Cell Phone Tracking and Obama

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.



Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."

Not long ago, the concept of tracking cell phones would have been the stuff of spy movies. In 1998's "Enemy of the State," Gene Hackman warned that the National Security Agency has "been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the '40s--they've infected everything." After a decade of appearances in "24" and "Live Free or Die Hard," location-tracking has become such a trope that it was satirized in a scene with Seth Rogen from "Pineapple Express" (2008).

Once a Hollywood plot, now 'commonplace'
Whether state and federal police have been paying attention to Hollywood, or whether it was the other way around, cell phone tracking has become a regular feature in criminal investigations. It comes in two forms: police obtaining retrospective data kept by mobile providers for their own billing purposes that may not be very detailed, or prospective data that reveals the minute-by-minute location of a handset or mobile device.

Obtaining location details is now "commonplace," says Al Gidari, a partner in the Seattle offices of Perkins Coie who represents wireless carriers. "It's in every pen register order these days."

Gidari says that the Third Circuit case could have a significant impact on police investigations within the court's jurisdiction, namely Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it could be persuasive beyond those states. But, he cautions, "if the privacy groups win, the case won't be over. It will certainly be appealed."

CNET was the first to report on prospective tracking in a 2005 news article. In a subsequent Arizona case, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration tracked a tractor trailer with a drug shipment through a GPS-equipped Nextel phone owned by the suspect. Texas DEA agents have used cell site information in real time to locate a Chrysler 300M driving from Rio Grande City to a ranch about 50 miles away. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile logs showing the location of mobile phones at the time calls became evidence in a Los Angeles murder trial.

And a mobile phone's fleeting connection with a remote cell tower operated by Edge Wireless is what led searchers to the family of the late James Kim, a CNET employee who died in the Oregon wilderness in 2006 after leaving a snowbound car to seek help.


"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century. If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."
--Kevin Bankston, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
The way tracking works is simple: mobile phones are miniature radio transmitters and receivers. A cellular tower knows the general direction of a mobile phone (many cell sites have three antennas pointing in different directions), and if the phone is talking to multiple towers, triangulation yields a rough location fix. With this method, accuracy depends in part on the density of cell sites.

The Federal Communications Commission's "Enhanced 911" (E911) requirements allowed rough estimates to be transformed into precise coordinates. Wireless carriers using CDMA networks, such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, tend to use embedded GPS technology to fulfill E911 requirements. AT&T and T-Mobile comply with E911 regulations using network-based technology that computes a phone's location using signal analysis and triangulation between towers.

T-Mobile, for instance, uses a GSM technology called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, or U-TDOA, which calculates a position based on precisely how long it takes signals to reach towers. A company called TruePosition, which provides U-TDOA services to T-Mobile, boasts of "accuracy to under 50 meters" that's available "for start-of-call, midcall, or when idle."

A 2008 court order to T-Mobile in a criminal investigation of a marriage fraud scheme, which was originally sealed and later made public, says: "T-Mobile shall disclose at such intervals and times as directed by (the Department of Homeland Security), latitude and longitude data that establishes the approximate positions of the Subject Wireless Telephone, by unobtrusively initiating a signal on its network that will enable it to determine the locations of the Subject Wireless Telephone."

'No reasonable expectation of privacy'
In the case that's before the Third Circuit on Friday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, said it needed historical (meaning stored, not future) phone location information because a set of suspects "use their wireless telephones to arrange meetings and transactions in furtherance of their drug trafficking activities."

U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Lenihan in Pennsylvania denied the Justice Department's attempt to obtain stored location data without a search warrant; prosecutors had invoked a different legal procedure. Lenihan's ruling, in effect, would require police to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause--a more privacy-protective standard.

Lenihan's opinion (PDF)--which, in an unusual show of solidarity, was signed by four other magistrate judges--noted that location information can reveal sensitive information such as health treatments, financial difficulties, marital counseling, and extra-marital affairs.

In its appeal to the Third Circuit, the Justice Department claims that Lenihan's opinion "contains, and relies upon, numerous errors" and should be overruled. In addition to a search warrant not being necessary, prosecutors said, because location "records provide only a very general indication of a user's whereabouts at certain times in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest."

The Obama administration is not alone in making this argument. U.S. District Judge William Pauley, a Clinton appointee in New York, wrote in a 2009 opinion that a defendant in a drug trafficking case, Jose Navas, "did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the cell phone" location. That's because Navas only used the cell phone "on public thoroughfares en route from California to New York" and "if Navas intended to keep the cell phone's location private, he simply could have turned it off."

