Americans should be aware how much information their cell phones can provide a Big Brother government. Your cell phone sends a signal to the phone company making it possible to track the phone’s whereabouts at all times – even when the phone is not in use. The Justice Department wants police to be able to ask phone companies to monitor the movements of individuals and to collect logs of past movements over weeks and years of use. To be precise, these historical records are the center of today’s court proceedings.
The Court should tell the government “No.” The Fourth Amendment requires government to obtain a search warrant for this type of information requiring the government to show probable cause of criminal activity before it can spy on people. Make no mistake, our freedom is being challenged. This tracking data would allow the government to determine what church you attend, what meetings you go to, where you buy your groceries and who your friends are. The government has no right and little constructive need to have free and open access to this information.
The Justice Department is arguing that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their whereabouts. This is outrageous. Americans have the right to move freely. I am greatly troubled by the continued attack on our freedom. Couple the court proceeding in Philadelphia today with the FBI’s continued efforts to force Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years and you get the feeling that our individual liberties are under an unprecedented and frightening assault. It is time for the Obama Administration to change course.
How the Obama Justice Department feels about your right to privacy can be summed up with this line from their brief in today’s case, “one who does not wish to disclose his movements to the government need not use a cellular telephone.” Wrong. Using a cell phone does cancel one’s right to privacy.
I know we live in a world where bad guys want to harm the good and I want my government to have the tools they need to apprehend these criminals. However, protecting individual liberty is paramount. The government should have to seek a court’s permission for sensitive information regarding a person’s whereabouts and what they are reading or viewing on the Internet. Allowing government to gather information and go on unjustified fishing missions by trolling electronic records is just flat out wrong.
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.
The Court should tell the government “No.” The Fourth Amendment requires government to obtain a search warrant for this type of information requiring the government to show probable cause of criminal activity before it can spy on people. Make no mistake, our freedom is being challenged. This tracking data would allow the government to determine what church you attend, what meetings you go to, where you buy your groceries and who your friends are. The government has no right and little constructive need to have free and open access to this information.
The Justice Department is arguing that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their whereabouts. This is outrageous. Americans have the right to move freely. I am greatly troubled by the continued attack on our freedom. Couple the court proceeding in Philadelphia today with the FBI’s continued efforts to force Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years and you get the feeling that our individual liberties are under an unprecedented and frightening assault. It is time for the Obama Administration to change course.
How the Obama Justice Department feels about your right to privacy can be summed up with this line from their brief in today’s case, “one who does not wish to disclose his movements to the government need not use a cellular telephone.” Wrong. Using a cell phone does cancel one’s right to privacy.
I know we live in a world where bad guys want to harm the good and I want my government to have the tools they need to apprehend these criminals. However, protecting individual liberty is paramount. The government should have to seek a court’s permission for sensitive information regarding a person’s whereabouts and what they are reading or viewing on the Internet. Allowing government to gather information and go on unjustified fishing missions by trolling electronic records is just flat out wrong.
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.
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