them.
You need to blackmail someone in particular? They live a perfectly clean life? Find their associates and use (blackmail) them to pressure your target.
While what you say is true in the general case, it is not necessarily true. In particular, when the courts rule it to be in the greater good (INIAL, so I'm not sure the specific criteria) they can suspend free speech rights. Also, of course, contracts are frequently used to limit speech on certain subjects, though of course those can only impose civil penalties and must be agreed to by both parties.
So, while the gag orders very likely do not fit within those limitations, they do pose one very real problem: how do you challenge them without violating them? If you just want to take the hit, you can always just ignore it, but you'll almost certainly be in federal prison for a couple years before hearing the first verdict with regards to the constitutionality of the order. And furthermore if you were successful challenging them, do you really want to be on the NSA and FSI's shit list?
Finally, there is no evidence (I am aware of) that these orders are so bad. If the NSA was targeting, say, 10 people, I'm pretty sure most people would agree that would be pretty fair and fall within the realm of a standard investigation (in which case the gag orders would be seen as fair). The real problem is that the providers aren't even allowed to say "chill out it's only a handful of people". And that, I suppose, is the big problem.
Gag orders are quite legal.
First Amendment rights can be suspended if it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that it is in the interest of the common good. That is why it is illegal to yell "fire" in a theater when there is no fire - the possibility of people getting hurt in a panic balances your right to free speech.
Gag orders protect many national secrets that would cause the death of thousands, perhaps millions of people. They conceal the locations of government operatives, and protect the true capabilities of the nation's defense.
They are extremely beneficial when used correctly. Unfortunately, they are abused at a rate that is quite alarming by corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen.
Here we go again. it isn't what they have to hide, it's the things that you don't want to tell people. Just because it's the government *gasp!* it doesn't give them the right to force everyone into revealing what kind of underwear they're wearing. You might not value your privacy and have no problem giving out information, but at what point will you start to have a problem with it? At that point, you're no different than those of us who prefer to give out no unnecessary private information at all. And still, neither group has anything to hide. Does it make sense now?
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Can you imagine the scrutiny you'd be inviting to your doorstep if you were the first one to buy a setup like that? Not only that, but look at how difficult it has been to instigate widespread use of PGP -- it's growing (and fast!), especially with more user-friendly interfaces such as Ubuntu's, but the sad reality is that most people really don't care.
I ask the exact same question all the time, and from fellow slashdotters, you'll get a 'hear hear', but from John Q. Public, you're more likely to get a 'I prefer my false sense of security over your privacy rights'. Downright aggravating, I know.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
You can't be blackmailed if you have no secrets...
Lets say one day you protest something the government does that you don't like, lawfully exercising your free speech and rights to petition the government for a redress of grievance. Now you have popped up on the government's radar screen. They then go check the voluminous records they have started keeping on every American!
There are millions of laws on the books many of them are complex and hard for the average person to follow. How many of them have you broken and don't even know about it.
All the government has to do now is go back and go through your call logs and other electronic traces with a fine tooth comb looking for one to bust you with.
Your best friend is a member of several environmental groups, one of them the government suspects of environmental terrorism. You were in close proximity to this drug dealer, that mafia guy, some guy who got busted for breaking into homes.
Even though you are a law abiding citizen can you be sure that every single person you ever have come in contact with is, or was as well? That is the true danger of this. Guilt by association or proximity.
I hope this clarifies things for you somewhat...
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