Government Tracking Cell Phones

5 Ways You Give The Government Control” written by Kenneth Coats shows how the devices we use daily slowly take over individuals lives. Coats states, “Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything...This essentially makes them the perfect tracking and bugging devices”. Although electronic devices are known to be safe, they allow outside people to figure out individuals personal life. Due to the need for devices such as cell phones, each individual has a high chance of being socially stalked once in their lifetime. Coats then states, “Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but… your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to recorded conversations and take photographs”. This issue causes a panic due to the wide spread of inappropriate pictures and private conversations in one's life. Even though technology is viewed as a privileged, it is also taking away people's lives without their

The government looks at our emails, text messages, listens to our phone calls and other similar communication devices. “The U.S. has led a worldwide effort to limit individual privacy and enhance the capability of its police and intelligence services to eavesdrop on personal conversations. The campaign has had two legal strategies. The first made it mandatory for all digital telephone switches, cellular and satellite phones and all developing communication technologies to build in surveillance capabilities; the second sought to limit the dissemination of software that provides encryption, a technique which allows people to scramble their communications and files to prevent others from reading them” (Solove). How much of this did you know about? Almost all of our current devices already have technology that makes it an easy access for the government to know about all of your conversations.

The NSA has been performing mass surveillance on United States citizens since as early as 2001. They have teamed up with AT&T and other mass communication companies to have access to phone records and internet traffic to keep an eye on possible terrorist activities (Electronic Frontier Foundation). People use their smart phones every day to talk, send email, and browse the web for

In past law enforcers could pull phone information without probable cause which means telecommunications industry used to be more cooperative with law enforcement. But now there have been many changes. Knutson, Gryta, Barrett (2014) write on the article that AT&T Inc. said federal investigators might need a warrant to gather data about cellphone user’s location, challenging the more permissive legal framework the government has used for year. This means law enforcers will need probable cause to get warrant from a judge before pulling phone records from carriers like AT&T. Although phone records helps to locate suspects and gather evidences, pulling

Although technology has provided tools to enhance our capabilities in things such as finding a missing person, solving murder cases based on technological assets etc.., this technology also leaves us vulnerable in many ways to slowly losing our privacy (Burten, C., 2012).

Law professor Paul Ohm, in an article titled “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker”, writes “Every year, private companies send millions of dollars developing new services that track, store and share words, movement and even the thoughts of their customers.” We see their privacy being broken in the novel 1984 and realize that we are experiencing the same type of surveillance in our economy. NBC News, in an article FBI Abandoned Carnivore Wiretap Software writes, “FBI… popular commercial wiretap software because it was less expensive and had improved in it’s ability to copy E-mails and other communications of a targeted internet account without affecting their subscribers. Government officials use this kind of technology to keep track of our information and movement to assure we are no threat to our

The NSA program, uncovered by the former CIA agent and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, is called Prism. Snowden, while working for the NSA disclosed this information by leaking this classified information to a web site called The Guardian. The fact that the information was classified means that the NSA had no intention of telling the citizens of the USA about its ability to monitor and record this great amount of data. This program while legally not able to record the conversation in the of a phone call can detect and record the number who is making the call, the number being called, the duration of the call, and, if necessary, the cellular tower used to send the call. This is intruding upon a huge portion of what most people consider personal, private data. (The Guardian)

The NSA has also acquired many people’s addresses and buddy list connected from their phones.

Surveillance was one of the biggest changes to the foreign policy in the United States. The Patriot Act was created under PResident Bush which allowed the United States government to track phone records, text messages, and call logs from individuals to help track down terrorists. After recent debate the surveillance portion of the Patriot Act has now expired and is currently weaving through Congress. Some believe that the surveillance is important in tracking terrorists, but some see the other side where is is a breach of the illegal search portion of the Amendments.

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

I claim that the US government should be allowed to use digital information because it could help track a missing person. Many people get abducted everywhere or people get lost in the forest, mountains or with mental issues. Government or agent officials could find people easier if they have access to personal information. Schulz & Zwerdling (2013) mention that “Law enforcement can create a map of timeline of a person’s whereabouts by accessing data from license- plate scanners, toll bridge crossings and mobile phone

The cause of terrorist attacks like 9/11 tragedy the government has ramped ups the security and surveillance of the activist, journalist and dissidents. It is no secret that the government are able to have assess of people phone call records and text messages but for that reason that, activists avoid using telephones, instead they use tools like Skype. Which they think they are immune to interception but they are wrong. Over the last years there has been an industry of companies who provide surveillance technology to the government, technology that allows the government to hack into computers. Rather that intercepting the commutations as they go over the wire, instead the government now hacks into your computer, enable your webcam and your microphone and able to steal and look through documents from your computer. In the article “ Quasi- Constitutional Protection and Government Surveillance” by Emily Berman argues “ The government may collect and analyze unprecedented amounts of information about U.S persons’ communications, but without concomitant safeguards against infringing on individual privacy” (781). According to this, it indicates that all the access the government is able to see and how it is invading American’s privacy.

On June 5, 2013, a London newspaper was the first to report that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of the Verizon Wireless Company. The NSA did not listen in or record the telephone calls themselves but collected data about the calls such as the telephone numbers used and the time, date and length of the calls. There was a top secret order issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) required Verizon to give the NSA metadata information on the telephone calls both between the U.S. and other countries and within the U.S. PRISM, a secret NASA program, is a system designed to permit the agency to collect data directly from the servers of

In Montgomery, Robert Chae was murdered and cell phone tracking helped police find the three attackers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) traced the movements of the phones and were eventually able to find the murderers (Nunnally).  With this new technology, the FBI and police can easily track down criminals.  Cell phone tracking can also help police accumulate knowledge about the clandestine locations of terrorist groups.  Terrorists are hard to recognize because they blend in so well, so “it is necessary to unusual means to gather information about their whereabouts” (Baker).  The FBI can immediately find the location of terrorist after they turn on their cell phone because the signal is received in space (Baker).  Once police receive the signal, they can send alerts to patrolling agencies nearby.  It is imperative for the police and FBI agents to to use modern warfare technology to pinpoint where terrorists reside and prevent them from carrying out their destructive plans.  Contemporary technology is very useful because alerts come within seconds and it is extremely precise.  Kidnapped victims can also be found using cell phone tracking.  A woman called 911 in Salem, Massachusetts when she was kidnapped.  Immediately after she hung up, The dispatcher was able to track down the truck and the woman using her phone (“Police Track”).  Cell phone tracking can play a

After September 11, 2001, terrorist’s attack, President George W. Bush signed into law the U.S. Patriot Act on October 26, 2001. The Patriot Act violates the fourth adjustment to the bill. It states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”The act allows for the exercise of roaming wiretaps to offer observation for law enforcement agencies, also to admit every concrete part of data regarding American citizens and individual residing in the United States and the capability to follow and offer observations on objectives with no bind to the terrorist union, also referred to as “lone wolves.”Technology is an IMSI-catcher (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) used for telephone eavesdropping. It allows for interrupting cellphone traffic and following movements of mobile phone users (Cullen & Wilcox 2010). It acts as a bogus cell phone tower that sits between the target mobile phone and the service provider's real towers. StingRay technology intercepts calls; Internet traffic can infuse malware on a cellular phone device, send false texts, and trace aimed. The device can be used in the police cruiser making it available to use anywhere on anyone. The ACLU has spoken out against employing