(Most cases have involved the ground rules for tracking cell phone users prospectively, and judges have disagreed over what legal rules apply. Only a minority has sided with the Justice Department, however.)

Cellular providers tend not to retain moment-by-moment logs of when each mobile device contacts the tower, in part because there's no business reason to store the data, and in part because the storage costs would be prohibitive. They do, however, keep records of what tower is in use when a call is initiated or answered--and those records are generally stored for six months to a year, depending on the company.

Verizon Wireless keeps "phone records including cell site location for 12 months," Drew Arena, Verizon's vice president and associate general counsel for law enforcement compliance, said at a federal task force meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. Arena said the company keeps "phone bills without cell site location for seven years," and stores SMS text messages for only a very brief time.

Gidari, the Seattle attorney, said that wireless carriers have recently extended how long they store this information. "Prior to a year or two ago when location-based services became more common, if it were 30 days it would be surprising," he said.

The ACLU, EFF, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and University of San Francisco law professor Susan Freiwald argue that the wording of the federal privacy law in question allows judges to require the level of proof required for a search warrant "before authorizing the disclosure of particularly novel or invasive types of information." In addition, they say, Americans do not "knowingly expose their location information and thereby surrender Fourth Amendment protection whenever they turn on or use their cell phones."

"The biggest issue at stake is whether or not courts are going to accept the government's minimal view of what is protected by the Fourth Amendment," says EFF's Bankston. "The government is arguing that based on precedents from the 1970s, any record held by a third party about us, no matter how invasively collected, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment."

Update 10:37 a.m. PT: A source inside the U.S. Attorney's Office for the northern district of Texas, which prosecuted the Scarecrow Bandits mentioned in the above article, tells me that this was the first and the only time that the FBI has used the location-data-mining technique to nab bank robbers. It's also worth noting that the leader of this gang, Corey Duffey, was sentenced last month to 354 years (not months, but years) in prison. Another member is facing 140 years in prison.

Oh man. The double standards are awesome.

[Bagar-]

So his administration is making a call that you personally agree with (as per your previous support of the Patriot Act), and yet you find something to be contrary about.

Had he made the opposite call, you'd be bitching and whining that good policemen were being denied the tools to catch criminals.

You do realize that it's possible to simply agree and disagree on actual issues rather than upon party lines, right? Like, not every democrat / liberal has the same ideals, and not every republican has the same ideals. Because I have a feeling that if a republican administration made this statement, you'd be pretty supporting.

For example, I am both pro-gun, and pro-abortion (not pro-choice, I'm literally pro-abortion. I think they should be mandatory in many circumstances, such as with your children). I am also supportive of an increased defense budget, while at the same time being pro-gay marriage. It's crazy what can happen when you stop watching CNN and FOX, and start thinking for yourself. I think be wrong on some things, but at least my ideas are my own .

Does that seem like a double standard to you? If so, it's because you're a dumbass. Go watch more Glen Beck until the confusion subsides.

Now, if you're showing dissent because you think that Obama has previously made contradictory statements and you think that he is a hypocrite, that's fine, but since you didn't post anything other than an incredibly well thought out one-liner, I'm not sure how I'd assume that, especially since you haven't bothered to provide evidence towards that claim.

[Hesten]

Now, if you're showing dissent because you think that Obama has previously made contradictory statements and you think that he is a hypocrite, that's fine, but since you didn't post anything other than an incredibly well thought out one-liner, I'm not sure how I'd assume that, especially since you haven't bothered to provide evidence towards that claim.

Hey, i dont defend Midnyte often, for good reasons, but i have to do so this time. It was not an one liner, there was a period in it, so technically its a two liner

[miir]

There's a HUGE difference between the warrantless phone tapping that was being done by the Bush administration and this.

[Funkmasterr]

There's a HUGE difference between the warrantless phone tapping that was being done by the Bush administration and this.

Is there really? I'm not so much disagreeing as playing the devil's advocate, because I never really heard examples of what the patriot act was used for. It doesn't sound much different to me, at least in it's intended use.

[Zaelath]

There's a HUGE difference between the warrantless phone tapping that was being done by the Bush administration and this.

