Judges block government cellphone tracking
posted Oct 27th 2005 5:30PM
A New York judge has upheld an earlier decision declaring that
the government can't track people by cellphone without a warrant. The judge, James Orenstein, said that government
agencies would need to show probable cause that a crime was being committed before getting approval to geotrack
someone. The decision is consistent with an earlier one by Orenstein, and with one by a judge in Texas, who rejected a
government request for a cellphone tracking order. Of course, the judicial decisions only affect law enforcement
agencies. Your boss is still free to track you via that new Sprint phone he just gave you (and
you're free to track your kids as
well). And don't expect the Department of Justice to take this lying down. Both rulings are expected to be
appealed.
This judge made the right decision. The spooks don't need to be able to track people at will...they SHOULD need to convince a judge first. A small victory for freedom.
I love the US justice system(only when it works)
Amen to that. This judge made a very smart choice. While it would be helpful for law enforcement, it is a direct invasion of privacy. We are in a free country, not a police state.
This will have implications at a number of levels, including corporate and mmunicipal. It's a little frightening how many people have been wanting to start tracking cell phones for advertising, traffic control, etc. This isn't over yet.
They can still do it with no warrant thru the Patriot Act in extreme cases.
-BT-
God, what a nightmare that this question would even have to go to court in the first place, let alone that it's being appealed.
The sick thing is that congress wouldn't be supporting or allowing this kind of thing if - and this is the scary part - most of the public didn't support it too.
Think about that. I bet if you went to any of the red states and asked random people if they thought it was ok to track US citizens who might be terrorists by their cell phone without a warrant, they'd say yes. The problem is that pretty much anything can be considered terrorism these days - as a lot of people in jail on unrelated charges can testify.
In soviet russia, cell phone tracks YOU!
Who says the DOJ would have to know? It's not like they (can) inspect all the activities of some agencies like the NSA/CIA. It may stop more public agencies like the FBI however.