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Coordinates being taken for every residence in nation According to an online Yahoo program, the Global Position System coordinates for the White House, probably one of the best-known publicly-owned buildings in the world, are 38.898590 Latitude and -77.035971 Longitude. And since you know that, it's no big deal for the White House to know the coordinates for your front door, is it? Some people think it is, and are upset over an army of some 140,000 workers hired in part with a $700 million taxpayer-funded contract to collect those GPS readings for every front door in the nation.Census GPS-tagging your...

On April 29, 2009, I released Part I of this column, which resulted in a firestorm of interest in the story behind current Census Bureau efforts to capture and record the GPS coordinates of every private residence in the United States. World Net Daily is leading with that story today… Census GPS-tagging your home’s front door. The story blasted around the Internet within hours of its release, drawing millions of readers and thousands of comments from both Obama and ACORN supporters, and Americans already fearful of a corrupt and possibly unconstitutional government, clearly running wild with unbridled power. By 24...

According to an online Yahoo program, the Global Position System coordinates for the White House, probably one of the best-known publicly-owned buildings in the world, are 38.898590 Latitude and -77.035971 Longitude. And since you know that, it's no big deal for the White House to know the coordinates for your front door, is it?

http://www.americandailyreview.com/home-features-articles-blog/2009/4/27/big-brother-gps-doorway-census.html Big Brother is watching you via the U.S. Census Bureau shooting GPS coordinates of your doorway The Decennial Census in 2010 is around the corner, and technology promises to be of great assistance to the process of counting the number of Americans residing in this great nation. Instead of using paper-based lists, surveys, and the like, however, the United States Government has developed a paperless method to achieve their census goals. Efficiency and accuracy are the promised bi-products of these new technology-based programs, which includes creating Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates for the front doors of American homes. This...

This October, Chris Soghoian — computer security researcher, oft-times journalist, and current technical consultant for the FTC's privacy protection office — attended a closed-door conference called "ISS World". ISS World — the "ISS" is for "Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering" — is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies consult with telco representatives and surveillance equipment manufacturers about the state of electronic surveillance technology and practice. Armed with a tape recorder, Soghoian went to the conference looking for information about the scope of the government's surveillance practices in the US. What Soghoian uncovered, as he...

Some of this information has been readily available but in light of the Gulf Coast situation, this information is more important than ever. In the event of disaster or evacuation, the government might feel the need to track people in order to make sure that they are “safe.” At least that’s what Radiant RFID has in mind with its newest technology. Radiant RFID has even ran beta tests on real-time disasters such as hurricanes Gustav and Ike. This system uses combined RFID and GPS technology to track and trace equipment and personnel. Here is an excerpt from the RFID Journal,...

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

On Aug. 13, three men entered and burglarized a Bridgeview home in Northwest Houston. The residents of the house, Windi Youngblood, Corey Phelps, and baby daughter, slept undisturbed through the night. Suspects Jason Hamlin, Justin Hamlin, and Zachary Mckinzie, were caught by Precinct 4 constables less than 8 hours later. The constables found the suspects through an odd turn of events. The three men had been broadcasting their GPS coordinates the whole time. Phelps and Youngblood use a feature on their smartphones that link each phone to the other. “We started using this feature to help keep up with the...

Va. court upholds GPS tracking of suspect's vehicleBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 09, 2010 Richmond, Va. - The same GPS technology that motorists use to get directions can be used by police without a warrant to track the movements of criminal suspects on public streets, the Virginia Court of Appeals said yesterday. In a case that prompted warnings of Orwellian snooping by the government, the court unanimously ruled that Fairfax County police did nothing wrong when they planted a GPS device on the bumper of a registered sex offender's work van without obtaining a warrant. Police were investigating sexual...

