Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

[livewire420]

well guys guess its back to the old mafia days where they had coded messages and messengers
Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request

Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request
Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 23, 2007; A01

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

"Most people don't realize it, but they're carrying a tracking device in their pocket," said Kevin Bankston of the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air."

In a stinging opinion this month, a federal judge in Texas denied a request by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for data that would identify a drug trafficker's phone location by using the carrier's E911 tracking capability. E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a phone's Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals sent from phones to cell towers. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley, of the Corpus Christi division of the Southern District of Texas, said the agent's affidavit failed to focus on "specifics necessary to establish probable cause, such as relevant dates, names and places."

Owsley decided to publish his opinion, which explained that the agent failed to provide "sufficient specific information to support the assertion" that the phone was being used in "criminal" activity. Instead, Owsley wrote, the agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had " 'identified' or 'determined' certain matters," Owsley wrote, but "these identifications, determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the agency."

Instead of seeking warrants based on probable cause, some federal prosecutors are applying for orders based on a standard lower than probable cause derived from two statutes: the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register Statute, according to judges and industry lawyers. The orders are typically issued by magistrate judges in U.S. district courts, who often handle applications for search warrants.

In one case last month in a southwestern state, an FBI agent obtained precise location data with a court order based on the lower standard, citing "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data are "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation," said Al Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle, who reviews data requests for carriers.

Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is "consistent with the probable cause standard" of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously 'ping' wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target," wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA -- the Wireless Association, in a July comment to the Federal Communications Commission. He said the "lack of a consistent legal standard for tracking a user's location has made it difficult for carriers to comply" with law enforcement agencies' demands.

Gidari, who also represents CTIA, said he has never seen such a request that was based on probable cause.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said field attorneys should follow the department's policy. "We strongly recommend that prosecutors in the field obtain a warrant based on probable cause" to get location data "in a private area not accessible to the public," he said. "When we become aware of situations where this has not occurred, we contact the field office and discuss the matter."

The phone data can home in on a target to within about 30 feet, experts said.

Federal agents used exact real-time data in October 2006 to track a serial killer in Florida who was linked to at least six murders in four states, including that of a University of Virginia graduate student, whose body was found along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The killer died in a police shooting in Florida as he was attempting to flee.

"Law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. None whatsoever," Boyd said. "What we're doing is going through the courts to lawfully obtain data that will help us locate criminal targets, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction or serial murderer on the loose."

In many cases, orders are being issued for cell-tower site data, which are less precise than the data derived from E911 signals. While the E911 technology could possibly tell officers what building a suspect was in, cell-tower site data give an area that could range from about three to 300 square miles.

Since 2005, federal magistrate judges in at least 17 cases have denied federal requests for the less-precise cellphone tracking data absent a demonstration of probable cause that a crime is being committed. Some went out of their way to issue published opinions in these otherwise sealed cases.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns especially when the phone is in a house or other place where privacy is reasonably expected," said Judge Stephen William Smith of the Southern District of Texas, whose 2005 opinion on the matter was among the first published.

But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the "tracking device" and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.

These judges are issuing orders based on the lower standard, requiring a showing of "specific and articulable facts" showing reasonable grounds to believe the data will be "relevant and material" to a criminal investigation.

Boyd said the government believes this standard is sufficient for cell-site data. "This type of location information, which even in the best case only narrows a suspect's location to an area of several city blocks, is routinely generated, used and retained by wireless carriers in the normal course of business," he said.

The trend's secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.

Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval. Justice Department officials said to the best of their knowledge, agents are obtaining court approval unless the carriersprovide the data voluntarily.

To guard against abuse, Congress should require comprehensive reporting to the court and to Congress about how and how often the emergency authority is used, said John Morris, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

[livewire420]

homing pigeons



Homing pigeon for sale - Google Search

[mycobri]

if you put you cell phone near a speaker or tv set
you can hear the signal it emits at regular intervals.

also try putting you cell phone near car speakers and driving around.
you will find that certian areas have a steady signal.
a friend in the industry told me they are alarms for homes or property.

phones can even be listened through when they are off
-the battery must be removed to be absolutely undetected.

very interesting stuff. good luck

[livewire420]

CELL PHONE (FBI can listen even when phone is turned off)

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<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ujosfSkHFrQ&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ujosfSkHFrQ&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

[camMyco]

Taking my battery out now, not that I'm paranoid or anything

[livewire420]

this one has already been talked about here, but here a video

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RYOUolZnGIs&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RYOUolZnGIs&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

[livewire420]

what i use to encrypt hard drives excellent tool
TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Linux

This is what i use to encrypt my emails this tutorial is pretty much easy to follow:
gnupg thunderbird tutorial
http://people.via.ecp.fr/~clem/nist/gpg-enigmail-howto

yet an easier tutorial
Encryption: How to encrypt your email

gnupg software
http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/download/index.html

enigmail
mozdev.org - enigmail: index

mozilla thunderbird
Thunderbird - Reclaim your inbox

[bugs]

Ain't open source grand?

Cell phone? No thanks. Used to have one, but got tired of it. And now, with gps, they kind of freak me out. Not that any gummint agency really gives a shit about lil' old me.

[twoguysupnorth]

baaah, hell no they shouldnt be able to track all #s unless they specifically ask for one. looks like most judges agree. a kid with a cell phone, who is missing is alot different than, lets track everybody and see where they are at kind of thing.

[suckerfree]

disposable cell phones cost about 20 to 30 bucks at wal-mart... cash.
besides... what the heck yall saying over the phone that gots yall so paranoid anyways?

