Slashdot Mirror
DOJ: We Don't Need a Warrant To Track You
GovTechGuy writes "The Department of Justice maintains it does not need a warrant to track an individual using location data captured from their cellphone. 'Cellphone location records are currently lumped under Title 1 and Title 2 of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (PL 99-508), which cover stored communications and call details. Accessing those types of information typically requires only a court order, rather than a warrant, as is required for the contents of a phone call or digital message under Title 3.' That has prompted Maine and Montana to pass laws banning warrantless cellphone tracking; unfortunately, Congress doesn't appear close to doing the same."
Ones that say that yes they do need a warrant. Meh, who am I kidding these days...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
But beyond a little moaning before the TV cameras they're thick as thieves behind closed doors and we can just about forget them rolling this one back or reigning it in.
So, it's not Bush or Obama, but Ronnie we can thank for this.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Having aggregated data is understandable for capacity management, but why does Verizon need to save my specific location associated with my IMEI?
I've been blaming the American people for this, since Ronnie.
We're the ones who keep voting in people who are tougher on crime than the last one was, and they pass laws to make things easier for them to do so. So what do you expect?
Soo... since it's pretty well established at this point that the DOJ does not respect the authority of the US Constitution, it would stand to reason that We, the People, should as a matter of principle and duty refuse to respect the authority of the DOJ, correct?
Bullshit like this is why I feel an irresistible urge to pimp-slap someone every time I hear the Constitution referred to as "a living document."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If they do not want to obey the laws, then neither shall I.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
someone needs to do their research
One thing you can do is do not turn on GPS location services on your phone unless you need them. This also saves quite a bit of battery life since processing GPS signals to get a location takes a lot of juice. It doesn't prevent "them" from using cell tower triangulation to track your location but that's more difficult and not as accurate.
Be aware that some apps will "help you out" by turning on GPS services for you and some apps won't function correctly unless they can access your GPS provided location.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Dear DOJ:
And WE don't need a warrant to vote for the first presidential candidate who promises to rock your world and make sure your out of control ass gets curbed, and to prosecute everyone who failed to honor their pledge to UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION. In fact maybe the NSA doesn't even need to exist. We won WW2 without you.
Sincerely,
voting citizens who have a clue and a care
I wonder how the government would feel if someone were to put up a website that gives real-time information about the location of members of congress, based on cell-phone data? Surely that wouldn't make them feel a bit uneasy, even if there were no publicly-ill intentions, right?
I'm so glad we have a two party system where one party is so very obviously good and virtuous and the other is evil for all to see. We should keep voting blindly along party lines based on the rhetoric these people speak rather than looking at their actions.
I must excuse myself, the Two Minute Hate is about to begin.
The US has become a police state. Going forward means always being cognizant of that. We must first demand that government cut the funding for these alphabet organizations, perform mass layoffs of personal, and shut the machine off. They will resist and there for we must deny them the capability of spying by shutting down accounts with service providers and stop buying and using hacked hardware and software. Continuing with denying spying capability we must protect our information with hardened, secured software and hardware using insanely powerful encryption.
Congress? Do something? I love the way they created meaningful gun control legislation after the Newtown shootings. And the whole sequestration fiasco. But don't get me wrong - they are the best legislative body that money can buy.
Hitler and the KGB only WISH they had balls this big...
If the government can track your cellphone and, presumably, use that data against you, are they obligated to pay attention to it? Or does it only matter when it helps their case?
For instance, if I say I was home all night and my cellphone tracking data confirms that, how legally meaningful are the cellphone tracking data? I mean, after all, it's not like I could leave my cellphone at home while I go out.
I have to think that their use of cellphone tracking data has to leave them open to some sort of spoofing.
Thanks for trolling. They can (and do) track you based on triangulation to cell towers. GPS is not needed.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
How does this not violate the precedent set by US v Jones?
Wrong. A President instituted the NSA on his own. A President could abolish the NSA on his own.
If your reasoning includes the word "lumped," you might want to re-think it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I expect to see a database listing how each federally elected official has voted on surveillance, and what there opponents have said/voted on the subject, by the next election.
