Obama administration: Warrantless GPS tracking needed to fight terrorism | The Raw Story

Obama administration: Warrantless GPS tracking needed to fight terrorism | The Raw Story:

The Obama administration will argue before a federal appeals court on Tuesday that law enforcement must regain the ability to use GPS tracking devices without a warrant, which it says is necessary to continue the fight against terrorism.

The use of GPS devices in warrantless snooping has been illegal since January 2012, when the Supreme Court ruled that vehicles are private property protected by the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. If the Obama administration is successful on its appeal however, GPS devices will be fair game for police nationwide.

The administration’s brief (PDF) in U.S. v. Katzin, filed with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, goes even further than just arguing for law enforcement’s access to the technology: the administration says vehicle tracking is necessary to keep the nation safe from terrorist attacks as well.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, the president’s attorneys contend the original arguments are invalid because the so-called “automobile exception” to search warrants also applies to data showing where that vehicle is and has been, not just what may be inside.

The brief contends that passing on warrantless GPS tracking when it is a potential investigative tool has a “minimal” effect on safeguarding privacy, but a “great expense” to law enforcement and public safety. “Requiring a warrant and probably cause before officers may attach a GPS device to a vehicle, which is inherently mobile and may no longer be at the location observed when the warrant is obtained, would seriously impede the government’s ability to investigate drug trafficking, terrorism, and other crimes.”

The brief adds that the legal standard for “slap-on” GPS tracking devices should not be “probable cause” as the Constitution sets out for searches of private property, but “reasonable suspicion,” a lesser standard that allows an officer to begin a search for probable cause.

“Just because a technology wasn’t around when the Constitution was written doesn’t mean that it’s not covered,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Catherine Crump said in an advisory. “The fundamental privacy rights established by the Fourth Amendment require that police justify their actions and show probable cause to a judge before they can conduct invasive surveillance like constant location tracking. The ‘automobile exception’ was created so police could find contraband hidden in cars, not so they could monitor a person’s movements nonstop for days or even months on end.”

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Texas proposes one of nation’s “most sweeping” mobile privacy laws | Ars Technica

Texas proposes one of nation’s “most sweeping” mobile privacy laws | Ars Technica:

Texas proposes one of nation’s “most sweeping” mobile privacy laws

If signed into law, cops would finally need a warrant to get location data.

by Cyrus Farivar - Mar 6 2013, 7:37pm CST

• GOVERNMENT

39

If the bill passes, Austin, Texas could lead the nation in mobile privacy protection.

fusionpanda

Privacy experts say that a pair of new mobile privacy bills recently introduced in Texas are among the “most sweeping” ever seen. And they say the proposed legislation offers better protection than a related privacy billintroduced this week in Congress.

If passed, the new bills would establish a well-defined, probable-cause-driven warrant requirement for all location information. That's not just data from GPS, but potentially pen register, tap and trace, and tower location data as well. Such data would be disclosed to law enforcement "if there is probable cause to believe the records disclosing location information will provide evidence in a criminal investigation."

Further, the bills would require an annual transparency report from mobile carriers to the public and to the state government.

Under current federal case law and statute, law enforcement generally has broad warrantless powers to not only track suspects in real-time based on their phone data, but also to access records of where and when calls were made or text messages were sent or received—and all of this is provided by the carriers.

“Location information can reveal a great deal about an individual’s professional and personal life—her friends and associates, her participation in political or religious activities, her regular visits to a health clinic or support group, and more,” said Chris Conley, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

“That’s why we think it is essential that the government get a search warrant, approved by a judge, before demanding this kind of information from cell phone providers. The Texas bill would require just that. In addition, the Texas bill would also require companies to report how often they receive such demands from law enforcement and how much information they disclose. This kind of transparency is essential to carry on an informed dialog about appropriate law enforcement powers in the modern world.”

Broad powers

The unanimous 2012 Supreme Court decision on United States v. Jones ruled that law enforcement did not have the authority to track a suspect using a GPS tracking device put on a car without a warrant. But cops frequently use similar tactics with lower legal standards, including using the suspect’s own phone against her. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Justice to release GPS tracking-related memos.

The bills, which were introduced in the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate last month, are endorsed by the Texas Electronic Privacy Coalition. That's an umbrella group that includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin, Grits for Breakfast, Texans for Accountable Government, and the ACLU of Texas. They will need to pass both houses and be signed by the state governor, Rick Perry, before becoming law.

Ars reached out to the four major mobile carriers in the United States—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile—for their comment on this new bill. None of them responded on Wednesday except for Verizon, whose spokesperson, Debi Lewis, said the company had no comment.

One bill at a time

Not surprisingly, other civil libertarian and digital rights groups are looking with a hopeful eye that such legislation can influence other states and perhaps the federal government. According to the ACLU, 11 states have already introduced similar bills this year.

“What the states do on this issue will certainly influence what Congress does,” said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It's clear to me that because the location of a cell phone is mobile and because phones cross state lines routinely it's probably that if the states start acting then Congress would need to enact a uniform rule.”

