ACLU Sues DHS Over Purchase of Cellphone Location Data Used To Track Immigrants (washingtonpost.com) 60
The American Civil Liberties Union is suing federal authorities over their alleged use of cellphone location data -- particularly in immigration enforcement. From a report: The nonprofit organization today filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to force the agencies to release records about purchasing cellphone location data for immigration enforcement and other purposes. The lawsuit follows multiple news reports earlier this year about the Trump administration buying access to commercial databases that track cellphone locations and then using that data to detect people who might be entering the country illegally.
"It's critical we uncover how federal agencies are accessing bulk databases of Americans' location data and why," Nathan Freed Wessler, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement. "There can be no accountability without transparency." Senate Democrats, such as privacy advocate Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), had written a letter to DHS asking for more information on how such data was being used. On Wednesday morning, they disclosed that the department's inspector general would take up the matter.
"It's critical we uncover how federal agencies are accessing bulk databases of Americans' location data and why," Nathan Freed Wessler, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement. "There can be no accountability without transparency." Senate Democrats, such as privacy advocate Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), had written a letter to DHS asking for more information on how such data was being used. On Wednesday morning, they disclosed that the department's inspector general would take up the matter.
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This is ultimately the price of cotton. Like the cost of cheap labor today, the cost of slavery is paid by those who never wanted it and never benefited from it. That's always the cost of cheap labor. The employer gets the benefit of the cheap labor and society it gets the bill. In the case of black slavery, generations of white people, many with ancestors who came over after the Civil War, have been paying for the decision to use Africans to pick the cotton.
There's no such thing as cheap labor. It's only cheap for the employer. It's a polite way of saying "socialize the cost of labor".
Only corporations should be able to access data (Score:1)
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That does seem to be the logic here. I also don't understand where the "immigrants" complaint comes in. According to the ACLU lawyer, "It's critical we uncover how federal agencies are accessing bulk databases of Americans' location data and why." By "Americans", does he mean citizens, nationals, or aliens who are within the US's borders?
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Unlike mask mandates, this would be an actual infringement on our rights provided by th
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Sure, if you ignore the fact that the Supreme Court ruled twice (United States v. Miller and Smith v. Maryland), decades ago, that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties" -- and also that this kind of cell phone data generally qualifies as voluntarily turned over to third parties.
The Court did rule in 2018 (Carpenter v. United States) that specific historical location data about cell phones, when gathered from the cell phone provider, is
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There's no privacy right in the Constitution.
The fact that there is even a DHS in the first place is the Constitutional violation, along with 95% of the rest of the federal government. Although technically I suppose border control is one of the few things they are supposed to be able to do.
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Yes - the data most likely contains information about American citizens as well.
Unlike mask mandates, this would be an actual infringement on our rights provided by the Constitution.
Citation please.
You freely give up the data by using the cell phone because the tracking info is required to make the service work (ring your phone, notify you of new emails, messages, coupons while shopping, etc.)
It's been a long time since I last read a cell phone service contract word for bloody word, but I would think there is some langauge that covers what I just said.
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Immigrants comes in because immigration enforcement is what they were using it for. It's sitting right in front of you, in words. Immigrants, even legal ones, must adhere to certain travel restrictions to maintain status. Why the fuck are you so concerned that we're SUPER CAREFUL that we don't care if they're only spying on illegal immigrants? Are illegal immigrants the only people the break the law? If you think it's a valid use of powers to catch people breaking the law, then why not use it on citizens to
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...This is what surveillance tracking is for - discovering people breaking the law. If somebody is an illegal immigrant and we know it already, of what benefit is tracking them? Obviously this data is to cast the net to find them, so by it's very purpose it is used on citizens and non-citizens alike. ...
Tracking those in this country without the legal right to be here has a couple of benefits... 1. Find out if they are working and where. If they do not have the legal right to be here, they do not have the legal right to work here. This will lead to additional charges either against the employer or the alien. 2. Aside from work, where do they hang out? This is an opportunity to discover more people in their situation. 3. Do they travel back and forth across the border? If so, this could reveal how they cros
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By "Americans", does he mean citizens, nationals, or aliens who are within the US's borders?
The Bill of Rights applies to anyone within the borders of the United States. That includes citizens, residents, immigrants whether illegal or not, and tourists on vacation.
