Should the justice department be allowed to track a persons movement based on cellular usage, regardless of any criminal activity?
Plain and simple...No!

Friday, according to the Department of Justice, "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,". Meaning, they need not probable cause to secure a warrant to track your daily movements. They dont need a warrant at all.

Shouldnt we be allowed to travel freely without the fear of creating an electronic footprint the government could use for who knows what?

 

Whoa, nelly. THEY aren't tracking your movements, the cell phone company YOU CHOSE TO GET A PHONE FROM, is tracking your movements WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

So YOU are CHOOSING to "(create) an electronic footprint the government could use."

If the cops want to put a GPS on you, they (mostly) need a warrant. But if YOU CHOOSE to carry a GPS with you, knowing full well the phone company will track your movements, that's on YOU.


Sounds to me like a business opportunity........a cell phone company needs to start offering "we don't track your whereabouts" as an option. laugh.gif j/k

 

Well, the phone company being required to hand over such records to the Feds without a warrant is the issue.

The whole move towards electronic surveillance without warrants really bothers me.

 

Don't wanna be tracked? Don't voluntarily use technology that allows you to be tracked.

 

Taking the leap from you using a technology that allows you to be tracked as a secondary side effect of the technology's intended use means that the government should be able to have access to these records without a warrant is not reasonable. That's like saying that if they figure out a way to listen to your conversations through vibrations in your electrical wiring that it's fine. If you don't like it, you don't have to plug into the power grid.

As of 2007 over 82% of Americans had cell phones. It's surely even more than that now. Widespread enough to be considered a necessity of modern life.