Court allows warrantless cell location tracking

Court allows warrantless cell location tracking

news.cnet.com

The FBI and other police agencies don't need a search warrant to track the locations of Americans' cell phones, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday in a precedent-setting decision.

In the first decision of its kind, a Philadelphia appeals court agreed with the Obama administration that no search warrant--signed by a judge based on a belief that there was probable cause to suspect criminal activity--was necessary for police to obtain logs showing where a cell phone user had traveled.

(visit the link for the full news article)

If I were you, I would turn off the GPS locator in your phone, though that will hardly help. It will however make their tracking a little less accurate. The authority being given to law enforcement is starting to resemble that of a police state, yet we are supposed to be the land of the free and the beacon of liberty and justice.

For anyone who still believes that Obama is bringing change, it's more than obvious that he is just continuing the clamp down that was excellerated under Bush. I know, I know, this doesn't directly involve Obama but this little ruling is the only going against our freedom and privacy.

When you have the police tracking our every move and watching the citizens like a hawk, you are a police state. When you can be arrested, thrown in jail indefinately without trial (suspension of habeas corpus), you are in a police state. When the [militarized] police forces have absolute authority over us, like they seem to have, then you have a police state. The people should not be affraid of the police. When the focus of the justice system is on the police forces and jails, you have a police state. If people can't see the dire situation we are currently in, just think about this... The US has more people imprisoned than almost any other nation in history, to include both the Soviets and Nazis. Now, we are giving our police unbridaled authority to control our every move. You can't have a nation focused on it's policing authory at the same time you that you have freedom. It's either one or the other.

--airspoon

news.cnet.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I could see how law enforcement would need a warrant for information pertaining to the usage of a cell phone since information in the phone's memory would be considered "private" to the user.

Although I can see how law enforcement would not need a search warrant for the finding of the location for a cell phone, because like land line based phones, there is no expectation of privacy to the location of said phone if it's using a company's telecommunication service to connect.

Turning off a phone's GPS wouldn't do any good since location can be determined by triangulation of the phone's signal through cell towers.

Interestingly, this method is now being integrated into Electronic Monitoring devices for Sheriff's Departments since cloud coverage can weaken the satellite signal.

Personally, I find this Court Decision to be abhorrent and contrary to the implied Right to Privacy assumed in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Following on the heels of the landmark decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia in the case of U.S. vs. Jones that firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone's car without a Search Warrant, this particular Court decision seems like it is fated for the same.

A cellphone acts as a tracking device when it transmits information about its location. A cellphone with a GPS carried upon one's person is fundamentally no different than a person's automobile with a GPS. It is therefore protected under the 4th Amendment and requires Probable Cause and a Search Warrant to track, just as a GPS on someone's car.

This issue of requiring a Search Warrant for tracking devices has already been outlined in FED. R. CRIM. P. 41 (f)(2)(B).

Rule 41 contains express procedures governing tracking device warrants, and those procedures need to be followed with regard to future requests for CSLI. This means several things. First, in past applications, the Government has taken the position that it has no obligation to provide notice of the tracking to the cell phone user, as its notice obligation was met by service of the order on the telecommunications provider from whom it received the CSLI. This does not meet the requirements of Rule 41, which provides that when a tracking device warrant is authorized, "the officer must serve a copy of the warrant on the person who was tracked or whose property was tracked." FED. R. CRIM. P. 41(f)(2)(C). 19 Thus, warrants seeking CSLI must meet this obligation of Rule 41. Similarly, a return must be filed, as with all other warrants. FED. R. CRIM. P. 41(f)(2)(B).

However, despite the law being clear on this issue, TPTB that want a Police/Nanny State are pushing issues through lower Courts that will not stand up to scrutiny in higher Courts, knowing that it may take 10-13 years before it is heard and ruled upon in either a Court of Appeals or in the Supreme Court, giving Law Enforcement 10-13 years in which to knowingly violate the law.

This is not Justice! This is an abuse of our Justice System to violate the Will of the People and the Law of the Land.

Even though I personally have nothing to hide, it is decisions like this that make me choose not to have a cellphone.

reply to post by fraterormus


Havent you noticed, the courts here in America are doing their own thing, completely ignoring the Constitution and charter formed by our founding fathers. Our courts, especially our SCOTUS, is bought and paid for.

--airspoon

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by fraterormus

 

Havent you noticed, the courts here in America are doing their own thing, completely ignoring the Constitution and charter formed by our founding fathers. Our courts, especially our SCOTUS, is bought and paid for.

--airspoon

This is all true, however this does not prevent the human being, (citizen infers ownership of the state) from doing their own thing either. The Constitution granted us liberties, liberties are priveleges the State confers. The state can conversely take them away or modify them.

Rights as a human being are inherent though and inalienable provided you don't trade them for liberties, and you understand that your rights are something you have to defend yourself.

Our forefathers specifically told us that our liberties were destined to be short lived, if we did not exercise our right to protect them.

We have not exercised our right to protect them, and as a result have lost or had most of our liberties stripped or modified.

I have the right to ignore any and all laws, I have a right to try to outsmart the corporate government in it's enforcement of it's codes, I have the right to choose to be my own person, if I am prepared to take the responsibility and riks that are replete with that.

You do not get something for nothing, and no state gives away freedom for free. Not even ours.

These are all things contingent upon the individual.

What government and media has done is attempted to sell people the notion that such things can and are gauranteed when clearly they are not, and that government can provide security if given complete indiscretion, which clearly it can not.

Throw away cell phones remain an alternative, putting multiple phones on your account and spreading them around remains an alternative, using carrier pidgeons remains an alternative.

In this world you are only as free as you dare to be, and only as effective in that proposal as you are talented in exercising your freedom. It's like everything else. Your freedom becomes effective when you do.

Originally posted by ProtoplasmicTraveler
Rights as a human being are inherent though and inalienable provided you don't trade them for liberties, and you understand that your rights are something you have to defend yourself.

Our forefathers specifically told us that our liberties were destined to be short lived, if we did not exercise our right to protect them.

We have not exercised our right to protect them, and as a result have lost or had most of our liberties stripped or modified.

Absolutely true!

And thus the words: "We the People..."

Government only has the power which we choose to give to our government. Liberty can not be taken away, only given through lack of action or complacency.

There comes a point where when people feel infringed upon by their government have to stand up and say "Don't Tread On Me!" They have to draw a line and say "Enough is enough!" They have to stand up to their public officials who are working for them and say "I would rather have my Liberty than a false sense of security.". They have to take up quill and ink and draft new laws, new amendments to ensure that those specific Liberties are never infringed again.

Our government may be flawed, but it does work.

Unfortunately post-9/11 widespread hysteria and paranoia has made our elected officials seem to think that our priorities as a Nation are no longer about Liberty and are instead about Security, forgetting the sagacious words of Benjamin Franklin who said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Freedom is a two-edged sword that demands action with responsibility in order to wield it.