In the scenario below, one sentence is incorrect. Can you find it?
The police sneak into your home and attach a tiny tracking device to your person. The device not only reveals your physical movements but records your conversations and has the ability to view your on-line activities.
After a month or so, the police realize they've made a mistake. You are not the person they intended to monitor. Instead of deleting all the information they have collected on you, the police decide to store it in a massive database with the information they have collected from other investigations.
The police do all of this without a warrant.
The answer, of course, is in the very first sentence. The police don't need to sneak into your home and plant a device, they simply tap into the one you willingly carry everyday and pay upwards of $100/month to use.
How do we know this is going on? In August 2011, 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies to ask about their policies, procedures and practices for tracking cell phones.
The ACLU received over 5,500 pages of documents from over 200 local law enforcement agencies regarding cell phone tracking. The responses show that while cell phone tracking is routine, few agencies consistently obtain warrants. Importantly, however, some agencies do obtain warrants, showing that law enforcement agencies can protect Americans' privacy while also meeting law enforcement needs.
The government's location tracking policies should be clear, uniform, and protective of privacy, but instead are in a state of chaos, with agencies in different towns following different rules — or in some cases, having no rules at all. It is time for Americans to take back their privacy. Courts should require a warrant based upon probable cause when law enforcement agencies wish to track cell phones. State legislatures and Congress should update obsolete electronic privacy laws to make clear that law enforcement agents should track cell phones only with a warrant.
You can help by asking Congress to support the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act which would require law enforcement to get a warrant based on probable cause before accessing location information and also regulate the use of this information by businesses.
