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New Limits to FBI Tracking of Cell Phone Users 118

Posted by CowboyNeal from the big-brother-is-listening dept.
EvilTwinSkippy writes "According to the Washington Post (free registration), Two Federal Courts have seperately ruled that the FBI may not track the location of cell phone users without proof that a crime has been committed, or is in progress. The cases involve the FBI seeking court orders to track suspects in real-time using the mobile phone network as part of an ongoing investigation."
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New Limits to FBI Tracking of Cell Phone Users More

New Limits to FBI Tracking of Cell Phone Users

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  • Terrorist (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZeroExistenZ ( 721849 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:47AM (#13904517)
    Isn't any tourist ("foreign body") in the US by definition a suspect terrorist under the new definition?

    • Re:Terrorist (Score:4, Informative)

      by aj50 ( 789101 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:51AM (#13904532)
      The article would suggest that they have to show evidence that a crime has been comitted before they're allowed to track you, just suspecting you isn't enough.
      • Ever seen a James Bond movie? He always keeps the speed limit, doesn't he? Yeah right. Laws won't stop the you getting tracked by your cellphone, the only thing they do is provide some need to jump the hoops and get around the protocols in a courtroom over inadmissable evidence. Hey, at least we got the courtroom protocols, the Constitution, voting, even if they don't always get upheld or work ideally, but it could be worse - not having any of those things would suck even worse.

  • Crime (Score:4, Insightful)

    by panxerox ( 575545 ) * on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:49AM (#13904523)
    But I thought that in the eyes of the Federal Government we were all guilty of a crime anyway?
    • If there are a few left that aren't, they will be over the next few years.

      "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

      - Ayn Rand

    • I felt urged to reply in a weak attempt for comedy "Yes because you're born!". Then I thought "well Christianity states there's something like the 'inheritage sin'" (my translation sucks) which states humans are guilty from birth as a result of adam and eve..

      Then.. I made the conclusion your Federal Government might be not seperating religion with the state.. which is sortof tragic in that conclusion.

      Anyhow, I suck at making jokes.

    • "But I thought that in the eyes of the Federal Government we were all guilty of a crime anyway?" Convenient that. Just like Original Sin, it means we all start off begging forgiveness.

  • i dont get it (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    lots of crimes are commited every day, does this mean that anyone can be investigated following any crime?
    thats what it sounds like. no i didnt rtfa

  • Things that... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:53AM (#13904539)
    make you go HMM.

    FBI: We need to tap his phone to prove he committed a crime.
    Court: You need to prove he committed a crime to tap his phone.

    • Re:Things that... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:58AM (#13904552)
      I certainly went "HMM", but not at the ruling. I went "HMM" at the submitter who didn't read the fracking article.

      The FBI may not track the locations of cell phone users without showing evidence that a crime occurred or is in progress, two federal judges ruled, saying that to do so would violate long-established privacy protections.


      Showing evidence is not proving a crime.

  • Useless against crime (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Saturday October 29, 2005 @10:56AM (#13904547) Homepage Journal
    In the last year or so, cell phone tracking of criminals has lost its value more and more.

    As more cell phone evidence has been submitted in court, the more loopholes have opened up.

    One of my importer/exporter customers already pulls his battery when hitting the road. Before dumping the battery back in, he picks a random sim card. I set every sim card to ring the same voice mail on "Missed Calls" so he can easily find out what he missed.

    No black market businessman is stupid anymore. Hell, there are entire newsletters now offering advice on how to avoid mistakes that might get you in trouble.

    • One of my importer/exporter customers already pulls his battery when hitting the road. Before dumping the battery back in, he picks a random sim card. I set every sim card to ring the same voice mail on "Missed Calls" so he can easily find out what he missed.

      I have to ask: what's this guy hiding from? And doesn't going to this kind of trouble pretty much scream, "I'M UP TO SOMETHING!"?

      • As a business owner, even if you have no criminal intent, you have way more reason to hide your tracks.

        There are so many conflicting or vague laws on the books. Now that years of your past can be discovered with a click, and jury nullification practically illegal, any future mistake might be wrangled into a harsher penalty through digging by our crazed public prosecutors.

        I've seen many innocent and honest people go to jail over an accountant's error. I've seen bail withheld in a tariff case because the distributor bought locally-made products containing 'tainted' products, and the feds dug up evidence of past sales online that MIGHT have been illegal.

