Hasta La Gadget!

The US Supreme Court might have ruled last year that GPS tracking is equivalent to a search, but that doesn’t mean the government’s practices are transparent. If anything, they may be more opaque than ever. The Department of Justice has responded to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request for a pair of GPS tracking policy memos by providing almost completely redacted versions that, effectively, say nothing. Not surprisingly, the ACLU isn’t satisfied — it’s worried that the government is playing fast and loose with definitions of where GPS tracking is usable, and when it requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Whether or not the allegations are true, the civil liberty advocates are going through the courts to push for more access; we may know the truth before too long.

[Image credit: Frédéric Bisson, Flickr]

Filed under: GPS

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Via: The Hill

Source: ACLU

If you go through tin foil like there’s no tomorrow (or because you think there’s no tomorrow), you might want to head down the store. A recent 2 – 1 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that law enforcement agencies can obtain cellphone location data, without the need for a warrant. The decision comes after a defendant in a drug-related case claimed protection from his phone’s GPS location data being used under the Fourth Amendment. Judge John Rogers stated that the defendant didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy for data given off by a voluntarily purchased phone, going on to state that if tools used in such crimes give off a trackable signal, police should be allowed to use it. Rogers likened it to the use of dogs tracking a scent, and criminals complaining they didn’t know they were giving one off, or that the dog had picked it up. The use of technology in crime prevention, be it police tools, or that belonging to the greater population, has long been a source of complex discussion, and this latest development is unlikely to be the end of it. But for now, at least one guy is rueing his decision to get a better phone. Hit the source for the full case history.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets

Sixth Circuit rules that law enforcement doesn’t need a warrant to track your phone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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