Supreme Court Considers GPS Cases and the Future of Privacy

Supreme Court Considers GPS Cases and the Future of Privacy

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/11/08/supreme-court-considers-gps-cases-and-the-future-of-privacy/

privacy in the 21st century turn directly on the handling of the information
associated with mobile devices. It is an issue that is complicated because
technology and cultural expectations regarding privacy are changing so quickly.
The legal landscape related to privacy and mobile devices is complex,
contradictory, and evolving.

See:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/11/08/supreme-court-considers-gps-cases-and-the-future-of-privacy/

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/10-1259.pdf

JUSTICE ALITO: Well, that seems to get -to me to get to what's really
involved here, the issue of whether there is a technical trespass or
not is potentially a ground for deciding this particular case, but it
seems to me the heart of the problem that's presented by this case and
will be presented by other cases involving new technology is that in
the pre-computer, pre-Internet age much of the privacy -- I would say
most of the privacy -- that people enjoyed was
not the result of legal protections or constitutional protections; it
was the result simply of the difficulty of traveling around and
gathering up information.

But with computers, it's now so simple to amass an enormous amount of
information about people that consists of things that could have been
observed on the streets, information that was made available to the
public. If -- if this case is decided on the ground that there was a
technical trespass, I don't have much doubt that in the near future it
will be probable -- I think it's possible now in many instances -- for
law enforcement to monitor people's movements on -- on public streets
without committing a technical trespass.

So how do we deal with this? Do we just say, well, nothing is changed,
so that all the information that people expose to the public -- is, is
fair game? There is no -- there is no search or seizure when that is
-- when that is obtained, because there isn't a reasonable expectation
of privacy? But isn't there a real change in -- in this regard?

. . .

JUSTICE BREYER: But what -- but what is the question that I think
people are driving at, at least as I understand it and certainly share
the concern, is that if you win this case then there is nothing to
prevent the police or the government ffrom monitoring 24 hours a day
the public movement of every citizen of the United States. And -- and
the difference between the monitoring and what happened in the past is
memories are fallible, computers aren't.
And no one, at least very rarely, sends human beings to follow people
24 hours a day. That occasionally happens. But with the machines, you
can. So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984 from
their brief.

. . .

JUSTICE BREYER: . . . Start with the other end. Start, what would a
democratic society look like if a large number of people did think
that the government was tracking their every movement over long
periods of time. And once you reject that, you have to have a reason
under the Fourth Amendment and a principle. And what I'm looking for
is the reason and the principle that would reject that, but wouldn't
also reject 24 hours a day for 28 days. Do you see where I'm -- that's
what I'm listening very hard to find.

. . .

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: The GPS technology today is limited only by the
cost of the instrument, which frankly right now is so small that it
wouldn't take that much of a budget, local budget, to place a GPS on
every car in the nation.

. . .

JUSTICE ALITO: You know, I don't know what society expects and I think
it's changing. Technology is changing people's expectations of
privacy. Suppose we look forward 10 years, and maybe 10 years from
now 90 percent of the population will be using social networking sites
and they will have on average 500 friends and they will have allowed
their friends to monitor their location 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year, through the use of their cell phones. Then -- what would the
expectation of privacy be then?

. . .

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Do you have any idea of how many GPS devices are
being used by Federal Government agencies and State law enforcement
officials?

MR. DREEBEN: The Federal Government, I can speak to, and it's in the
low thousands annually. It's not a massive universal use of an
investigative technique. The FBI requires that there be some
reasonable basis for using GPS before it installs it. And as a result,
this is a technique that basically supplements visual surveillance
rather than supplanting it all together.

What so many people get confused about is what a GPS unit does.

It is a unit that can know where it is and what the time is, and could
store that data in its own memory. It does NOT automatically send that
information anywhere, and certainly not back via the satellites!

The collection and collation of all that data from every GPS unit is
a MUCH bigger task than just putting a little cheap unit on everything.

Does anyone ever point this out to non-techies?

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

On Nov 10, 7:59=A0am, t...@mountifield.org (Tony Mountifield) wrote:

1 - is it acceptable for law enforcement to attach a monitoring device
to your property without a warrant. For instance in the future if
there are cameras capable of reading license plates all over the place
and software capable of doing that OCR automatically, that can't be
considered illegal.

2 - The other question is really about not creating a perception that
someone might be a criminal because he's under surveillance. That's
the biggest problem if item 1 is considered acceptable by the US
supreme court.

Serious people that have no concerns with having committed any crimes
might say its a good thing police can investigate people more
efficiently. There should be at least an internal audit of usage of
such devices, done at say 20% sampling, to avoid overzealous cops
annoying people too much.

Of course, I'd say first and foremost, high profile politicians should
be the most frequently target, just to try to keep them honest.

That would be specially good in high political corruption places like
Brazil or Italy, where we desperately need to weed out the majority of
the politicians ASAP !

macpacheco wrote:

I don't see the connection between "connecting a monitoring device to your
property" and having monitoring cameras. In the UK the latter, complete with
OCR, is very common, especially in most police patrol cars. There is also a
link to the registration database which keeps data on licensing and
insurance for both driver and vehicle, and whether vehicles have any
necessary test certificate. Any transgression and the vehicle is liable to
be stopped. Drivers who are lax over such rules are also likely to be using
drink or drugs or other illegal activity. This all seems reasonable to me.

If everyone is under equal surveillance, why should non-criminals (or
politicians!) object?

On the other hand we have the unedifying spectacle of a UK national paper
being shut down as a consequence of being found to indulge in illegal mobile
phone hacking of non-criminals.

Mike.
--
If reply address is Mike@@mjcoon.+.com (invalid), remove spurious "@"
and substitute "plus" for +.