Is the Government Tracking Us Through Our Cellphones? Lawsuit Seeks Answers

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/is-the-government-tracking-us-through-our-cellphones-lawsuit-seeks-answers/?hp

July 1, 2008, 7:14 pm
Is the Government Tracking Us Through Our Cellphones? Lawsuit Seeks Answers

By Matt Richtel

How widely is the U.S. government using cell phones to pinpoint the locations or track the movements of Americans, or people living on American soil?

In November 2007, the American Civil Liberties filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice seeking records related to such tracking practices. The DOJ did not provide the requested information, the ACLU said.

And so Tuesday, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court to try to force the DOJ to comply.

In a press release, the ACLU said that the information about how and how often the government tracks Americans using cell phones needs to come to light to determine if the efforts are unconstitutional.

The ACLU said it filed the initial data request after media reports showed that some government officials were claiming not to require “probable cause” of a crime being committed before getting court permission to do real-time tracking of cell phones.

Specifically, the civil-liberties group said, it based its request on an article I wrote in December 2005. That article discussed the discomfort that some courts were feeling about the government’s use of cell-phone tracking technology. In that story, legal officials said that some judges wanted government investigators to show probable cause.

As I noted in that article, the government can get such information from cellular operators, like Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which generally know the location of their subscribers within about 300 feet when their phones are turned on.

Such tracking information could be critical, prosecutors have said, to finding suspects or corroborating their whereabouts. And prosecutors have said that there already are legal protections in place to prevent law enforcement from tracking at will, without cause.

But the ACLU and the EFF, an organization that focuses on Internet and technology law, said that the public has an “overwhelming interest” in finding out how often the government is seeking to track Americans and why. If the information is withheld, it distances Americans from the decision-making process about how and when tracking should be permitted, the legal advocates said.

“Further delays will allow important privacy polices to be developed behind closed doors,” said David L. Sobel, senior counsel to the EFF.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/01/AR2008070102884.html

Groups Sue U.S. for Data On Tracking By Cellphone

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 2, 2008; A02

Two civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government yesterday, seeking records related to the government's use of cellphones as tracking devices.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government in federal court in Washington under the Freedom of Information Act. Last November, the ACLU had filed a FOIA request with the Justice Department for documents, memos and guides regarding the policies for tracking people through the use of their cellphones.

The groups also want to know how many times the government sought location information without first establishing probable cause that a crime was taking place.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment on the suit. But with respect to cell-tracking data in general, he said, "It is important to remember that the courts determine whether or not cell-site data or more precise cell location data can be turned over to law enforcement in a particular case."

Boyd added that "law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens. Instead, law enforcement goes through the courts to lawfully obtain data to help locate criminal suspects, sometimes in cases where lives are literally hanging in the balance, such as a child abduction case or a serial murderer on the loose."

The ACLU's FOIA request was made after an article in The Washington Post last fall revealed that federal officials were routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data on individuals and that courts sometimes have ordered the data released without first requiring a showing of probable cause.