Feds push tracking cellphones: Obama admin to argue You have “No Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy"

[avaistheone1]

Cell Phone Tracking: The Most Important Case You've Never Heard Of

Down the path Friday morning comes a case as important as it has been underreported.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument from federal lawyers seeking legal authority for the police to demand cell phone location data without a showing of probable cause to a judge or magistrate. The case, many lawyers feel, has the potential to be "one of most important privacy rights battles of the modern era." It almost surely will end up before the United States Supreme Court and leads in the clubhouse for ruling of the year next term. It likely will determine the rights and liberties of hundreds of millions of cell phone users in the United States.snip

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/andrew_cohen/2010/02/down_the_trail_comes_these.php


http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html





"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century. If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."
--Kevin Bankston, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

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[dgibby]

2. What's next?

RFID chips?

[QC]

3. Don't give them any ideas! n/t

[dgibby]

6. As I understand it, they're already embedded in the new passports. n/t

[QC]

7. But it's for our own good!

That's why I agreed to have all these cameras placed in every room of my house--to protect me from the terrorists.

[tekisui]

4. There go more civil liberties. Thanks for nothing.

[Armstead]

5. Even if tyhis is not misused by Obama, think of how Pres. Palin or Romney will do with this

[avaistheone1]

16. That's true.

Presidents never like to give up powers once they are granted.

We better think long and hard about giving up any more of our rights.






:kick:

[Recursion]

8. Guess what: you don't

Broadcast signals are just that: broadcast. At least from this engineer's perspective, we have no expectation of privacy in what we broadcast in plaintext.

[unblock]

11. that's a horseshit facile argument that only proves a little learning is a dang'rous thing

yes, it's true that cell phones work by broadcasting your signal whereas landlines propagate by physical wires. but that's not enough to reach the conclusion that there's no reasonable expectation of privacy.

one of the simplest arguments is the key difference between cell phones and walkie-talkies or cb radios -- with cell phones, you dial a very specific number to establish a connection with a unique individual, and engage in conversation if and only if you establish, and to the extent that you maintain, a successful connection with that individual. that right there is compelling evidence that the expectation was that the entire point of the call was to have a private conversation with that particular individual.

but on a more technical level, how is a landline really any different in moral or legal terms? your signal is broadcast into a network, and while it is restricted to travelling along copper wires instead or broadcast in the air, it still can be routed and rerouted to reach anyone with a landline. in fact, you dial a unique number, asking the network to direct your call to the one particular person you wish to speak with, but the fact remains that your signal is propagated along a common network along with many other conversations and to which many other telephones have access.


now let's talk about the legal concept of curtilage. curtilage is the area just around your house. it is part of your property, but it is not enclosed. simply put, you DO have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your home from viewers on the curtilage. you do not have the right to parade around nude in your house if an ordinary viewer would be exposed to your nudity though a window from the street or sidewalk or a public vantage point or a private vantage point other than your own.

however, if someone would have to enter your curtilage in order to see your nudity, then you are free to parade around nude all you like because you DO have a reasonable expectation of privacy from people viewing you from your curtilage.


translate that concept to phones, and you have a good privacy argument. yes, your nudity was broadcast in that it COULD be seen from outside your house, but only if someone went out of their way to go into your private space. similarly, you may have broadast your cell phone conversation, but only in a way that someone other than the intended recipient would have to go out of their way to hear, knowing that they were invading your private space.

[Recursion]

12. Sorry. I always assume someone is listening to a cell phone call. Period.

And if you don't, I respectfully suggest you get what's coming to you. (I'm thinking more Russian Mob than FBI, but still. There's a reason drug dealers don't talk business on their cell.)

If you are not on a cryptographically secure channel, you have no expectation of privacy in a realistic sense. You may have one in a legal sense; I don't know. But you should assume any transmission that can be listened to is being listened to.

[unblock]

14. that's just it, we're talking the law, not practical security

i have a legal right to expect to be secure in my home; but in practice, i may chose to have considerable home protections against illegal activity. the obama administration is not arguing that people should reasonably expect their conversations to be ILLEGALLY accessed.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. This global positioning should go both ways.

If they can track us with our cellphones any time they like, then they have to provide a service to locate them when we lose them.

[gkhouston]

13. They're probably snooping already and just want to cover their asses. Again. n/t

[MadHound]

15. This is just the legalization of what is already occurring.

Hate to tell this to you folks, but if you live in almost any size city of significance, you are being tracked via your cell phone. This was sold to the public, if mentioned at all, about five years ago as a method for "traffic control". It happened in my nearby little city of 100,000. The thing is there is no real "traffic control" or even traffic reports. Sure, a couple of the local radio stations will check in with Joint Communications and tell people if there is an accident, but none of the regular traffic reports you hear in a larger city.

It is simply a ruse to allow the tracking of people, down to within a few feet. I mentioned that this was the wave of the future five years ago and many people scoffed about it then, well guess what, it's here, now. The American public in its infinite wisdom is hell bent on buying its own shackles.

Oh, and if you think that you can just avoid this by turning off your phone (not that more than a handful of people will do that), well what's coming down the pike should scare you shitless. Software, embedded into your cell phone that will always be active and able to track you whether your phone is on or off. Right now this is being offered by some companies as a way for parents to keep track of teens, but how soon before this software becomes standard issue with every cell phone?

So your choice comes down to this, do you give in, do you submit and buy your own chains? Or do you resist however possible? Me, I'm going to resist. I have a cell phone for emergencies that I carry around with me. It is off most of the time and those close to me know better than to call it. If, in the future when this phone is incapable of working anymore, I will buy another, simple cell phone and carry it with me, with the battery removed and stored separately. That way I can call if I want, but I can't be tracked.

Of course the mass of sheeple will just go blindly on, buying their own shackles, oblivious to what is going on around them.