PHOTO CAPTION: "Yasir Afifi said the FBI planted a GPS device on his car and later confiscated it when a friend posted this photo online. (Credit: khaledthegypsy/REDDIT)" SNIPPET: "Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old student and U.S.-born citizen found a GPS tracking device on his car. A friend posted pictures of the device, which resulted in the FBI coming by Afifi's Santa Clara, Calif., apartment to retrieve the surveillance equipment. It seems the FBI was tracking Afifi's movements..."

Through a combination of Web technologies and cheaper, more ubiquitous devices, we are now witnessing what could be the golden era of geo-stalking. Certainly, having a GPS inside your phone is convenient. But, because of GPS data embedded in pictures taken with cell phones, those pictures may also share information with strangers that allows them to track you all the way to your front door. For more information on how to protect your information and turn off your GPS photo function....

Last Thursday, 03/03/11, we reported that there is a bill under consideration in the Connecticut legislature that would require confiscation of all magazines with a capacity of over ten rounds that remain in the state 90 days after the bill becomes law, if it does. Now, the geniuses in Massachusetts are proposing going Connecticut one better. Its a state commission to study the feasibility of requiring Global Positioning Systems (GPS) locators in firearms. Here is the bill:

GLOUCESTER COUNTY — Beware, all you cheating husbands and wives. The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today. Based on the battle of a divorcing Gloucester County couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing a technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses — many of whom hire private investigators. “For the appellate division to say that it’s not an invasion of privacy is a wonderful thing for the private investigation business,” said Lisa Reed, owner of LSR Investigations in Flemington. “It’s been...

Since this spring’s blink-and-you-missed-it debate over reauthorization of several controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) have been complaining to anyone who’d listen about a “Secret Patriot Act“—an interpretation of one of the law’s provisions by the classified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granting surveillance powers exceeding those an ordinary person would understand to be conferred from the text of the statute itself. As I argued at the time, there is an enormous amount of strong circumstantial evidence suggesting that this referred to a “sensitive collection program” involving cell phone location tracking—potentially on a...

The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously sided with Gun Owners of America in finding that the placement of a Global Positioning Device on an automobile constitutes a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and follows GOA’s reasoning to throw out the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test which has been thought to be the dominant Fourth Amendment standard in recent years. The Obama Administration argued that because the police could theoretically follow Antoine Jones’ car, he had no “reasonable expectation of privacy,” and thus, placing a GPS device...

A Chicago man robbed a Radio Shack of $17,000 in merchandise, but police tracked him down quickly thanks to the global positioning equipment he stole, prosecutors said.

Today the ACLU is launching a nationwide effort to find out more about automatic license plate readers (ALPR). By snapping photographs of each license plate they encounter—up to three thousand per minute—and retaining records of who was where when, license plate readers are fundamentally threatening our freedom on the open road. You may have seen the recent New York Times op-ed that admonished us to start referring to our mobile devices as “trackers” instead of “phones.” Perhaps as ALPR technology spreads we should start saying “tracker” in place of “car,” too. We need statutory protections to limit the collection, retention,...

South Carolina legislators moved closer to overriding the governor's veto of a bill allowing officers to search people on probation or parole without a warrant. The Senate on Wednesday voted 36-7 to override Gov. Mark Sanford's veto. It now goes to the House. The measure allows officers to bypass going to a judge for a warrant before searching a probationer or parolee on the street. Their vehicles and any possession could also be searched. Inmates would have to sign off on the searches before they're released. If they don't agree, they could stay in prison for their full term. Sanford...

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves. FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually...

Note: The following text is a quote: Eight Area Men Sentenced on Federal Racketeering Charges Involving Conspiracy to Transfer Cash and Checks to the Palestinian Territories ST. LOUIS, MO—The United States Attorney’s office announced today that eight members of a criminal enterprise operating out of five St. Louis area convenience stores have been sentenced on charges of federal racketeering or related charges. As far back as 2000, the RICO conspiracy has involved bank fraud, receipt of stolen property, conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business, purchasing contraband cigarettes for resale, evading reporting requirement on exporting monetary instruments, and transporting monetary instruments...