Is there really? I'm not so much disagreeing as playing the devil's advocate, because I never really heard examples of what the patriot act was used for. It doesn't sound much different to me, at least in it's intended use.

Yeah, the same as pausing outside a hotel door and listening to someone fuck is exactly the same as walking in on them with a camera crew....

Jesus.

[Sylvus]

Oh man. The double standards are awesome.

Did the Obama administration previously argue that warrantless tracking was not permitted? I take it that they have, or else there wouldn't be a double standard. Unless you're talking about something else? It's hard to tell when you don't say very much.

There's a HUGE difference between the warrantless phone tapping that was being done by the Bush administration and this.

Is there really? I'm not so much disagreeing as playing the devil's advocate, because I never really heard examples of what the patriot act was used for. It doesn't sound much different to me, at least in it's intended use.

It sounds like a bit of a difference, at least to me.

In the cases that people were arguing about warrantless tapping, I think the argument was that the government could listen in on an otherwise innocent party in the interests of "homeland security", hear you talking about scoring some drugs or something else that is unrelated to terrorism or anything of that nature, and come arrest you.

In this specific case about warrentless tracking, the authorities knew that 12 banks had been robbed and compared the times and locations of those robberies with the cell phone records of all the people that were in those 12 locations at those specific times, arrested them and then gave them a jury trial in which they were convicted. I would assume there was other evidence (weapons, for sure, as they were convicted on those charges).

The two things seem totally different to me. The first seems like they are invading your privacy and kind of violating the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing; why would they need to listen to my phone calls? In the second instance, they're going back after the fact to see who was in the same area and arrest them for a crime. If I happened to coincidentally be in the area for those 12 robberies and they picked me up for questioning, that doesn't seem like a major violation of privacy to me. The same thing could happen if you showed up on a security camera or something like that.

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

Yes, I find it funny how those who cried and railed against the Patriot Act have no issues with giving up their civil liberties when Obama wants to do the same thing.

[Funkmasterr]

Oh man. The double standards are awesome.

Did the Obama administration previously argue that warrantless tracking was not permitted? I take it that they have, or else there wouldn't be a double standard. Unless you're talking about something else? It's hard to tell when you don't say very much.

There's a HUGE difference between the warrantless phone tapping that was being done by the Bush administration and this.

Is there really? I'm not so much disagreeing as playing the devil's advocate, because I never really heard examples of what the patriot act was used for. It doesn't sound much different to me, at least in it's intended use.

It sounds like a bit of a difference, at least to me.

In the cases that people were arguing about warrantless tapping, I think the argument was that the government could listen in on an otherwise innocent party in the interests of "homeland security", hear you talking about scoring some drugs or something else that is unrelated to terrorism or anything of that nature, and come arrest you.

In this specific case about warrentless tracking, the authorities knew that 12 banks had been robbed and compared the times and locations of those robberies with the cell phone records of all the people that were in those 12 locations at those specific times, arrested them and then gave them a jury trial in which they were convicted. I would assume there was other evidence (weapons, for sure, as they were convicted on those charges).

The two things seem totally different to me. The first seems like they are invading your privacy and kind of violating the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing; why would they need to listen to my phone calls? In the second instance, they're going back after the fact to see who was in the same area and arrest them for a crime. If I happened to coincidentally be in the area for those 12 robberies and they picked me up for questioning, that doesn't seem like a major violation of privacy to me. The same thing could happen if you showed up on a security camera or something like that.

Yeah I agree it is different.. However not as different as you seem to think, it's still spying on you not knowing for sure that they have a good reason.. And just because they didn't say they listened in on their calls doesn't mean I believe it I tend to just assume that whenever a politician talks they are lying.

[miir]

Yes, I find it funny how those who cried and railed against the Patriot Act have no issues with giving up their civil liberties when Obama wants to do the same thing.

Probably because it's not the same thing.

[Aabidano]

Warrantless intrusions into people's private lives is bad, regardless of which administration is behind it.

As an aside Obama isn't the government. Bush wasn't the govt while he was in office. It's when they buy into this stuff and sign off on it that it becomes an issue at that level.

So "the Obama administration" is a pretty vague concept, the people in question likely pre-dated Obama, Bush and perhaps even Clinton.

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

Warrantless intrusions into people's private lives is bad, regardless of which administration is behind it.

As an aside Obama isn't the government. Bush wasn't the govt while he was in office. It's when they buy into this stuff and sign off on it that it becomes an issue at that level.