Since governments in general disregard laws with impunity, what difference can it possibly make to pass laws requiring warrants? They will do what they are going to do anyway. The existence of a law will not change this behaviour. The powerful are not constrained by laws, only the weak.
A President instituted the NSA on his own. A President could abolish the NSA on his own.
A President could also ride a horse to victory in the Kentucky Derby....that doesn't mean a President is LIKELY to do so, though.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Time to start tracking all government officials' cell phones.
You are looking at it ass-backwards. Find an honest man with core principles who recognizes the NSA should be abolished, and is otherwise well qualified to be President, and help see him through to nomination and election. If you need a third party, add that to the list of things to do.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
http://rt.com/usa/aclu-license-plate-surveillance-216/
now give me your data!!!
Find an honest man with core principles who recognizes the NSA should be abolished, and is otherwise well qualified to be Presiden
No such thing.
To be elected to public office requires significant cognitive dissonance and a desire for ever greater powers of control.
Track this: ..|..
I don't know about you, but I didn't vote for the FISA court, or for the jackoffs on the Supreme Court, or for the head of the NSA or for any of the thousands of congressional staffers who are actually doing the legislating. Nor did I vote for the lobbyists who write the bills, or for ALEC or for the biggest PACs.
You could blame "the American People" if the elected officials were actually doing any governing. Unfortunately, we have outsourced everything to a bunch of people whose names we do not know and who are not accountable to anyone. That's why it sometimes seems so strange, how the legislative process often suddenly takes such unexpected turns, with last-minute changes and secrecy and obfuscation. I don't know too much about what it was like before the 1950's, but I know for sure that at least since 1980, the people we think of as our elected officials are not the ones running the government.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Since they can do whatever they want if you really want to be not tracked Dont carry a cell phone and drive an old ass diesel - the kind that dont require electons or the piss tank to function if you worried about installed bugs occasionally overvolt the electrical system - just take the light bulbs out first
If we can't get the damn laws passed, then the other solution is simply quit buying cell phones. Wireless is the lifeblood of all Telco's.
I promise, if you start cutting into their profits, they WILL get the law changed. Their lobbying power easily trumps yours or mine.
I normally don't resort to what is basically name-calling, but given how the 4th Amendment patently requires a number of criteria they are stating they will no longer bother with, that would normally make them criminals. However, with this statement, they've removed much of the ambiguity surrounding the searching issue, and added a significant amount of intent on their part. So instead of "merely" having criminals in high places at the DoJ, we have traitorous and un-American criminals instead.
This isn't, unfortunately, a conflict of law at the core, but instead a conflict of basic ideology and philosophy. If you believe in the constitution and the ideas about "freedom" and "equality" that it was built to maintain, you wouldn't try to argue your way around the spirit of the law. Everybody involve here knows damn well that the founders tried to stress the importance of limiting government's power and reach. So what do you call someone who willfully makes a point of acting against those very core ideas and protections? Someone who promises to continue violating the highest law of the land, in their own words?
Simple: "un-American traitors".
*sigh*
I guess I will keep trying to teach people gpg/otr/etc. One positive thing to come of this is that there have been more people receptive to learning some basic crypto the last month or so, than in the last ~12 years. "Better late than never?"
Ce n'est pas une signature automatique.
... as they do unto you.
Keep track, survey, note times, post, etc. etc.
Are there any projects -- is there anyone 'beschäftigt'
in this? It could be the chilling factor to put all such
state-run activities on ice. Notes such as "At 11:34 in
the a.m. senator ExWhyZee drank coffee" will get
their import sooner or later. If you don't think so you're
obliged to give a 'why' for the current surveillance-to-
the-last-comma.
Cheers my US compadres!
Is someone to post detailed location information of a key Congress member or two to the internet. Now if Snowden had collected some of that, it would really have been impressive to release it about now. It might get them moving on limiting the NsA's powers as well.
The DOJ assertion is so out there that the letter justifies a court order and freedom of information request to very that these people are not acting as agents of foreign nations.
