Posted on 07/26/2011 2:06:08 PM PDT by tutstar
A group of Senators questioned the general attorney for the National Security Agency Tuesday about whether U.S. intelligence agencies are using cell phone geo location data to track U.S. citizens without their knowledge.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the leader of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olson told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that: "There are certain circumstances where that authority may exist."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
There is also a link within the article to WSJ
ping
Imagine the State-run media, U.S. Senate & House RATS, Civil Rights Groups, etc., if this were being done by G.W., Reagan, or any other Republican. The fit would hit the shan!!!
I’m sure the press will drill down to this Obama administration cell hacking just like they are with the owner of Fox news.
ping
Just the other day the local news informed us that GM was testing communication between their electric cars and the smart grid.
If they’re able to communicate, they’re able to track.
From whom?
The authority to do anything comes from either the Constitution or the laws passed by the very people he's speaking to.
So where would he get such "authority" without them knowing about it?
Or maybe he just figures he's appointed by Divine Right and doesn't owe anyone an explanation.
Sorry....dont have a cell phone.
Try again?
I'm sure there are circumstances where a warrant might get issued for that data. More telling is the implication from his statement that the data exists and is being maintained.
The phone system HAS to keep track of where your phone is, in order to be able to route incoming calls to the right cell tower. His statement implies that the information is logged, and the logs are archived. Somewhere, there is a file that contains where your cell phone has been, all through the days and weeks.
Good, because I'm beginning to suspect that my cell phone has been cheating on me.
The problem here, Reg, is the marriage of business and government.
The government of the People (a Republic) would only be in business for the business of the People meaning settling legal matters, collecting taxes, and providing for the common defense of the States.
As soon as lobbying and NGOs and other shadow organizations started shelling out the cash to Congress on up, business and government were married at the hip.
Government buys car company, government “sells” car company, car company puts out trackable vehicles, sheep fall over, government controls your life. Liberty = FAIL.
The only variable they can’t count on is the People. We have the power to vote with our wallets. GM will never get a dime of my money for the rest of my life.
Ford all the way, here.
There almost certainly is an archive of cell location data.
It’s also very likely that all cell calls are archived as encrypted data files....ditto for land-line calls.
The idea is that it is not really a 4th amendment violation as long as only a federal judge can order the data decrypted so it can be listened to. These judicial orders are made in secret. This is all Patriot Act fallout.
This is the reason the gov fought so damned hard to ensure cell encryption was insecure. If they had to decrypt each call before they could re-encrypt and archive they would soon run out of the computer power required to keep up with the data volume. They also took steps to ensure no cell phone model was allowed to use the internal processor to add a 2nd layer of hard encryption to the data stream. It would be child’s play to add this 2nd layer and do public key encryption for all calls...but this would make it impossible to archive the cell system data.
It does not take a genius to figure out that the only reason to fight so hard against a more secure cell system is because they are archiving all the data. They would not even allow weak encryption to be added. This is because even weak encryption would overtax the systems they would employ to decrypt all the cell data. Weak encryption would not in any way hamper a valid warrant to monitor a cell users calls... it’s easy to decrypt weakly encrypted data of small volume...but a layer of weak encryption would mean they would never be able to decrypt all the cell data in real-time and that’s what was most important.
Now, just imagine what kind of juicy calls are contained inside the archive of all cell calls in the Chicago area over the last decade.
Lol! My records would be pretty boring, home to work; from work to the grocery to back home again. Repeat day after day.
OK, but rumor has it: if you have a land line, it can be traced right to your home ! ;^)
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GM cars with Onstar know where you are when you have a wreck. Only makes sense they can track your whereabouts.
Neither do we. I don’t like phones anyway. But....for those that do have cell phones and you don’t want to be tracked, take the battery out. It does no good just to turn the phone off.
If so...then I’ll make it a habit to drive by the local Mosque....then the gun store...then the airport everyday....with GPS going.
Fortunately I have no need of that garbage on a vehicle. Guess I’m from the time when a certain degree of professionalism was required behind the wheel.
It’s getting worse too~
bump
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