On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth District threw the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution out the window, ruling that police can track cell phone GPS data – and thus track you – without a warrant. The case of United States v. Skinner centered on a suspected drug trafficker who was tracked through his cell phone and arrested by the DEA. The Judge in the case, John Rogers said in his ruling, "Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location." He went on to say, "Law enforcement tactics must be allowed to advance with technological changes, in order to prevent criminals from circumventing the justice system." There are two ironies to this decision. One, the Supreme Court ruled in January that cops could not place GPS tracking on someone's car without a warrant, so yesterday's ruling affirms that cops can track cell phones but not cars. Two, the ruling comes on the heels of the discovery of TrapWire – the massive law enforcement surveillance system that is tracking every Americans' whereabouts in order to detect terrorist threats. So, Judge Rogers's worries about criminals being able to circumvent the judicial system are unfounded. Never before in history, has law enforcement had this much surveillance and technology to keep tabs on Americans.
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7 comments:
You got to love them cell phones. But people will continue buying them and continue complaining.
you can turn the gps tracking off, except for 911.
The comparison between tracking phones and cars is the police cannot place a tracking device on your vehicle but if you have a tracking device that you placed on yourself they can track you.
Some phones, and I forget which one(s), have another battery in them with a wire sticking out of it. That is used to track the phone if the main battery fails or is removed.
For total privacy, you would have to remove the battery with the wire also.
But heck, with all the cameras around and the face recognizing software they have now, it wouldn't take them long to find anybody, IF they really wanted to.
I notice (and Thomas Jefferson has also likey noticed) that the courts are VERY concerned that the GOVERNMENT keeps pace with all these millions of dangerous terrorists (maybe someone should tell Napolitano how to track them, since she admits that these boogeyman terrorists DO cross our border "from time to time"), but have consistently failed to address the need for CITIZENS to be protected against the power of the government, which is the basic philosophy of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We are in trouble.
If it were only that simple. The tower data is what tracks the phone not the location services on the phone. You could disable all of the gps circuitry but the minute the signal hits the tower you can be located just not as accurately.
Don't be a drug trafficer!
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