There are hundreds of courts and a hundred actions could freeze the information and eventually unearth the social network of anti americans that are involved in this plot.
Ties to the EU, France, Germany, China and more are clearly important links....
It is time for action... or just another beer.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
... part that's going to apply the 4th Amendment to cell phone calls and tapping internet communications. You know, stuff Madison et all had no clue was going to be on the horizon in the 18th century. So, you want to try again, since your "immutable" Constitution "only" mentions "persons, papers and effects"?
Look at Obama's speech which happened not too long ago which has him saying that they do need a warrant and they only look up phone numbers and time of calls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w&feature=player_embedded
(sorry, i'm not sure how to link on /.)
Listen up. If you want to reduce the power that government has, you have to take away its means to exert that power. That means you have to vote for people who will actually shrink government, who will pass laws protecting your privacy, and reduce the amount of money these agencies have to spend.
I.e. not republicans and not democrats. Unfortunately, 75% of the population is dependent upon government benevolence for their means of survival so they will happily give up their liberties in exchange for a fatter dole to draw from.
Someone please explain to me how the location of a call isn't considered one of the "call details"? After all, the IP address of a visitor to a website is considered part of the connection details or metadata. I don't see how location could be separated from 'call details', but I'm sure the government has a special twist about that, so what is it?
We can still vote them out, but if we don't make the effort, then I cannot sympathize. The blame still lies directly on the shoulders of the voters that reelect criminals. We are bumping into a fatal flaw of majority rule. We let others vote away our rights.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You are going to. Ending the police state is going to be bumpy but the world needs one light or there will be none.
Most of y'all, those freaking on this, have lost all contact with reality, so let me help you. Here's a dose of reality, and maybe if you take the ENTIRE dose, you'll be inoculated.
Your cellphone is a RADIO TRANSCEIVER!!! It emits radio frequency electromagnetic radiation isotropically. Expecting privacy when using a cellphone is as absurd as walking into the middle of town square, screaming, and being pissed off that people noticed you there. You have (just as it should be,) NO expectation of privacy, that someone working for the government, a company, or one or more of the same, or any private individual or individuals, takes notice of the fact that you have walked into the middle of town square, and started screaming. Using your cellphone is exactly the same thing. If you want to be able to use a cellphone, and not have the government (or whomever) take notice of facts like where you are, and who you are, let me pose to you the following:
How the hell do you imagine your cellphone COULD work, without anyone being able to know who you are, (or at least what the ID number of your equipment, your IMEI Number or whatever,) and WHERE you are? Do you imagine that police, for example, should be obliged not to look at people as they patrol their beat, or take no notice of the fact that you're there? Considering that crimes can be solved or better, prevented by deterrence, why would you NOT want the authorities to be able to use what anyone using these things puts out there? We all should be suspicious of police, given the authority we grant them over us, we have both the right and the obligation to take care to ensure they don't misuse their power, but this isn't a misuse.
If I can make an analogy, for the feds to listen in on your phone calls is one thing, for them to observe that you've made one using a device that by law must be licensed (by the FCC) because it emits EM radiation, is another. It's like the difference between observing that a given individual, you say, walks into a particular house or business, and them putting their ears up to the walls to listen in on what you say. Metadata may tell people a lot about you, but not any more really than simply following you, and watching whom you talk to, in public.
Also, unlike a true, naked and unashamed police state, in America, if you don't want people tracking you using your cellphone, you have OPTIONS. For example, if you don't want people to know where you are from your phone, leave it at home, or turn it off (and if you're really paranoid, pull the battery out, or better still, put it in a cleptobag, or boosterbag or whatever,) or just don't have one.
People freak out too that cops use cameras on their cars to record where people go with their cars. That's close to the same thing. When you drive, you're operating a potentially deadly weapon, with which it is trivial to do between thousands and millions of dollars of damage, to say nothing of the potential for loss of life, pain and suffering they can cause. They are perfect machines for doing the kind of damage I have just described, and then immediately run off. Even a gun can't do that. You can't drive it or ride it away. Hence why you have to have a LICENSE PLATE.