        RICO, PATRIOT, Magic Lantern, EPIC and other legal tools are used hundreds of times more against non-criminals. If you're seeing slow business or are broke, dump F/OSS and help people express their fourth amendment rights. You'll never go hungry again.
        • [...] and jury nullification practically illegal [...]

          Has anyone actually been punished for delivering a verdict other than those presented by the judge, and/or finding the defendant not guilty on the grounds that the law is wrong, etc.? Last I'd heard, the problem stemmed from people trying to inform the jury members of their rights while a trial was ongoing, and usually urging them to exercise said rights. The latter part of that is what I suppose tends to land people in trouble - "influencing the jury" o

          • Has anyone actually been punished for delivering a verdict other than those presented by the judge, and/or finding the defendant not guilty on the grounds that the law is wrong, etc.? Last I'd heard, the problem stemmed from people trying to inform the jury members of their rights while a trial was ongoing, and usually urging them to exercise said rights. The latter part of that is what I suppose tends to land people in trouble - "influencing the jury" or something.

            That's something I've wanted to do for

        • Not many even know about jury nullification [erowid.org], but some judges and prosecutors try to weed those who believe in nullification from juries. It's not uncommon for jurors to be told to judge the case on the facts and not the law. It's such a shame when Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and other Founding Fathers of the USA believed in it so much.

          In 1789 TJ said "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution

      • Re:Oh nothing officer, just some innocent skulking (Score:4, Insightful)

        by lordkuri ( 514498 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @11:48AM (#13904711)
        I have to ask: what's this guy hiding from?

        I have to ask: why is it that someone that wants his privacy, and takes steps to ensure it, automatically "hiding from somthing"?

        What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
        • I have to ask: why is it that someone that wants his privacy, and takes steps to ensure it, automatically "hiding from somthing"?

          What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

          Nobody said he was guilty of anything. In the normal course of things, your privacy comes from being one fish in a big school, with nobody paying you any attention. If you're going to extraordinary measures, it means you: 1) think your activities are illicit, 2)somebody is or will be surveilling you, or 3)somebody is or will be try

          • your privacy comes from being one fish in a big school, with nobody paying you any attention. If you're going to extraordinary measures, it means...

            4) You finally realized that relying on being one fish in a big school, is a form of gambling. And the more of those other fish who start to take extraordinary measures, the dumber it is to not do the same.

            Also, don't forget 2a) somebody (it doesn't even have to be the FBI; phone company employees are mere mortals, and a well-placed bribe just might be an

      • Depending upon the state/country, it might be illegal to receive/make a mobile phone call while in control of vehicle. The last thing you want is a fine or to have your vehicle impounded while somewhere remote.

        In the UK, taxation for small companies is ruled more by case law than by any set of fundamental rights. This leads the to inland revenue very often trying to apply tax rulings retrospectively back through time. So a company which thought it was obeying the law five years ago, suddenly finds itself li
    • Ahh, but law enforcement likes stupid criminals. Easier to pick the low hanging fruit.

      Smart criminals are hard to catch. The smartest ones never get caught, they just have their children inherit their fortunes. Profit!

      • The smartest ones never get caught, they just have their children inherit their fortunes.

        And the smartest ones control the government, and by extension, most of the law enforcement mechanism. Profit indeed.

    • IMEI remains the same, even after you swap the SIM.

      So, no matter what SIM you use, the phone itself is still sending out its unique ID number.

      Maybe they track by that?

  • Like this really matters, when you have.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Like this decision really matters when you have this coming...

    Tracking Cell Phones for Real-Time Traffic Data:
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/16/076217 &tid=215&tid=126 [slashdot.org]

    Just like with the "traffic" cameras everywhere now... once they're in, they use them for whatever they want.

    Don't think so? FOIA your local surveillance-equipped local police station & ask them how they have been using these "traffic" cameras.

