4 ms·

Intelligence Analysts Use U.S. Smartphone Location Data Without Warrants

55 points by alexrustic 6y ago

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
How awful is it that out of 535 members of Congress, only ~1 ever gives a crap about US Gov's surveillance misdeeds?
LatteLazy 6y ago
So do 101 other groups. Police and the FBI to name but a few. It mostly affects poor people: a well off person will get a lawyer, the lawyer will enter discovery and ask questions about how the police knew. The case will be dropped. A public defender won't have the time between the 400 other cases he has today. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/fbi-would-rather-prosecutors-drop-cases-than-disclose-stingray-details/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/fbi-would-rather...
- lumost 6y ago
  I'm curious if anyone will ever make an equal protection claim based on this discrepancy. We're fast approaching a world where those with the money can protect their rights and even throw up procedural obstacles to prevent prosecution, and those without money go to jail when their rights were violated. At what point does the overwork of public defenders relative to private counterparts become an equal protection issue?
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Class (or income/wealth or whatever you call it) is the elephant in the room for a lot of US equality law. Sometimes SCOTUS rules for it (eg when public defenders were first required) but recently they've ruled solidly against it (eg voter Id laws). Personally I don't think the current US civil society would wear such a classification and deciding the edges of it would be messy. But I think it's logically and morally correct. It always surprises me when US colleges go on about diversity of race but no one really takes much interest in diversity of socioeconomic background. Here in the UK we are similarly picky about what discrimination is acceptable. Maybe in another generation or two people will be ready for a more thorough review of things.
dunefox 6y ago
I can't say that I'm surprised. If the data is available, it's getting used - legal or not.
twirlock 6y ago
They do all kinds of shit without warrants, including buying up datasets from the "private" "marketers" doing their dirty work and then cross-indexing the information with that location data.
sitkack 6y ago
Anyone can buy location data. https://www.airsage.com/ https://www.airsage.com/

55 points by alexrustic 6y ago

How awful is it that out of 535 members of Congress, only ~1 ever gives a crap about US Gov's surveillance misdeeds?

So do 101 other groups. Police and the FBI to name but a few. It mostly affects poor people: a well off person will get a lawyer, the lawyer will enter discovery and ask questions about how the police knew. The case will be dropped. A public defender won't have the time between the 400 other cases he has today. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/fbi-would-rather-prosecutors-drop-cases-than-disclose-stingray-details/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/fbi-would-rather...

lumost 6y ago
I'm curious if anyone will ever make an equal protection claim based on this discrepancy. We're fast approaching a world where those with the money can protect their rights and even throw up procedural obstacles to prevent prosecution, and those without money go to jail when their rights were violated. At what point does the overwork of public defenders relative to private counterparts become an equal protection issue?
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Class (or income/wealth or whatever you call it) is the elephant in the room for a lot of US equality law. Sometimes SCOTUS rules for it (eg when public defenders were first required) but recently they've ruled solidly against it (eg voter Id laws). Personally I don't think the current US civil society would wear such a classification and deciding the edges of it would be messy. But I think it's logically and morally correct. It always surprises me when US colleges go on about diversity of race but no one really takes much interest in diversity of socioeconomic background. Here in the UK we are similarly picky about what discrimination is acceptable. Maybe in another generation or two people will be ready for a more thorough review of things.

dunefox 6y ago

I can't say that I'm surprised. If the data is available, it's getting used - legal or not.

twirlock 6y ago

They do all kinds of shit without warrants, including buying up datasets from the "private" "marketers" doing their dirty work and then cross-indexing the information with that location data.

sitkack 6y ago

Anyone can buy location data. https://www.airsage.com/ https://www.airsage.com/