Democracy for Vancouver

Don't spy on me

More on the telecom - Feds partnership to make sure nothing you do goes undetected. This is from WAPO on Friday:

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

This gives new meaning to “do you know where your children are?”:

With Verizon’s Chaperone service, parents can set up a “geofence” around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

I keep facetiously saying that we might as well get it over with and start implanting microchips in babies as soon as they are born, like we do for some dogs and cats. I guess the joke is on me.

As long as you haven’t done anything wrong you are safe, right?

Federal agents used exact real-time data in October 2006 to track a serial killer in Florida who was linked to at least six murders in four states, including that of a University of Virginia graduate student, whose body was found along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The killer died in a police shooting in Florida as he was attempting to flee.

“Law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. None whatsoever,” Boyd said. “What we’re doing is going through the courts to lawfully obtain data that will help us locate criminal targets, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction or serial murderer on the loose.”

This Perfect Day is almost here. (I can’t believe this book is out of print. It is a classic and one of my all time favorites. It changed my high school mind tremendously and should be required reading for all freedom loving high schoolers, if not sooner.)

Thanks to Marion Ward for pointing me to the WAPO article linked above.