Don't want to be tracked? Don't drive. Take a cab, ride a bike, or perhaps a horse.
Let's NOT forget, just as a cellphone (or a car for that matter,) is an amazing tool for connecting people, it can also facilitate malfeasance, up to and including murder, mass murder, and overthrows of governments. It would be irresponsible for any government NOT to abate the increased threat criminals pose, armed with advanced, mobile telecommunications technology by gathering what intel they can. It would be suicidally stupid, in fact.
Again, if you don't want to be tracked, here are a few things you can do:
1. Don't use (or even have) a cellphone.
2. Don't use (or even own) a car, or a license to operate one.
3a. Never set foot in public without being dressed head to toe, and wear e
I used to work Search and Rescue in the USCG, and almost every 'overdue boater' case we'd work on getting this very same cell phone information. Sure it was time critical (life/limb, etc) but even then we'd go through the proper channels. We'd just call and give them a heads up we'd need info on this number, they start the process then wait for *us* to meet the legal requirements before handing over the info, which 9 times out of 10 would show us that this 'overdue boater' just forgot to call his wife while out for beers along the coast :P
There is *never* an excuse to not use the proper channels.
They certainly don't deserve respect, and as for me I
do not fear them either.
What's that leave, other than contempt ?
Not much.
This just in: Meta-data is DATA.
On a related note: Spying is SPYING.
On yet another related note: I never GAVE anyone the RIGHT to spy on ME.
On yet another related note: The government is seriously f***ing out of control, not to mention out of their f***ing minds, and they need to be STOPPED.
On the other hand, I'm just a commenter. I take no action.
Obama will fix this. Just keep waiting for it!
Your location is detectable because your phone has a transmitter inside. Unless it is free to operate, it will not transmit, and your location cannot be calculated. It requires power to operate. (For the optimists out there, it also requires not being in airplane-mode to operate.) It requires being in "free-space" to operate.
You are therefore free to decide when, and when not, you wish your location to be known. Perhaps you know someone who can install a power-off switch in the phone (or convert the ringer switch to one). Or perhaps you have a phone which lets you remove the battery, or know someone who can modify the phone so that the battery can be removed. Or perhaps you wish to carry the phone in a Faraday-cage-style bag or can.
There are options. Of course you'll have to be willing to give up some convenience. They are hoping you'll not be.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
"'Cellphone location records are currently lumped under Title 1 and Title 2 of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (PL 99-508), which cover stored communications and call details. Accessing those types of information typically requires only a court order, rather than a warrant, as is required for the contents of a phone call or digital message under Title 3.'"
'We' are most definitely not 'Federal' as in Federal Government Of The United States Of America!
Therefore, we can locate+triangulate+record cellphone transmissions of location and voice and identity!
NSA wants to blackmail every legal citizen, per Obama order, of the United States of America. Why? CASH!
Now we can snoop the employees of NSA and blackmail THEM!
HA HA HA What at birthday present!
In the near 24hr future "the 'Geniuses' of the NSA will be 'sequestered' to a landfill in Maryland where they will be murdered! But by the terms of their employment contracts the 'actions' will be written as 'agreements' and the 'Murders' will be just 'killings.'
Ha Ha Ha. What a day indeed.
This case was settled in United States vs Jones on January 23rd 2013 that they need a warrant to be able to track GPS coordinates for any extended period of time.
We're all way too willing to surrender rights for security from terrorism. Look at the uproar when the TSA tried to repeal the small knives ban. The second another terrorism incident occurs, people will be looking for their civic scapegoat and no elected official wants to wear that bullseye. Until people are willing to accept risk, politicians have shrewdly decided to give the people what they demand.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yeah, you might want to spend 15minutes looking up legal definition of "personal effects" and see how broadly scoped it is, and was even back in the 16th century.
Om, nomnomnom...
We do not need a 'Warrant' to kill DOJ employees.
Ha
Or at least don't be vulnerable: Come up with a grassroots mobile phone system that doesn't leak quite as much information. I'm sure there's people around that can help design and build such a system. And with access to manufacturing equipment ever easier, implementing should be doable and only become more doable. Can probably even sell it as a disaster recovery gambit.
