Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Real Time Credit Card Activity

PatPending writes "A 10-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF) that security and privacy analyst Christopher Soghoian recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request to the Department of Justice reveals that law enforcement agencies routinely seek and obtain real-time surveillance of credit card transactions. The government's guidelines reveal that this surveillance often occurs with a simple subpoena, thus sidestepping any Fourth Amendment protections."

Comments

Re:A records subpoena is a court order.

[the_raptor]

Business records aren't "papers"? Are you clinically retarded or just a Big Brother Lover? Business records is exactly the kind of thing the Founding Fathers were thinking about, not your collection of Japanese scat porn.

The records detailing the service provided by your credit card provider/bank should be just as private as the records of a business you run. The whole point of the 4th amendment is to stop Government fishing expeditions (by requiring evidence of probable cause) which is exactly what this is.

The only way you can defend this is if you are a short sighted fool who thinks unlimited surveillance by the Government is the only way to stop the terrorists taking your freedoms (at least this objective would be achieved as the terrorists wouldn't want your freedoms after the Government has left muddy boot prints all over them).

Also get back to me when politicians, police, and prosecutors give disclosure of their business records on request so the public can be sure they aren't taking money from criminal activity. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

and they call Assange a criminal?!?!?

[Phizzle]

As law abiding citizens we get sexually assaulted by the TSA, and have our privacy constantly violated by every 3 letter government parasite, and when we complain we are told that its all in the name of "Greater Good" and the ole Family Guy "Everything changed on 911..... EVERYTHING!!!", but when guy like Assange basically does what American news agencies do for ratings suddenly even the most staunch conservatives call for his head ignoring our own constitution and the international laws. Boooooooogles teh mind!