    And quote "traffic" because that is what they were sold to the taxpayers as. We

  • Just turn it OFF (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara,hudson&barbara-hudson,com> on Saturday October 29, 2005 @11:00AM (#13904560) Journal
    or if you're REALLY paranoid, do one or more of these:

    1. remove battery
    2. wrap in tin foil
    3. "forget it" in neighbours' car

    So if you want to commit a crime and have an alibi, AND frame someone else:

    1. leave your phone turned on at home but with the ringer off
    2. get another phone, clone the sim card of the person you want to frame
    3. just before its time to do the crime, borrow their phone to make a quick call, then TURN IT OFF!
    4. go to the location where you
      1. insert battery into cloned phone
      2. do the nasty deed
      3. make a call to your real cell phone, leave 20 sec of dead air.
      4. remove battery from cloned phone
    5. return home
    "You" have never left home. "They" were at the scene of the crime. If their phone has roaming, and it was out of their primary area, their cell bill will "prove" they were there with the call to your phone. You==alibi, them==fucked.

    • Re:Just turn it OFF (Score:4, Informative)

      by j1mmy ( 43634 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @11:45AM (#13904699) Journal
      Not quite. All cellphones have this thing called an IMEI number, which is unique per phone. It's also broadcast to the cellular network.

      • So just swap phones for the night. If your phone is the same make and model (and you kill the battery on yours or put in a dud battery) chances are they won't even notice until the next day, when you show up and re-swap.

        They won't think anything of it when the cops come calling inquiring about the dead bodies ... and when they finally figure it out, it'll sound like they're trying to shift the blame.

        • Mr. "Tom Hudson";

          Go ahead and try your method of swapping cellphone in the midst of your "brilliant" criminal heist (whatever that may be).

          It is one thing to talk about weakness of a system (and defy the responsible engineer ethic that is stated in various engineering organizations' charters); it is another thing to advoate such system exploitments (if any) in the midst of a crime.

          You're evidently not the kind of engineer we want in our moderate Judeo-Christian/Hindu/Buddah/Islamic society.

          • You're evidently not the kind of engineer we want in our moderate Judeo-Christian/Hindu/Buddah/Islamic society.

            Of course not. I'm an atheist. (Or since this is slashdot, "I'm an atheist, you ignorant clod", or "In soviet russia, atheist engineers you" - oops, that WAS what happened :-)

            Gee whiz, guess I'll take up writing crime novels.

    • tomhudson writes:
      So if you want to commit a crime and have an alibi, AND frame someone else:

      (five step program to commit crime)

      You forgot to add "... or so I've heard. Not that I would know, of course."

    • You don't specify who is going to be at your house to answer your cell phone. Leaving a 20 second voicemail when no one answers your cell phone which is sitting in your house isn't going to be a great alibi :). Not to mention if they are at home with someone else and will tell the police that they found their phone turned off when they woke up...

      • You don't get it - you leave YOUR cell phone (with a dead battery) at your intended fall-guys' place. You take HIS cell phone. As for the voice mail, who cares? It means nothing - most people don't bring their cell phones everywhere (like in showers, etc), so it snot unusual to get voicemail b/c you didn't answer your phone.

        You then swap the phone back for yours the next day. A few days later, when the cops come calling (to THEM), and they try to finger you, just say you don't know what they're talking ab

        • Well it doesn't give you an alibi at all, although it would give the police reason to think your friend was in the area. That is only if they had enough other evidence against your friend to get a subpoena for his phone records...

          "leave your phone turned on at home but with the ringer off" sure sounds like you mean to leave your phone on at your house, sorry if I misunderstood.

  • It's the same hurdle (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To get a search warrant or a wire tap they have to meet the same test. On the other hand, they are allowed to follow you around at will. I wonder when they will get a law saying that all the video cameras in the city have to be connected to their central server. Then they'll be able to 'follow' you around without leaving the comfort of their desks.

    • at least not to the government rep quoted in the article. He's basically arguing that the FBI has been treating cell phone calls as a public forum when he indicates that cell phone users do not have an "expectation of privacy". This meshes with the idea that they seem to believe that they don't need a wire tap order or warrant to legally listen in on cell phone calls. I think that they believe that the only time these orders/warrants come into play is when they have to look back on a call using the opera

  • Explaination and link to one decision. (Score:5, Informative)

    by will_die ( 586523 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @11:22AM (#13904631) Homepage
    Here is the New York decisions. [eff.org]

