US Agency Cancels Contract For Warrantless Tracking of Mobile Devices (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0184148672
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/06/28/0546256/us-agency-cancels-contract-for-warrantless-tracking-of-mobile-devices
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/atf-surveillance-wyden-cloud-566f702fe6082310d6b7c64e5b2de009
They note the move comes "after lawmakers, a prosecutor and a judge raised concerns about the legality of the tool in criminal investigations."
> ATF, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws, told The Associated Press that it discontinued what it called a "pilot" program using a tool called Webloc after Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, expressed reservations about the agency's use of bulk commercial location data. Webloc, which is made by a vendor called Penlink, sources data from consumer apps and advertising networks, which collect the location of mobile devices from consumers who download apps or browse the web...
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> The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that police needed a warrant to obtain historic movement data from cellphone companies on a criminal suspect. But it has never addressed the growing practice of commercially acquired data.
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> Other users of Webloc include the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement but also local law enforcement agencies such as police in places like Elk Grove, Calif. and Durham, N.C. The technology has also expanded around the world, with the national police in El Salvador and Hungarian intelligence agencies as customers, according to a report from earlier this year [2]from Citizen Lab , a group of researchers at the University of Toronto who investigate digital threats to civil society.
The article notes that other U.S. law enforcement agencies continue to buy commercial geolocation data, "including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security."
[1] https://apnews.com/article/atf-surveillance-wyden-cloud-566f702fe6082310d6b7c64e5b2de009
[2] https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/
don need no steenkin'... (Score:2)
other U.S. law enforcement agencies continue to buy commercial geolocation data, "including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security."
The Grabber's lapdog armies don't care about little things like warrants and legal searches!
They KNOW they're ALWAYS right, so who needs a judge to tell them.
Flock Cameras? (Score:1)
Silly question, but why doesn't this apply to flock cameras? I can't go anywhere in my city without passing at least 3 of these things and there isn't anyway of opting out. At least with phone tracking I could potentially use countermeasures or at the very least, turn it off. I guess Penlink didn't buy enough Trump Coin before releasing their tech to the government.
Re: (Score:3)
You don't have a right to privacy in public, this has a lot of precedent about it.
If you don't want Flock cameras you have to ban them via law at you local or state level but there's nothing de facto illegal about them being outside in public.
Re: (Score:2)
True but what about the data being collected?
Re: (Score:2)
Can be banned from use as evidence at the state and local level if it's acquired without a warrant. At the federal level, not so much.
The big stink over Flock cameras has been local police department contracts where the local police have partnered with federal agencies to share data.
Two problems with federal use: First, they might not be using it in a court case, but for intelligence purposes. Second, they can install their own cameras. No local permission needed.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah that's a wholly different story which is what i meant by de facto illegal on just having cameras out there . From my knowledge that is also going to be a local/state thing, there is nothing unconstitutional or illegal Federally about law enforcement or even a private company having that data if it was recorded out in public. I am not a lawyer.
A broken clock (Score:2)
...is right twice a day.
Small efficiency gain in the assembly line (Score:2)
I'm imagining devices going by a conveyor belt, and a worker with a wirecutter is making a brief snip on each of the devices as it travels by.
The boss walks up, and the snipper guy asks "Is it true? Is the customer canceling?"
The boss briefly nods but then shakes his head. "Yeah, they're canc--no, I mean they still want the devices. They just don't want the snipping anymore. They say go ahead and leave the warrant-detection-and-lookup circuit live."
"Good. I never really understood what I was doing here. The
They're not tracking people (Score:4, Insightful)
for the alcohol or tobacco.