Court OKs Cell Phone Tracking Without Warrant

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mobilegadgetnews.com/index.php?showtopic=10527' target='_blank'>http://www.mobilegadgetnews.com/index.php?showtopic=10527</a><br /><br /></div><i>"US District Court in New York has granted the government permission to track suspects by their cell phones for up to 60 days without a warrant. According to the ruling, law enforcement officers can ask a carrier for a record of what tower a user makes calls from during that period as well as a map of all tower locations. This court order does not include requests for e911-derived aGPS or triangulated locations, which are far more accurate."</i><br /><br />The last line of this got my attention. It always makes me wonder if the US government even understands the technology it's trying to use.

[jimfee]

Yea, you could get allot more information and far more accurate time/location stamps by accessing their credit card transactions.

I wonder if this warrant-less search is the camels nose in the tent, or does it not fall under the wiretapping rules because they are not actually intercepting the contents of the call, just the envelope information per-se.

It would still narrow down a search area to within the cell footprint and give a last known area, and furthermore...

After thinking about this for a moment, they would never need to "open the envelope". If the non-voice portion of the message traffic is searchable without a warrant, a real time location could be made. At least one of the GSM location technologies uses a combination of control channel and voice channel to resolve the lat/long. even if the person is not on an active call, their handset is still generating lots of this "searchable" message traffic, like handoff and power level settings.

So maybe they are not as ignorant as you think.

I remember some of the issues surrounding carnivore and the FBI methods for wireless intercept. One judge restricted them from accessing information because they “might” get “envelope” information on someone other than the target suspect.

Sounds like the judicial review has turned the corner.

Oh re-read your post - A-gps and Tri-angulated (Tri-Laterated) info is not available to them, never mind.