Various states have tried to implement versions of such privacy protections in the past. California’s was famously vetoed by the governor in September 2012. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) introduced legislation in 2011 that would have also imposed similar restrictions, but none as strong as what’s been proposed in Texas.

“Although Senator Franken’s Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011 [PDF] and these Texas bills all seek to protect cell phone user’s location information, the Texas bills differ from Franken’s bill in scope, function, and specific objective,” Woodrow Hartzog, an affiliate scholar at Stanford Law School, told Ars. “Senator Franken’s bill is narrowly tailored to ensure that companies obtain consent before collecting or sharing location data from a consumer’s mobile device. The Texas bills are broadly aimed at the government’s collection of location information.”

He added that these bills were among the “most sweeping mobile location protection bills I've seen,” and he wondered if and to what degree they will become law.

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FBI responds to ACLU with blank pages - Salon.com

FBI responds to ACLU with blank pages - Salon.com:

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Tickle The Wire » ACLU Lashes Out at FBI for Refusing to Release Details of Warrantless GPS Spying

Tickle The Wire » ACLU Lashes Out at FBI for Refusing to Release Details of Warrantless GPS Spying:

Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

The ACLU is incensed that the FBI won’t hand over details of how agents have used warrantless GPS trackers on cars to monitor suspects, Salon.com {Cecil} (Salon is a FAR Left org) reports.

Responding to a request for public information, the FBI redacted virtually every word from the records, saying the information is privileged, Salon.com reports.

The ACLU wants to see other tracking methods used by federal agents following a Supreme Court ruling that determined GPS trackers require a search warrant. The group also wants to know how the FBI plans to retrieve GPS trackers already on cars.

“The Justice Department’s unfortunate decision leaves Americans with no clear understanding of when we will be subjected to tracking—possibly for months at a time—or whether the government will first get a warrant,” wrote Catherine Crump, an ACLU staff attorney.

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Is the NSA spying on you?

Is the NSA spying on you? - Tips, Reviews and Advice on All Things Digital - The Kim Komando Radio Show:

Excerpt:
 "If the NSA did want to grab information from U.S. citizens, however, it wouldn't be hard. It just needs some packet sniffers tied into major Internet providers. According to some reports, it already has those. Plus, it's already set up for wiretapping domestic phone calls.

On the plus side, the NSA wouldn't necessarily be targeting you specifically. Your information would be just a small drop in the raging torrent of information."

CECIL- ALPR wouldn't necessarily be targeting you specifically.
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CA Governor Vetoes Privacy Law

California Governor Vetoes Landmark Location-Privacy Law

• By David KravetsEmail Author
• 10.02.12
• 1:39 PM

Tracking a Sprint Nextel cellphone. Image: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio
California Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed legislation that would have required the state’s authorities to get a probable-cause warrant signed by a judge to obtain location information from electronic devices such as tablets, mobile phones and laptops.
The measure passed the state Senate in May and the Assembly approved the plan in August.
The veto of the first-of-its-kind legislation was no surprise.
Brown, a Democrat, last year vetoed a measure requiring police officers to obtain a warrant before searching someone’s cellphone after arresting them. That leaves California police officers free to search through the mobile phones of persons arrested for any crime.

California Gov. Jerry Brown. Credit: Phil Konstantin
This year, Brown again caved to law enforcement.
“It may be that legislative action is needed to keep the law current in our rapidly evolving electronic age,” Brown wrote in his veto message Sunday. “But I am not convinced that this bill strikes the right balance between the operational needs of law enforcement and the individual expectation of privacy.”
The legislation said that, if there was insufficient time to obtain a warrant due to a threat of serious danger or bodily harm — for example, in the case of a missing child — no warrant would be required.
The veto comes as prosecutors are increasingly using warrantless cell-tower locational tracking of suspects in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that law enforcement should acquire probable-cause warrants from judges to affix GPS devices to vehicles and monitor their every move, according to court records.
Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped craft the legislation along with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the governor’s veto continues a “dangerous trend” of “allowing law enforcement to gorge itself on as much data and information they can eat without a warrant.”
The package was intended to clear up the legal mess surrounding police acquiring location information that can be used to track citizens. Sometimes warrants are required and sometimes the signature of a law enforcement officer is all that is needed to obtain sensitive data of somebody’s whereabouts.
The California District Attorneys Association and the California State Sheriff’s Association opposed the measure, saying it was preempted by federal law.
The Obama administration maintains that Americans have no privacy in their public movements, and that their locational data from their mobile phone, for example, can be obtained without a warrant since it is held by a third party.
The California legislation would have only affected non-federal law enforcement officials conducting business in California.
Similar federal legislation has been stalled for more than a year, and is likely dead.
Meanwhile, the nation’s major cellphone companies objected to the bill because it would have forced them to publicly report the number of times they turn over cellphone location information to police and federal agents. They argued that it would be too burdensome, and would take time away from the important work of sharing customer data with cops “day and night.”
That part of the bill was subsequently deleted.
As it turns out, mobile carriers responded to 1.3 million law enforcement requests, by the states and federal government, for customer data last year alone for everything from text messages to location data to calling records, according to the carriers’ responses to a congressional inquiry. The data did not break down how many of those requests included a court warrant.