So "the Obama administration" is a pretty vague concept, the people in question likely pre-dated Obama, Bush and perhaps even Clinton.

Couldn't agree more.

[Xatrei]

...I am also supportive of an increased defense budget...

This is a ridiculous idea. We outpace the defense budgets of every single country on the planet by a MINIMUM margin of roughly 9:1. We double the spending of the 10 next highest spenders combined. We spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined. We could cut our defense spending by half and still outspend China, with the next highest defense budget, by nearly a third of a TRILLION dollars. Beyond what we're spending, we're not even blowing the obscene dollar amounts wisely. Our military has allowed itself to become too dependent on gadgetry thanks to an out of control defense industry's heavy lobbying efforts. When that technology fails, most of our soldiers wont be able to find their ass without a GPS, or plot a firing solution without a computer to do it for them.

Too many things that should be spending priorities go unfunded or underfunded because of our addiction to "defense" spending, which is ultimately just a means of appropriating wealth for the shareholders of the military industrial complex.

/rant off
/derail off

[Keverian FireCry]

Completely agree with Xatrei on our defense budget. It's sad that so many people are adamantly opposed to recent stimulus spending, yet it's still taboo to question any part of the ~0.5-1 trillion dollars we spend each year towards defense.

[Hesten]

Completely agree with Xatrei on our defense budget. It's sad that so many people are adamantly opposed to recent stimulus spending, yet it's still taboo to question any part of the ~0.5-1 trillion dollars we spend each year towards defense.

But, but, if you dont spend that cash, the terrorists win. You are anti-american to even suggest it, possibly communist, HANG HIM

[Noysyrump]

The United States spends all that damned money to prevent WWII from ever happening again. 6 years and 40 million lives is worth a few billion bucks, do you not agree?

The status quo is secured by Americas military might. Siberia is secure from chinese expansion simply because china knows they would get the shit beat out of em. If we did not have such an advantage, dont you think they might give it a shot?

Every other nation knows that international thuggery will end poorly, al-la 1991.

Unfortunatly, it also leaves the US in a position to go all ROME on the world if the wrong leadership got hold of it.

[miir]

There are so many things wrong with that post that I don't even know where to begin....

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

All this will stop mattering once some rogue nation or terrorist detonates nukes in the atmosphere. The EMP effect of a nuke blast is the one thing that will destroy this country quickly and effectively. It would take decades to put things back online and most likely at the cost of tens of millions of lives. If they have to tap people's cell phones to keep tabs on anyone breaking any law, then so be it. If I am breaking no laws then I have nothing to worry about.

[Aabidano]

All this will stop mattering once some rogue nation or terrorist detonates nukes in the atmosphere. The EMP effect of a nuke blast is the one thing that will destroy this country quickly and effectively. It would take decades to put things back online and most likely at the cost of tens of millions of lives. If they have to tap people's cell phones to keep tabs on anyone breaking any law, then so be it. If I am breaking no laws then I have nothing to worry about.

Your statement doesn't make any sense, the situation you describe isn't going to be caught by the things referred to in this thread. Or internal phone taps at all for that matter.

A nation with the capability to put multiple nukes high over our airspace is the only source for your scenario. _A_ nuke blast will only effect a limited area and the US is a rather large place. Also, the only nations that have the capability to do so (at present) in an effective way have good reasons not too.

I agree it would have disastrous long term consequences, I've looked at it quite a bit as part of some business (SCADA) related activities. I would further say that we really can't do anything about except via foreign intelligence activities. We're in a MAD scenario.

Good investigative work is how to win this game, broad based surveillance powers don't benefit that effort at all. The plots that have been uncovered so far have all been via traditional investigative work, not broad monitoring of the populous.

Personal privacy is essentially the basis of our society. Breaking it as GWB loved so much to do, and I might add Obama hasn't stopped, is to our national detriment.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Part of what Bush and company did was wiretap suspected terrorist or people with ties. I cannot recall them doing any wiretapping or cell phone tracking for domestic crimes. That means this administration has raised the bar in that regard. If you are not breaking the law then it doesn't matter....but that is me.


With what I posted earlier, I am not sure that a rogue country would even be stupid enough to launch a missile to detonate over us. My guess is that the terrorist organizations would be working that angle as it would really do what they want and that is completely cripple the country and let the citizens destroy each other. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if electricity ceased to exist when you woke up tomorrow?

