Illegal cell phone tracking without warrant upon probable cause

The U.S. government possesses and uses this technology to track U.S. citizens.

The U.S. government under the Bush Administration does this more and more often.

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/USA_v_PenRegister/

Can the government track your cell phone's location probable without cause?

Is the government allowed to track your cell phone's location without a warrant based on probable cause? That's the question in a recent series of cases, where federal judges have begun to expose and reject secret surveillance requests.

This issue came to light in August 2005, when the first judge to publish a decision on the issue—Magistrate Judge Orenstein in the Eastern District of New York—publicly denied a government request that lacked proof of probable cause. In doing so, Judge Orenstein revealed that the Justice Department had routinely been using a baseless legal argument to get secret authorizations from a number of courts, probably for many years. Many more public denials followed from other judges, sharply rebuking the government and characterizing its legal argument as as "contrived," "unsupported," "misleading," "perverse," and even a "Hail Mary" play. But the government continues to rely on the same argument in front of other judges, sometimes successfully.

EFF has so far served as a friend of the court and filed briefs with two of the judges that have ruled on this issue, and both judges denied the government's requests. EFF plans to continue working on these cases as they come up, to ensure that Big Brother stays out of your pocket.

Latest EFF Statements

· DeepLinks post: Bad Ruling on Cell Phone Tracking: What a Difference a G Makes December 21, 2005

· Press Release: Government Still Pushing for Cell Phone Tracking Without Probable Cause December 7, 2005

· DeepLinks post: Location Privacy: 3, Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking: 0 December 1, 2005

· DeepLinks post: Anti-Cell Phone Tracking Judicial Revolution Spreads to New York City November 9, 2005

· Press release: Justice Department Not Appealing Cell Phone Surveillance Cases November 4, 2005

· DeepLinks post: "'Oh, we secretly track cell phones without probable cause all the time! What's the big deal?'" October 27th, 2005

· Press release: Court Issues Surveillance Smack-Down to Justice Department October 26, 2005

· DeepLinks post: One More and it's a Movement: Another Federal Judge Says no to Cell Phone Tracking Without Probable Cause October 20th, 2005

· DeepLinks post: The All Surveillance Act? October 12, 2005

· Press release: "New Case Reveals Routine Abuse of Government Surveillance Powers; Cell Phones Used to Track Users Without Probable Cause" Sept 26, 2005

Can they? Technologically yes, but legally no.

As recognized now.