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That is an ignorant argument. Some rights apply very differently based on citizenship or national status. For example, foreign nationals -- a category which excludes permanent residents, but includes anyone who isn't a citizen or national of the United States -- cannot contribute to political campaigns. Gun possession is another right
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Yes, permanent residents are considered immigrant aliens. That's why I said nonimmigrant aliens when discussing gun possession.
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Where in the Bill of Rights does it say that people who aren't citizens or permanent residents aren't allowed to bear arms?
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We should not allow the government to access location data on citizens, only corporations. The only way the government should have access is if it approved by at least 3 Fortune 100 corporations first.
As if corporations don't already have so much power that they are equal to or bigger than gov't itself.
How about NOBODY gets to access my location data? What benefit I do get out of corporate (or gov't) snooping on my life, every waking moment?
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Well, in this case, it was trying to stop criminal activity....non-citizens trying to enter the country illegally or stay here illegally.
I agree with you on them not tracking US citizens.
But people here illegally, I don't have any problems with using almost any means to locate them and apply the law to them.
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"But people here illegally, I don't have any problems with using almost any means to locate them and apply the law to them."
You think taking their children away and put them in cages will teach them?
Why do you assume strangers would care about someone else's child they used as a mule to get across the border? The child's job, is done at that point.
And as many a law enforcement officer had to remind overly irrational Congresscritters, we separate American children from their American parents damn near every time when they're detained. Why exactly is your emotional outrage missing when your own citizens are treated the same?
You'll be next (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like illegal immigration stop letting the CIA fuck with South America. Stop voting for the kinds of politicians who allow it. Notice how we don't have a huge problem with illegal immigration from Canada? Ever stopped to wonder why
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From the dictionary ---
immigrant
noun
a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
"they found it difficult to expel illegal immigrants"
There are both _legal_ and _illegal_ immigrants. So getting into semantics is likely just a poor trolling attempt...
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From the dictionary --- immigrant
noun
a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. "they found it difficult to expel illegal immigrants"
There are both _legal_ and _illegal_ immigrants. So getting into semantics is likely just a poor trolling attempt...
Allow me to remind you as to exactly how our PC-addicted society shoved all of us into the deep end of the semantics pool.
We call them "undocumented citizens" now.
Kind of hard for you to claim "both" when neither is the reason they're being released inside the border...
Why critical? (Score:2)
"It's critical we uncover how federal agencies are accessing bulk databases of Americans' location data and why,"
If your location is in a tracking DB, then that means you are carrying around a device (cell phone) that by design broadcasts your location for the world to see - which essentially means you threw away any expectation regarding privacy, because you're broadcasting a signal identifying your position and who you are uniquely, in public.
Of course if there's enough data, law enforcement
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Have fun holding a government to be accountable to it's laws if you think insisting on operational transparency isn't something to concern yourself with.
Because they need warrants (Score:2)
As soon as law enforcement accesses *any* data whatsoever they need a warrant. Period.
This is how we oversee law enforcement in America. Judges are privy to basically everything they do. If they step too far out of line they get stopped. If they ignore the judges then the perp walks. Even if they're guilty. That way the police won't ignore judges.
If we let this stand then it destroys one of the most important checks and bal
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As soon as law enforcement accesses *any* data whatsoever they need a warrant. Period.
That is false. A warrant is required only to conduct a search and seizure of private property without the consent of the property owner.
In this case, the property owner consented - they've infact sold access to the data contained in their database that they legally collected.
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Your comment is 100% spot on. But I want to add that this is a perfect example of how the constitutional protections wear away over time. If everyone's "papers and effects" [congress.gov] are stored on a remote server, and therefore no warrant is required, then what good is the 4th amendment?
I think the nation made a fundamentally wrong decision long ago that has allowed this to happen. If personal information about my finances is stored in a paper filing cabinet owned by another company, it should still be subject to
Re: Because they need warrants (Score:2)
As soon as law enforcement accesses *any* data whatsoever they need a warrant. Period.
So they need a warrant to read a newspaper or watch the news on TV. Good to know.
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Not= data on Americans? (Score:3)
Since it sounds like DHS is using that to track illegal immigrants, the line about "tracking Americans" isn't accurate...unless they're using "Americans'"as a catch-all for anyone living on the continent.