[miir]

Part of what Bush and company did was wiretap suspected terrorist or people with ties. I cannot recall them doing any wiretapping or cell phone tracking for domestic crimes. That means this administration has raised the bar in that regard. If you are not breaking the law then it doesn't matter....but that is me.

Do you really not know the difference between actively tapping and scanning live phone calls and pulling cell call logs?

I'll give you a hint.
One is an invasion of privacy... listening in on people who haven't necessarily broken any laws. People that may or may not be involved in suspicious activity based solely on the colour of their skin or their country of origin.
The other is analyzing a batch of numbers, locations and times looking for patterns that might help solve a crime.

[Aabidano]

Part of what Bush and company did was wiretap suspected terrorist or people with ties. I cannot recall them doing any wiretapping or cell phone tracking for domestic crimes. That means this administration has raised the bar in that regard. If you are not breaking the law then it doesn't matter....but that is me.

That was how it was presented, it's not what the legislation that was passed said or allowed to happen, or what has been happening since.

Everything they wanted was already available - with judicial oversight.

[Gzette]

How the hell is a terrorist organization going to detonate a nuke high over our atmosphere? The scenario suggests multiple nukes (like hundreds) and the ability to launch a nuke from thousands of miles away. A lot of the most well-funded militaries in the nation don't have that capability, let alone Al Qaeda. Or are they gonna hijack 100 planes this time each with a suitcase nuke?????

Completely. Ludicrous.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

According to what I have seen, it could be one nuke detonated in the atmosphere in the central part of the country. Seeing as how they have not tested this theory, it is only theory and is one reason nuclear testing is all done underground.

[Aslanna]

_A_ nuke blast will only effect a limited area and the US is a rather large place. Also, the only nations that have the capability to do so (at present) in an effective way have good reasons not too.

Depends on how high up it is. 300 miles is pretty high but that's not the point!

[Sueven]

Both sides have points here-- Obama's surveillance policies are, in fact, less intrusive than Bush's. But, some of the positions taken by the Obama administration on surveillance issues are surprising and disappointing to a lot of progressive folks (or, at least, me).

It's not fair to claim that Obama isn't taking criticism from the left for these positions, however-- he's taking a lot. Check out Adam Serwer at the American Prospect, or pretty much everything that the ACLU does in this area.

If you're interested in Fourth Amendment and Technology issues, Orin Kerr (conservative law professor at George Washington) blogs about it frequently and accurately at http://www.volokh.com.

If you're interested more generally in privacy and technology, Volokh remains a good place to look, along with Dan Solove and Danielle Citron at http://www.concurringopinions.com, along with the work of the folks at EPIC and EFF. And, of course, the ACLU. And the Center for Democracy and Technology.

None of the above are really national-security centric, though.

[Sirton]

Obama signs one-year extension of Patriot Act

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100228/D9E4T02G0.html

[miir]

More accurately:

Three sections of the Patriot Act that stay in force will:

Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

[Xouqoa]

_A_ nuke blast will only effect a limited area and the US is a rather large place. Also, the only nations that have the capability to do so (at present) in an effective way have good reasons not too.

Depends on how high up it is. 300 miles is pretty high but that's not the point!

300 miles up is.. space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line

[Winnow]

The EMP stuff is over hyped. My iPhone would keep working. I'm sure of it!

[Soreali]

The EMP stuff is over hyped. My iPhone would keep working. I'm sure of it!

Theres an app for that?

[Aslanna]

_A_ nuke blast will only effect a limited area and the US is a rather large place. Also, the only nations that have the capability to do so (at present) in an effective way have good reasons not too.

Depends on how high up it is. 300 miles is pretty high but that's not the point!

300 miles up is.. space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line

30 miles isn't. And I wouldn't call that area on the map "a limited area". But again... Not the point!

[miir]

_A_ nuke blast will only effect a limited area and the US is a rather large place. Also, the only nations that have the capability to do so (at present) in an effective way have good reasons not too.

30 miles isn't. And I wouldn't call that area on the map "a limited area". But again... Not the point!

That's the effect radius for an EMP, not the blast radius for a nuke.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

The area of effect on the map is for what we were discussing. The nuke blast itself would be inconsequential at those ranges. The EMP would have a much more devastating effect.

[Aslanna]

That's the effect radius for an EMP, not the blast radius for a nuke.

Exactly what the topic was about. Follow along!