If anyone wants to hear how easy it is for law-enforcement to snoop on your physical location (with the friendly help of your mobile carrier--which will gladly sell your privacy for a bag of your tax dollars and as little documentation as a scribbled post-it note request), then call Sprint PCS' law-enforcement surveillance autoattendant at (800)877-7330, Option 4 for "GPS ping requests".
Telecom Digest list members in the Philadelphia area may want to visit the Federal Courthouse at 6th & Market Streets this Thursday morning (2/11/10) to see and hear U.S. government spooks argue why they shouldn't have to show probable cause to electronically track your movements and spend your tax dollars doing it. ACLU, EFF, and CDT lawyers will be there arguing for your electronic privacy rights.
A good public showing might convey to the Judges that "We the People" don't want our government performing unwarranted electronic surveillance on us. Plus it's a good opportunity to meet and thank lawyers from public-advocacy groups who are working hard to protect your electronic privacy rights.
(Please forgive my 'activist' posting, but I figured Telecom Digest list members might understand and care more about this issue than the general public, and are in a better position to educate others about it.)
-bernieS
Case offers rare glimpse into the mechanics of federal criminal investigations where nearly all documents are filed ex parte and stay under seal until indictments are handed up
Shannon P. Duffy The Legal Intelligencer February 08, 2010
In a case that could prove to be one of the most important privacy rights battles of the modern era, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument this week on the proper legal standard to apply when prosecutors demand cell phone location data.
The data, which are recorded about once every seven seconds whenever a cell phone is turned on, effectively track the whereabouts and the comings and goings of every cell phone user.
Justice Department lawyers argue that, by statute, they need only show "reasonable grounds" to believe that such records are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."
But a federal magistrate judge in Pittsburgh strongly disagreed in February 2008, issuing a 52-page opinion that said the prosecutors must meet the "probable cause" standard.
"This court believes that citizens continue to hold a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information the government seeks regarding their physical movements/locations -- even now that such information is routinely produced by their cell phones -- and that, therefore, the government's investigatory search of such information continues to be protected by the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement," U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan wrote.
Now, in an appeal of Lenihan's ruling, the 3rd Circuit will become the first federal appellate court to tackle the question as Justice Department lawyers square off against a coalition of privacy and civil liberties lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy & Technology and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The appeal is scheduled to be heard on Thursday by 3rd Circuit Judges Dolores K. Sloviter and Jane R. Roth and visiting 9th Circuit Senior Judge A. Wallace Tashima.
Justice Department attorney Mark Eckenwiler will argue for the federal government and will be opposed by Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and law professor Susan Freiwald of the University of San Francisco School of Law.
[snip]Under a lower standard, Lenihan said, the data would be "particularly vulnerable to abuse" because of the ex parte nature of the proceedings and the "undetectable nature" of the cell phone service provider's compliance with such an order.
[...]