Law Enforcement Tracking Cell Phones to Spy Without Warrants
FUTURE SHOCK
Law Enforcement Tracking Cell Phones to Spy Without Warrants
YOUR LADY GAGA ALARM GOES OFF AT 6:05 A.M. sharp.
You hop out of bed, make a piping hot cup of coffee, fire up the laptop and begin reading the news. An article on the rise of The Oath Keepers catches your attention. They are a loosely-knit national group armed to the teeth -- often with advanced military and police training -- who have dedicated themselves to protecting their freedoms and the consititution itself. "They sound nutty and dangerous," you mutter to yourself.
Sip.
But you begin to wonder: "With all this business about Homeland Security and the suspension of individual rights in America, maybe they have a point?"
You scroll to the bottom of the article and shoot off a strongly-worded comment on the story.
Whirr, clank, bzzz bzzz! Skynet locks on. Your message is flagged as it passes through the NSA tap at Ma Bell, then shunted off to a processing center.
You typed the word "patriot." You are now being tracked.
Suddenly, everything you do is flagged: credit card use, mid-morning sexting, your Facebooking, your googling, your phone call to cousin Leonard in Albuquerque, NM.
According to Eric Schmidt of Google, this isn't a problem :
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
Michael Isikoff of Newsweek shows us what's wrong with his attitude:
In one example he documents, an "agitated Alabama sheriff" called a mobile phone company claiming his daughter had been kidnapped. "The sheriff demanded they ping her cell phone every few minutes to identify her location. In fact, there was no kidnapping: the daughter had been out on the town all night."
In another example, under the guise of a threatened "riot," Michigan cops pressured a telecom for information about cell phones in an area where labor union protesters were expected.
Sprint Nextel even went so far to "set up a dedicated Web site so that law-enforcement agents can access the records from their desks -- a fact divulged by the company's "manager of electronic surveillance" at a private Washington security conference last October," according to Newsweek.
Though some court magistrates are pushing back, abuse is already taking place.
Authorities are tracking citizens without a warrant. In the name of freedom.
