zlacker

>>benwer+(OP)
> Such data may be useful, it says, to “identify every person who attended a protest or rally based on their smartphone location or ad-tracking records.”

"May"? This is exactly how the January 6th protestors were identified.

>>roarch+E3
doubtful. they were issuing subpoenas to the cell companies for their records of the tower registrations for a certain time frame when crimes were being committed. It doesn't take much to identify the owner of a smartphone via that and then correlate that with driver's license photo ids and correlate that with surveillance camera footage to bring a case. that had nothing to do with peaceful protester tracking but bog standard criminal investigation.

>>weaksa+Rd
I posted the source in another comment but I'll put it here as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-is-mapping-cell-phone-lo...

The data came from Google and included GPS data.

Either way, I don't think that matters. My point is that tech companies store data that can be used to identify everyone present at a specific location and timeframe, and that data is easily available to the government. There's no "may" about it.

>>roarch+te
That's missing the point. Your article says

> investigators obtained GPS and other cell phone records from Google via a search warrant

Search warrants are and remain the correct tool for the government to get this data. What this article is worrying about is the fact that sometimes the government simply purchases this data without any sign off from a judge. That's where constitutional protections are eroded.

Your outrage is misplaced until such time when the government can buy this data from Google without a search warrant.

>>kccqzy+Em
I'm aware of the distinction. I guess I wasn't clear in my original comment because this keeps coming up: My point is merely that there is absolutely no doubt that once acquired, the data gives the government this capability. The article implies that this is uncertain, and it is not.

> Your outrage is misplaced until such time when the government can buy this data from Google without a search warrant.

Whatever outrage you read into my comments, I assure you it's not there. If you're looking for a fight, look elsewhere.

Also, the OP article is about the government doing exactly that. So if I was outraged, it would be well placed, according to you.

>>roarch+Hn
> Also, the OP article is about the government doing exactly that.

The OP article doesn't match the document it describes, which says that the government authorized 5 searches of this data in the past 2.5 years.

>>lern_t+jv
Are you sure about that? See Section 2.2 of the report, "Examples of CAI Contracts" that says "The IC currently acquires a large amount of CAI" and goes on to list specific data brokers contracted by specific government agencies. What am I missing?

>>roarch+Sx
The data brokers it contracts are pretty harmless, like getting business data from Dun & Bradstreet or getting military information from Janes Online. These data brokers aggregate publicly available information that you or I could find for free by accessing the right web pages. The only potential 4th Amendment violation, the one the article pretends is happening on a mass scale, is from purchase of mobile location data. The document says that the provider doesn't remove US data, so the government does that itself because accessing that data without due process would be a 4th Amendment violation. Due process was also followed when the government obtained location information from Google.

>>lern_t+oA
Ah I see it, looks like you're right:

> DIA currently provides funding to another agency that purchases commercially available geolocation metadata aggregated from smartphones. The data DIA receives is global in scope and is not identified as “U.S. location data” or “foreign location data” by the vendor at the time it is provisioned to DIA. DIA processes the location data as it arrives to identify U.S. location data points that it segregates in a separate database. DIA personnel can only query the U.S. location database when authorized through a specific process requiring approval from the Office of General Counsel (OGC), Office of Oversight and Compliance (OOC), and DIA senior leadership. Permission to query the U.S. device location data has been granted five times in the past two-and-a-half years for authorized purposes.

It's worth noting that they do collect the data up front, and only querying it is restricted. But I suppose having to follow due process for that part is better than nothing.

>>roarch+ZC
How do they handle the Fourth Amendment rights of US citizens abroad, like me? My understanding is that those rights must be respected even abroad by US governmental entities when they know or reasonably should know that data they might search or seize belongs to a US citizen.

And if this data includes sufficient identifying info, they should be able to identify me as a US citizen. Even phone number would be enough, since I think that and my US social security number are together in various public data breach datasets.

(Yes, my US phone number should be generating foreign location data. I have two eSIMs simultaneously active, one US and one foreign. For odd reasons I don’t think I have proper roaming working for the US number where I am now, but it does work via Wi-Fi calling which does share the country info with the carrier - and I have had international roaming working at other times.)

Why should my SSN indicate citizenship, some might wonder? SSA certainly knows I was granted my SSN years ago as a newborn citizen, and the Department of State knows I hold a current US passport and have never relinquished my US citizenship.