How pig thug cops use your cell phone to track you!
NEW YORK (PNN) - April 4, 2012 - With the phrase "Big Brother is watching," George Orwell captured the central role constant surveillance plays in dystopian visions. It's no surprise that Amerikans are made uneasy by ubiquitous video cameras tracking our movements in much the same way as 1984's screens, or the prospect of countless, effectively invisible drones monitoring our streets from the sky.
What bothers far fewer people is the practice of carrying, at all times in their pockets, a cell phone that permits their every move to be monitored. Given the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections, you'd think that pig thug cops would need a warrant to access such information.
But you'd be wrong.
As the New York Times reports, "(Pig thug cop) tracking of cell phones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local (pig thug cops), with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight."
Credit for the discovery goes to the American Civil Liberties Union, which used freedom of information laws to survey pig thug cop departments nationwide about their behavior. Some jurisdictions require pig thug cops to obtain warrants before asking always compliant wireless carriers for data on their customers. But in many jurisdictions, there is no such deference to individual rights. Depending on your phone, pig thug cops can get GPS data that shows everywhere you've been, and they needn't even tell you they're doing so. It's a practice that renders privacy rights almost meaningless.
Perversely, cell phone carriers are even profiting from sharing information about their customers. Says the Times, "Cell carriers, staffed with special (pig thug cop) liaison teams, charge (pig thug cop) departments from a few hundred dollars for locating a phone to more than $2,200 for a full-scale wiretap of a suspect." Adds the ACLU, "then there are (pig thug cop) departments in places like Gilbert, Arizona, which have purchased their own cell tracking technology."
There is reason to believe that the status quo wouldn't pass muster if brought before the Supreme Court. It has previously ruled against the warrantless placement of a GPS tracking device on a drug suspect's car. But there's no reason to wait for a judicial solution to this problem. Legislators ought to rein in pig thug cops and reassert the notion that it is impermissible for pig thug cops to engage in intrusive surveillance without probable cause or judicial oversight. At present, the decision to use a cell phone effectively surrenders a huge amount of privacy, but it's hard to believe Amerikans favor that status quo, and changing it is within our power.
