Last Friday, in a federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said his committee will revisit the 1986 Electronics Communications Privacy Act this year. The revisit is at the justice department’s request to allow for the tracking of cell phone locales without a warrant of probable-cause.
The data obtained for tracking comes from cell phone towers, and in densely populated cities can pinpoint a person's location to within a few hundred yards. For the average American, cell phones have become a reliable source for daily communications. As a result, cell phones are constantly at arms reach on a daily basis thus giving law enforcement agencies the perfect tracking device.
They claim that the appeal heard Friday stems from a Pittsburgh drug-trafficking case, in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used the cell phone data as an investigative tool due to frequent changing of vehicles and residences.
Justice Department lawyer Mark Eckenwiler, an associate director of criminal enforcement operations wrote in his brief, "An individual has no Fourth Amendment-protected privacy interest in business records, such as cell-site usage information, that are kept, maintained and used by a cell phone company,"
As part of a "friend of court" brief to three-judge panel , Susan Freiwald, a University of San Francisco law professor believes that the information obtained can suggest when people are home, when they are awake and who might be with them.
"We should be able to use our cell phones without them creating a virtual map of our movements and associations," Freiwald argued.
This obviously is breaking the Fourth Amendment but, just the fact that the court is considering is showing the direction we are headed in. As we become more advanced the idea of privacy diminishes. I guess the whole chip in the skin conspiracy is not even relevant when we carry a few already on us.For more info please visit:
http://www.physorg.com/news185201918.html
Amman, Feb. 28, 2010 (Pal Telegraph)- President Mahmoud Abbas called Sunday on the U.S administration to pressure Israel to stop its aggressions on the holy sites and the Palestinian land.