[dizzydank]

i like this go phone. can toss it in the lake if i have to. no name tied to it at all.

[livewire420]

We’ve learned quite a bit the last few years about the Bush administration tapping Americans’ phones. And reading their emails. And accessing private information, including medical and library records.
But we didn’t know cellphone-tracking powers were on the list, too.
The Justice Department’s own internal recommendation say that officials seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain location information in private areas. The administration has apparently ignored those recommendations.

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.
In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

Apparently, wireless carriers are offering location services as a perk to customers. Responding to a federal mandate, the companies invested heavily in enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking, and hope to make up the costs by making it a feature service — one carrier offers a “loopt” service that sends an alert when a friend is near, “putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town.”
The group Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kevin Bankston said, “Most people don’t realize it, but they’re carrying a tracking device in their pocket. Cellphones can reveal very precise information about your location, and yet legal protections are very much up in the air.”
And wouldn’t you know it, the Bush administration looks at this as another surveillance opportunity, based on loose legal standards.

It’s all about probable cause, which the administration doesn’t think it needs.

In a stinging opinion this month, a federal judge in Texas denied a request by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent for data that would identify a drug trafficker’s phone location by using the carrier’s E911 tracking capability. E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a phone’s Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals sent from phones to cell towers. Magistrate Judge Brian L. Owsley, of the Corpus Christi division of the Southern District of Texas, said the agent’s affidavit failed to focus on “specifics necessary to establish probable cause, such as relevant dates, names and places.”
Owsley decided to publish his opinion, which explained that the agent failed to provide “sufficient specific information to support the assertion” that the phone was being used in “criminal” activity. Instead, Owsley wrote, the agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had ” ‘identified’ or ‘determined’ certain matters,” Owsley wrote, but “these identifications, determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the agency.”
Instead of seeking warrants based on probable cause, some federal prosecutors are applying for orders based on a standard lower than probable cause derived from two statutes: the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register Statute, according to judges and industry lawyers. The orders are typically issued by magistrate judges in U.S. district courts, who often handle applications for search warrants.
In one case last month in a southwestern state, an FBI agent obtained precise location data with a court order based on the lower standard, citing “specific and articulable facts” showing reasonable grounds to believe the data are “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation,” said Al Gidari, a partner at Perkins Coie in Seattle, who reviews data requests for carriers.
Another magistrate judge, who has denied about a dozen such requests in the past six months, said some agents attach affidavits to their applications that merely assert that the evidence offered is “consistent with the probable cause standard” of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,” wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA — the Wireless Association, in a July comment to the Federal Communications Commission. He said the “lack of a consistent legal standard for tracking a user’s location has made it difficult for carriers to comply” with law enforcement agencies’ demands.

“Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns especially when the phone is in a house or other place where privacy is reasonably expected,” said Judge Stephen William Smith of the Southern District of Texas, whose 2005 opinion on the matter was among the first published.
If there’s a reasonable explanation for the administration’s approach, it’s hiding well.



Bush admin gets cellphone-tracking powers — without probable cause - The Carpetbagger Report

[TVCasualty]

Instead, Owsley wrote, the agent simply alleged that the subject trafficked in narcotics and used the phone to do so. The agent stated that the DEA had ” ‘identified’ or ‘determined’ certain matters,” Owsley wrote, but “these identifications, determinations or revelations are not facts, but simply conclusions by the agency.”

So, lemme get this straight: We (the DEA) have determined that John Doe is a drug trafficker and uses his cellphone to engage in his illegal business. We need a warrant so that we can use his phone to track him and to listen in on his calls in order to prove that he is a drug trafficker and is using his cellphone to conduct his business.

Wow. Sounds like they want the warrant after conducting the surveillance...

“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,”

The expectation of privacy is lower on land-line cordless phones because you are broadcasting the signal instead of transmitting it entirely through a wire (hence the phrase I've heard elsewhere: "use a cordless, go to jail"), and I was under the impression that this standard applied somewhat or even fully to cell phones as well, at least passively. However, that is completely different from actively pinging a phone to get it to respond, which is like breaking into your office to look at your calendar so they know where to find you.

So if you've been using your cellphone to conduct your enterprise, and suspect the heat is closing in, why not go online and learn how to hack the GPS chip and make it report that you're in Bangladesh? This is possible, and a little googling will do the trick. Or, identify its unique signal and spoof it with a simple circuit that only responds to the pings, then attach the ping-spoofer to an unattended police car, or hide it right outside the courthouse, or on top of an abandoned building (with a solar cell to keep it going).

Once someone starts selling a turn-key GPS spoofer, this tactic will be much less effective. It will also be the first time I consider getting a cell phone, which I haven't because I notice people just call and bother you on them all the time, you're being tracked, and it costs a lot.

[lucysd]

mainstream tech advances in the past like fifteen years been mainly in the survailance fields
gps and cellphones navi on cars lojack type shits
all that crap for tiny technology
means tiny survaillance technology
i hate cellphones mine is always off if you wanna say something leave me a message
my phone is registered to anton szander lavey and he lives in some small ghetto in the everglades
all that shit tv said is very easy to do if you got a good set of insrtuctions

what if your carier doesnt use sims

anyone hear of metro pcs

rumor had it that some rich ppl bought an old surveilance satelite
flat rate sixt dollars a month
unlimited video , picture and text messaging
unlimited incoming and outgoing calls no matter the carrier
nation wide long distanc
and unlimited 411
but there has got to be some catch