Posted on 02/07/2020 5:23:22 AM PST by karpov
The Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The location data is drawn from ordinary cellphone apps, including those for games, weather and e-commerce, for which the user has granted permission to log the phone’s location.
The Department of Homeland Security has used the information to detect undocumented immigrants and others who may be entering the U.S. unlawfully, according to these people and documents.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of DHS, has used the data to help identify immigrants who were later arrested, these people said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another agency under DHS, uses the information to look for cellphone activity in unusual places, such as remote stretches of desert that straddle the Mexican border, the people said.
The federal government’s use of such data for law enforcement purposes hasn’t previously been reported.
Experts say the information amounts to one of the largest known troves of bulk data being deployed by law enforcement in the U.S.—and that the use appears to be on firm legal footing because the government buys access to it from a commercial vendor, just as a private company could, though its use hasn’t been tested in court.
“This is a classic situation where creeping commercial surveillance in the private sector is now bleeding directly over into government,” said Alan Butler, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a think tank that pushes for stronger privacy laws.
According to federal spending contracts, a division of DHS that creates experimental products began buying location data in 2017 from Venntel Inc. of Herndon, Va.,
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
This is a blinding flash of the obvious (BFO). One of the FIRST things I would do in this age of global interconnectedness.
Finally—something positive out of our present police state!
WSJ is once again going to bat for the Cheap Labor Express.
They are outing ICE in an effort to intimidate cell carriers into ending cooperation.
Bienvenidos a North Mexico.
“Alexa, should I believe this article? Is the government spying on me?”
Now you just removed a tool that DHS uses to keep our country safe.
Effin MSM
It doesn’t matter. They’re probably getting the data from Mexican cell towers.
1. Food for thought for all of those anxious for CWII.
2. How long before one of the billionaire leftists buys into this capability so their minions can use it for nefarious purposes.
3. If it is legal for government to buy this information from a private source when government couldn’t get the information itself without a warrant, what other information can it do the same with?
4. On the other hand, if this and other surveillance methods we worry about are so good, why do we still have child porn rings, human trafficking rings, drug rings, and so forth?
Illegals have absolutely no expectation of privacy.
Track em down.
DEPORT!
Its not the methods that are in question.
Its always the people employing the methods that become the issue.
#1 - when in public, there is NO expectation of privacy. That basic thought is why your car license plate is considered a public record. Also why you cannot sue someone for filming your face in public.
#2 your phone has a “license plate” that it broadcasts to the cell tower to identify your phone. These numbers are normally kept on the SIM card. This broadcast is necessary to support the mobility of a cell phone from tower to tower. Based on signal strength and triangulation, it is possible to identify the general area where the phone is located.
How accurate that location is (absent GPS info) is varies by the physical conditions of the location but is generally accurate to the block level. If GPS information is included with the location search, the location can be accurate to several feet. If micro towers are in use, or referenced against wifi access points, it can be identified down to the foot level.
Since your phone is broadcasting it's code, it is considered the same as displaying a license plate and no expectation of privacy is assumed.
5G will give your location to the tower potentially within less than a meter, including angle of elevation. It’s part of how it works. If it didn’t have that information, it couldn’t aim the beam.
As I understand it, that’s how Google Maps shows traffic slowdowns. They look for locations on roads where there is a high concentration of cell phones that don’t seem to be moving at the correct speed.
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