E-tracking through your cell phone By Declan McCullagh http://news.com.com/E-tracking+through+your+cell+phone/ 2010-1039_3-6038468.h tml Story last modified Mon Feb 13 06:24:49 PST 2006 You may already know this, but your cell phone happens to be a miniature tracking device that can be used to monitor your location from afar. There are times when knowing your exact location is useful, of course. It would be handy for a phone to help you find a gas station in a pinch, or bleep when you're about to take the wrong highway exit. But the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have seized on the ability to locate a cellular customer and are using it to track Americans' whereabouts surreptitiously--even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. A pair of court decisions in the last few weeks shows that judges are split on whether this is legal. One federal magistrate judge in Wisconsin on Jan. 17 ruled it was unlawful, but another nine days later in Louisiana decided that it was perfectly OK. This is an unfortunate outcome, not least because it shows that some judges are reluctant to hold federal agents and prosecutors to the letter of the law. It's also unfortunate because it demonstrates that the FBI swore never to use a 1994 surveillance law to track cellular phones--but then, secretly, went ahead and did it, anyway. FBI officials swore never to use a 1994 surveillance law to track cellular phones but are doing it, anyway. When lobbying for that law, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh assured the U.S. Senate that location surveillance would never take place unless there was evidence of wrongdoing. "It does not include any information which might disclose the general location of a mobile facility or service, beyond that associated with the area code or exchange of the facility or service," Freeh testified . "There is no intent whatsoever, with reference to this term, to acquire anything that could properly be called 'tracking' information." So much for promises from politicians. ... _______________________________________________ EPIC_IDOF mailing list EPIC_IDOF@mailman.epic.org https://mailman.epic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/epic_idof ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen@leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]