Any takers? Anyone interested? Drop a line here, I'll set something up.
The first "we're tracking your car" pushback on privacy was that knowing where you went was thought to be no different than a cop car following you everywhere you go, just more efficient.
How long will it be before listening in / recording your calls is explained as "it's no different than if we just walked 3 feet behind you all the time"?
I'll pulling my battery unless I need to make a call.
It's a fucking shame how our government is becoming more and more like the cold war-era East Germany.
No, it *is* cut and dry. You say:
The 4th amendment defines what a reasonable search and/or seizure process consists of. And that definition is: a warrant, describing the things to be searched and/or seized; said warrant only being issuable upon determination of probable cause, as supported by oath or affirmation.
Just ask yourself: If that's not the definition of reasonable for the purpose of search, then why is it there in the first place? Do you think that's the definition of when they can't search? Do you think it's the definition of when you can have a cheeseburger? Do you think it is extra words left over from some other amendment?
Here's the 4th amendment in its entirety:
The 4th amendment tells you, albeit in somewhat archaic language, that search and seizure is not something that can be done unless all those specific points are met in a positive fashion. More pointedly, it's telling you that those metrics are what make the search reasonable. Reading it so that none of the metrics there apply if the searcher thinks the search is "reasonable" under any other criteria than those specified makes the amendment absolutely pointless and toothless; ergo that cannot be the correct way to read it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Those words don't mean what you think they mean. Which has caused you to completely misinterpret what the intention was.
Militia did not mean "national guard" or "army." It meant an armed citizen (male, typically) capable of fighting. You can be sure of this because there was no army or guard at the time. You can also be sure of it because that was how it was defined in law at the time.
The intent of the 4th is, in fact, to ensure that the citizens are armed.
While we're at it, "well regulated" didn't mean "lots of laws", it meant "consistently armed and prepared. So much shot, musket, powder, etc." Regulation was used in the sense that a clock is well regulated, consistent, dependable (in fact, a brand of clock at the time was "Regulator.")
Take a look at the Militia Acts of 1792 in order to shed a little light on what these terms actually mean.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
A law on its own isn't really a solution here. What is needed is a constitutional amendment appending specific protections against this kind of thing to the Constitution.
The way I see it, there are two fundamental problems with applying the Fourth Amendment to this in our current legal system:
First, the records are not ours. They belong to the telecoms. Therefore, they can give them to any bloody person they choose. In fact, a citizen challenging this in court may even be told they have no standing to challenge it on fourth amendment grounds because it is not their own records, but the records of the telecoms.
Second, and more troubling, is that the law mentioned in TFA is certainly in violation of the intent of the Fourth Amendment, but not necessarily the letter of it. The unfortunate reality is that under the current system, law enforcement officials are probably correct to argue the "no reasonable expectation of privacy" point, legally speaking.
However, I do not think it is unreasonable to expect that your whereabouts be stored by public or private entities in a way useful for tracking you. In fact, we have laws against that already. If not universally, certainly in most places, that would be considered stalking.
We have to realize that piling laws on top of laws isn't a solution when the law already violates our basic civil rights as intended by the Bill of Rights.
The only solution I can think of is clarifying amendments to the constitution that make clear our rights in a technologically saturated age. Without electing the right people, though, we stand no chance.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
From your public servants.
Look, people. If Google, Twitter, Facebook, et al don't need warrants, why the hell should we be required to get them every time we feel the need to violate your privacy?
Regards,
The Feds
Infinitely more useful would be to hack the personal information for every member of congress and every major public official and then blast it continuously everywhere on the internet. i bet the shoe fits tightly when on the other foot.
Hate to respond to a trolling AC, but just can't resist.
Knowing that I have a mobile phone, or that I'm using it, isn't the same thing as knowing where I am 24/7, who I've called, how long I talked, etc. That information isn't normally discernible by anyone but me, the recipients of my communication, and the telecom providers I've contracted with to enable that communication. In other words, it's not public information.