[IP] Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: December 9, 2005 10:24:44 PM EST
To: EPIC_IDOF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [EPIC_IDOF] Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court
Fights on Privacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/technology/10phone.html?
ei=5094&en=4dace02
ac3105d11&hp=&ex=1134190800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
December 10, 2005
Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
By MATT RICHTEL
Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government
agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from
the
handset.
In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular
technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of
suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which
investigators
have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now
come
under tougher legal scrutiny.
In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors
the
right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies
without
first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is
being
committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search
warrants.
The rulings, issued by magistrate judges in New York, Texas and
Maryland,
underscore the growing debate over privacy rights and government
surveillance in the digital age.
With mobile phones becoming as prevalent as conventional phones
(there are
195 million cellular subscribers in this country), wireless companies
are
starting to exploit the phones' tracking abilities. For example,
companies
are marketing services to users that turn their phones into even more
precise global positioning devices for driving or allowing parents to
track
the whereabouts of their children through the handsets.
Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies want to exploit this
technology,
too - which means more courts are bound to wrestle with what legal
standard
applies when government agents ask to conduct such surveillance.
Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know,
within
about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is
turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with
cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the
phone's
position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over
location
information when presented with a court order to do so.
The recent rulings by the magistrates, who are appointed by a
majority of
the federal district judges in a given court, do not bind other
courts. But
they could significantly curtail access to cell location data if other
jurisdictions adopt the same reasoning. (The government's requests in
the
three cases, with their details, were sealed because they involve
investigations still under way.)
...
Richard
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