    Unfonatly that link in the OP is very lacking on specific and explaining some details. Here is a quick description and judges reasoning.
    1) the FBI asked for the cell towers used so they would have a rough idea of the location the person was located.
    2) In most cases this has been easy to get since the Supreme Court has declared that a person has no expectation of privacy with the numbers that are dialed so also as the FBI says the information is relavent the courts allow easy access. The FBI claims that the tower being used for "control codes" is at the same level of expected privacy as phone number, they also used some other laws such as the Stored Communication Act to prove they should have that level of access.
    3) in the New York case the judges ruled that this was not the case and the tower being used is different. "When the government seeks to turn a mobile telephone into a means for contemporaneously tracking the movements of its user, the delicately balanced compromise that Congress has forged between effective law enforcement and individual privacy requires a showing of probable cause,"

    So it looks like Congress will probaly need to give some more specifications on what they mean.
    • Wow, a story of the court system working correctly.

      FBI: We want to track people. While I know we can't do it through the regular Law Enforcement Channels, I think we can do it through the Stored Communication Act.

      Court: Well, Congress has many laws in place, and your rights in law are not really clear. However; law enforcement in every other application of law requires probable cause. So you must show probably cause, any other rights or limitations will need to be established further and clarified by

  • They'll adapt the al-Qaida way (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @11:46AM (#13904703)
    Terrorists will simply adapt the Al-Qaida way. That is, horse-back or any primitive means. The FBI seems to think that terrorists are stupid. This is way we have failed to capture Bin Laden even after spending close to $1.3 billion in efforts to find him.

    If one writes about possible rains or a harvest or even congratulates somebody for fathering a child, yet the actual meaning behind this is a facilitation of terrorist activity, this is very dangerous. This is the Al-Qaida way. We as Americans cannot succeed in such an environment.

    That is why for example, IEDs are exploding daily, killing and maiming our GIs despite the fact that Baghdad was "combed" by coalition forces. To me, this is a wasted effort by the FBI. They should devise more effective means to deliver.

    • This is way we have failed to capture Bin Laden even after spending close to $1.3 billion in efforts to find him.

      That depends on how you define things. If Iraq was truely looking for Al Qaeida/Bin Ladin, then we have spent some more than .5 trillion.

      If you define all the work that has gone into this, then you must include the USSR, and clinton's work. Then we are probably looking at about 1-2 trillion.

  • Want More Rulings Like This? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Landaras ( 159892 ) <neil@@@wehneman...com> on Saturday October 29, 2005 @12:17PM (#13904812) Homepage
    Want more rulings like this?

    Donate to the EFF [eff.org] They wrote briefs for these cases.

    Remember: the rights you save may be your own.

    - Neil Wehneman

    P.S. More information is at the EFF coverage of the cases [eff.org].

  • Seems like a tempest in a tea cup to me (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @12:21PM (#13904833) Journal
    When the FBI went to do wiretaps on regular phones, they ended up having to have a court order and evidence of a crime being committed or in progress. This is much the same thing, however there is a much bigger effort involved. To get the cellular company to track your phone:

    1 - It won't be accurate as GPS
    2 - It won't be easy, and will take much effort
    3 - Cellular is much easier than Voice over WiFi, but still takes a lot of work
    4 - Tracking the location of a cellular phone is nearly stupid, especially if its a 'go' phone that you can simply throw away
    5 - Knowing where a phone is, doesn't tell the cops anything unless they can also prove you were with it

    The technical issues around this are just too many to make it of any real use. Real bad guys (not the stupid ones) already know how to get around this. If you are not a bad guy, you are not worth the effort to get a court order for, and believe me, cellular companies are not going to go through the motions without a warrant (I have some experience here) because it costs money. Tracking joe bloggs' cell phone just for kicks is not going to happen.

    The more interesting things that can be done is to use the cellphone service to locate possible victims in collapsed buildings etc. in a disaster. Say, New Orleans 9th ward, if there is a working cellphone found, there is probably someone with it. Tracking cellphone positions (without personally identifying information) can lead to better service if you know where they are all at (usually) during different periods of the day. There are social welfare implications to this type of knowledge, and they are good things too. The trouble is that it will take something like an IBM supercomputer to collect and use the information in a useful way.

    Until the police / authorities run the cellular networks, there is not a lot to worry about on this particular issue.
    • "1 - It won't be accurate as GPS"

      It is GPS. Every phone sold this year and forevermore in the US has GPS built in. You have a tracking device on you. It's a done deal. There is an option on the phone menu to "turn it off", but if you believe that they won't turn it back on unbeknownst to you if a cop or a government official or a businessman with a nice fat bribe asks it be done, well...

