Phone Fun

Another mixed drink here at Moronathon - geolocation and the everlovin need of Congress to act like a sad mix of boot licking toadies. My apologies to any toads out there who may feel slighted by this, perhaps unjust comparison.

Scene I: Enter Department of No Stinking Badges Justice

Agent1: There is this cool new feature where I can track my delinquent, err, godfearing teenager on a web page.
Agent2: Wow. I wonder if we can leverage this to track US citizens without court order or even probable cause?
Agent1: Sounds like a plan!

As per a BetaNews article (as well as slashdot) :

"Court decisions indicate that USAOs claim not to need probable cause to obtain real-time tracking information. News reports further suggest that some field offices are violating a Department of Justice 'internal recomendation' that 'federal procecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas.'"

Think about this for a moment. This is real time information about your location. But don't worry, you really have nothing to lose if you have nothing to hide. Right?

Yes, the EFF/ACLU are suing for information on DOJ practices. Must do that before you can nicely ask them to quit being such assholes.

In a COMPLETELY UNRELATED and otherwise inconsequential bit of information, congress is ignoring US District Chief Judge Vaughn Walkers ruling against the government regarding immunity for telecoms in the NSA wiretapping case. In case you missed it, Walker (hardly a DFH) ruled:

Congress appears clearly to have intended to -- and did -- establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence surveillance activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.
(...)
This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future.

Since this decision is now mute we can thank the DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY for caving in to the pack of craven goofballs running the executive branch. They (the craven goofballs) must have some Really Awful Stuff on the loyal opposition...

None the less, thanks folks for shitting all over the 4th amendment.

So tiny, and yet so Evil...