Ubiquitous in the modern world, the cell phone is a very personal item and, perhaps predictably, at has become one of the favorite targets for US law enforcement fishing expeditions, according to new data released by cell phone companies.
The data, a response to a Congressional inquiry into cell phone surveillance, shows requests from federal state and local governments have soared over the past few years, with the companies fielding 1.3 million demands for private subscriber information in 2011 alone.
Government surveillance into cell phone use is a long-standing issue for privacy advocates, but even Congressmen are expressing shock at exactly how many such requests the companies are receiving.
At present there are very few legal restrictions on what the government can seek, with many agencies shifting away from wiretaps to more vague requests for data to avoid seeking a warrant. Many of the companies are keeping a team of lawyers on-hand to screen such requests, rejecting those they are worried might cause trouble for them later.
Some of the companies, including T-mobile, have referred “inappropriate” demands to other law enforcement agencies. There is no indication from the report that the FBI acted at all on such requests.
Welcome to the 21st century version of fascism. I reserve the right to know who is looking over my shoulder besides me.
In a fascist regime nothing is private. They would even get into your pants if they could, to monitor the action. But that goes to show how much the regime is scared of the “American Spring”.
Ooo, "American Spring"…I'm gonna steal that…
This will most likely be overturned. Cellphones have largely supplanted personal computers for many people, and as such, they now store (or have access to) virtually all of somebody's personal information.
Nowadays, nothing is private, every thing can be tracked by governments.