    • 1 - It won't be accurate as GPS

      It's actually more accurate, and more robust.

      As others have pointed out, all current cellphones have network-assisted GPS in them. The intent is to be able to locate you if you call 911. The way most of the cell networks work nowadays, you can only get an accurate location if a phone call is in progress, i.e. the 911 dispatcher wants to know where you are.

      The networks can triangulate on cell sites at any time. Cops have used this data for years. This is also how the ne

  • Clarification (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @12:51PM (#13904955) Homepage
    Just to clarify for the "what's he trying to hide" people. What the finding states is that the FBI must have proof that a crime has been committed. That is, they can't just pick people that they think are dirty and start tracking them unless there is a crime. This seems like the fundamental basis of police protection - their job is to investigate crimes and prosecute the perps. Not to monitor people they don't like in case they commit a crime. The crime has to come before the surveillance.

    Do you disagree? Do you think the FBI should act as our watchers before any crime is committed?

    I don't. I think the FBI's job starts when a crime occurs.

    • Re:Clarification (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Todd Knarr ( 15451 )

      I think they need evidence that a crime has been committed or is in the process of being committed, and that the person they want to track is involved in that crime. That last part especially is one they seem to want to skip.

      • Ideally, you want to stop terrorists before they get to the process of crashing a planes... preferably before they even get remotely close to boarding the plane.

        It will all go away once thought/memory scanners will be inventended and yearly reviews are made mandatory. This would limit the terrorists' planning, organizing and execution window to less than a year. It would also prevent criminals from hiding for more than a year.

        I hope it will never go this far (well, hopefully not in out lifetime) but if the
    • they can't just pick people that they think are dirty and start tracking them

      Oh I assure you - they can, and they do. Just not legally.
      That last part doesn't bother them much, because they have grown to believe that 'they are the law' and nobody exists that can say otherwise.
      The difference is now they have to come up with supplimentary dirt on you via this tracking, dirt that they can reasonably justify and can come up with a description of how they obtained it in a legal manner (even if they didn't, or if
    • Not "proof". "Probable cause (to believe)" that a crime has been committed or in progress.

      "Proof" is a matter of courts, with advocates for both sides punching holes in each other's arguments.

      "Probable cause" is a far lower standard than "proof", but a higher one that "suspicion". It requires some objective evidence of a form that has been shown in the past to indicate with reasonable probability that a crime is really taking place. Gut feelings by cops (that might be driven by personal bias) and similar

  • Sometimes I envy the US constitution (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrogers ( 85392 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @01:29PM (#13905123)
    The UK security service (MI5) doesn't need a court order to access traffic data, which includes tracking your mobile phone. If you find out you've been tracked (or bugged, or burgled) you can complain to a tribunal, but "In the course of their existence, no complaints have ever been upheld by the interception of communications tribunal, security service tribunal and intelligence services tribunal." - The Guardian [guardian.co.uk]

  • Keeping my old phone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nido ( 102070 ) <nido56NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Saturday October 29, 2005 @01:48PM (#13905201) Homepage
    I've had my phone for over 3 years now, same battery, a little worse for wear (some lines in the screen have gone out). My aunt's phone died recently, so I called up Verizon and tried to transfer my phone to her. (I have another phone of the same model that I was going to switch to.) "Sorry, we can't add any phones that aren't GPS-enabled". Hmm? FCC dictate since May 2005, I guess. All the more reason for me to keep it. :)

  • This won't stop them. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Max Threshold ( 540114 ) on Saturday October 29, 2005 @06:39PM (#13906456)
    The sad thing is, this won't stop the FBI from doing it. They'll just request the information without a court order. Most people don't know their rights, and if an FBI agent comes up to them and tells them to provide information, they'll probably comply.

  • Those liberal judges... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    legislatin' from the bench!

    Why do they hate america so much?

    Think of the children.

    --

    Seriously though, I am a true republican and I know that the government is freakin evil and will abuse any power that we give them. How come all of a sudden the government is the solution to all our problems, once some people who claimed to be republicans got into office. They sure do spend like democrats and abuse their authority and grow the government just like the democrats did.

    I am for small government and fiscal resp

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