Category Archives: Privacy

Warrantless GPS Tracking Isn’t A “Search”

Police Watch, Privacy, Technology, The Bill Of Rights

According to the 7th Circuit, cops can place a GPS tracking device on your vehicle, without warrant, based on a claim of suspicion. That claim doesn’t ever have to be justified to a judge, and since it doesn’t require a warrant, “probable cause” is whatever the officer thinks it is. The device will be similar to those available from firms who specialise in fleet tracking to ensure businesses can manage their drivers and trucks whereabouts. If you’d like to find out more, you can click here to go to the Autoconnect website.

From engadget:

Earlier this month, the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals “ruled against a defendant who claimed that the surreptitious placement of a GPS tracking device amounted to an unconstitutional search,” essentially giving the coppers the green light to add a GPS module to a suspicious ride sans a warrant. While we’re sure the privacy advocates out there are screaming bloody murder, the district judge found that they had had a “reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity,” and it seems that a well-placed hunch is all they need for lawful placement. Interestingly, the government argues that no warrant was needed since “there was no search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,”

I guess my post over the weekend on RFID tracking didn’t even take into account that they’re already doing it with GPS.

Now, I don’t really like the idea of government being able to track with GPS. Just like I don’t like the idea that the Department of Homeland Security might tap our phones. What is truly disturbing, though, is when they try (and courts uphold) their ability to do it without any sort of oversight. I worry about giving government power; I’m truly terrified of giving them unaccountable power.

As I pointed out in my RFID post, most of you won’t ever have to worry about this. After all, you haven’t done anything wrong. And the bulk of the usage that cops and politicians will get out of these sort of technologies will be for actual lawbreakers (even if they’re breaking stupid laws like those of the War on Drugs). But the tools are also tools of harassment. And as the Manassas Park story shows us, it’s a tool to harass YOU if you make powerful enemies.

But it can spread wider. The state has the power, and libertarians are consistently making themselves enemies of the state. With the labyrinth of laws, so widespread that nobody can exist without breaking laws; this gives the state power to “legally” harass people who don’t serve its purposes or actively work against them. You know, people like me. It’s just fine to call the state a bumbling, stumbling fool, but it’s pretty difficult to defend yourself when that fool takes aim at you.

Hat Tip: Radley Balko @ Hit & Run

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

They Don’t Need To Know Where I Am

Privacy, Technology

Each day, technological advancements and developments in electronics or wireless communication make the world a lot smaller. Benefits abound, as the world becomes more accessible from devices we carry in our pockets. And it’s not just the tech industry that’s benefiting from this. Take construction as an example, many companies are now using Sage software for field service to help streamline their businesses. It allows them to fully automate the most common processes by integrating digital accounting tools that will improve their growth, revenue as well as customer satisfaction. For example, invoices are the backbone of the accounting system of any business, and an invoice software could prove beneficial to the business and help make the day-to-day activities more efficient and organized.

If you’re looking for another example, RFID is one application with a lot of commercial applications. It’s been used by companies like Wal-Mart to further streamline their warehouse and inventory operations, along with a host of other uses. It is very important for businesses to have inventory tracking so that they can see what items are selling the best, whether any stock goes missing, along with a variety of other things. This is so a business can automatically see what they need to do within their business in order to make the most profit in the future. Furthermore, now, Mini has begun using it for advertising purposes.

When a new billboard in San Francisco scrolls the message “Motor On Vera!” it’s a good bet that someone named Vera is driving her Mini Cooper at that moment.

Or that her car is nicknamed Vera.

A billboard using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology started “talking” Monday. In a new twist on tech-savvy marketing, the board flashes a personalized message as the driver cruises by with a Mini-provided key fob that sends a signal to activate the billboard. It’s all part of the flippant, quirky attitude of Mini and its loyal following.

“Our owners are sort of pre-trend,” said Andrew Cutler, a spokesman for Mini USA. “They appreciate new and innovative things, and being on the cutting edge of whatever point of view.”

As an engineer, I find this to be extremely cool. I think those working in pr for tech companies probably love these features as well because they get to develop better brand marketing strategies. I like the idea that the billboard can give an individual driver a message as they approach. If I owned a Mini Cooper and lived near that area, any time a friend came into town I’d have to drive by there and check the message.

As a libertarian, though, I worry. These new technologies make tracking people and behavior much more easy. There’s something unsettling about the idea that it’s possible to find me wherever I go. It’s even more unsettling that these new technologies are making people more used to the idea of being tracked. It’s difficult to get someone to sign onto a technology with tracking capability when it’s presented as such. But present it as a “convenience”, such as the I-Pass (which carries a discount if you hold their transponder), and the people will sign up in droves.

Granted, an RFID transmitter, particularly if it’s produced by Mini and they don’t offer the government a matching database of owners, isn’t a big deal. But the more “not a big deal’s” we have, the closer we get to the day when the public accepts an RFID transmitter in their driver’s license or license plate, and receivers are embedded into traffic signals and squad cars.

I, for one, worry about what sort of consequences might come from this sort of innovation. Not that I think the government is competent enough to really make legitimate use of all this information, but I’m sure it will make them much more capable at harassing people. Of course, I haven’t done anything wrong, so I shouldn’t have to worry about it, right?

Hat Tip: Atlas Blogged

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Maine Strikes Blow For Free Speech!

Individual Rights, Privacy

Maine has taken a strong stand against the Real ID Act. Bastions of freedom that they were, the said the act was an unconscionable infringement on civil liberties too expensive for the state to fund.

Maine revolts against digital U.S. ID card

Maine lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to demand repeal of a federal law tightening identification requirements for drivers’ licenses, a post-September 11 security measure that states say will cost them billions of dollars to administer.

Maine lawmakers passed a resolution urging repeal of the Real ID Act, which would create a national digital identification system by 2008. The lawmakers said it would cost Maine about $185 million, fail to boost security and put people at greater risk of identity theft.

…

“We cannot be spending millions of state dollars on an initiative that does more harm to our state than good,” said Maine’s House Majority leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, in a statement that called it a “massive unfunded federal mandate.”

Those of us who believe in civil liberties see a digital national ID card as the first step in the “show us your papers” world. To legislators in Maine, it’s only a problem if the feds don’t pick up the tab.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

U.S. Military Spying On American Citizens

Individual Rights, Privacy, War on Terror

The New York Times reports today that the CIA and military intelligence have been spying on Americans and others living in the United States:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.

The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.

The F.B.I., the lead agency on domestic counterterrorism and espionage, has issued thousands of national security letters since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, provoking criticism and court challenges from civil liberties advocates who see them as unjustified intrusions into Americans’ private lives.

But it was not previously known, even to some senior counterterrorism officials, that the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been using their own “noncompulsory” versions of the letters. Congress has rejected several attempts by the two agencies since 2001 for authority to issue mandatory letters, in part because of concerns about the dangers of expanding their role in domestic spying.

This is, as you might imagine, a major change from the way things are supposed to be:

“There’s a strong tradition of not using our military for domestic law enforcement,” said Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, a former general counsel at both the National Security Agency and the C.I.A. who is the dean at the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. “They’re moving into territory where historically they have not been authorized or presumed to be operating.”

Similarly, John Radsan, an assistant general counsel at the C.I.A. from 2002 to 2004 and now a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, said, “The C.I.A. is not supposed to have any law enforcement powers, or internal security functions, so if they’ve been issuing their own national security letters, they better be able to explain how they don’t cross the line.”

Quite honestly, it’s hard to contemplate how they don’t cross the line.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com
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