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Might want to read this:
https://harvardlawreview.org/w... [harvardlawreview.org]
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Freedom Lost because we became cowards (Score:3, Insightful)
MCCarthy era we were afraid of Communists, and anything remotely seeming like communism. They were a nice boogeyman, because the Soviet Union (Communism poster child) was a major military power who had just as big weapons as Americans did were a major threat to the United States. So it was easy to point out the threat wasn't just one country, but communism. In which many Americans were tracked, prosecuted, and/or blacklisted because they may have done or said something that would seem communist. This allowed the fear to feedback on itself, because than you have proof of people being anti-American who needs to be stopped. Which than allowed for further investigations.
Americans were fearful from some nebulous group of people so they sacrificed their freedoms to feel protected from them.
I feel that immigrants are today's boogieman, fueled from the 9/11/2001 Terrorist Attacks on America, as well how a lot of labor shifted in that time frame (out sourced to other countries) because the Internet made communication across the globe much easier, so it was easier to offshore business even for a small company. We are afraid of them being terrorist, or coming in droves and take away all of our jobs. So we once again decide to put freedom aside and hand the government excessive power to make us feel better. While still not providing much to really improve safety, and just making a lot of mostly innocent lives more difficult, just because we are afraid of them.
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. To be Free we must be Brave. Being brave often means treating people who you are afraid of with kindness and respect. Doing so is a risk yes, because these are people with different ways and languages. They could be dangerous, but our freedom depends on us being kind to them and facing the risk. Otherwise we live in fear, and oppression, and it will be a matter of time where you are the other in some way or an other. Your Race, Language, Religion, Political Leanings, Sexual Orientation, Education, Profession.... May be something called out in the future because of someone representing that group had done something really bad, and now you are a target of the nation of fear.
Re:Freedom Lost because we became cowards (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, but you're wrong.
We should indeed not _fear_ immigrants. Many of them are good people doing the right things.
But there are also a non-trivial number of them that enter the country (frequently on valid visas) and don't leave.
Have you ever traveled outside the US? In many countries, as a foreigner, it's common to record your entry into, and exit from, the country, as well as require you to show your passport at hotels in order for your stay to be tracked. The US currently does relatively little in the way of enforcing immigration law (compared to many other places), and I don't think we should be afraid of enforcing the law as-written.
That's what this is about. (Maybe the appropriate laws need revision. That's a separate issue.)
Now, whether that data should be up for sale in the first place is another matter entirely. Frankly I don't like it in general. But since it's available, I think it should be used to enforced laws regarding legal immigration status.
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Appeal to the law is a logical fallacy as it assumes that the law is good. In reality a lot of immigration law was created for populist reasons or was found not to work so is routinely ignored.
A great example is separating children from their parents. The letter of the law allows it but it's clearly not a good idea.
The starting point needs to be deciding what you want from your immigration system and then creating new laws that aim to achieve those things.
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I explicitly said that the applicable laws may need revision. There is no logical fallacy here.
I just don't think we should be in a situation where we have laws that aren't enforced. What's the point of having any laws if you don't enforce them? Either get rid of the law, or enforce it.
Take it with a grain of salt. (Score:4, Informative)
Good for the ACLU. However, the same general faction wants to
A loudly publish gun license owner home addresses
B whether you voted or not
C whether you signed a petition for a disfavored proposition, and
D remove the right of private voting in unionization votes
all for the purpose of harrassing you.
Libertarians they are not.
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[Citation needed]
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A. They developed an app that showed which houses had gun license registrees, to shame them. It backfired, as the app became a way for crooks to know which houses did not have guns.
B. I quote radio ads run in my own battleground state during this election.
C. Was a Supreme Court decision from a case from Washington or Oregon, I think, where they noted the data could be used this way, because who signed a petition to get a proposition on the ballot was, necessarily, public knowledge so the public could veri
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And in reaponse to your response, which hasn't happened, yet:
A. I'm not going to dig out the app or discussions about it because you are lazy.
B. I'm not going to dig out these radio ads because you are lazy.
C. I'm not going to dig out the Supreme Court decision because you are lazy.
D. I'm not going to dig out discussions about this because you are lazy. George Will, among others, wrote about Hillary's cave in.
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Gun licenses are a 2nd Amendment violation.
What's so confusing about it being a) a RIGHT, not a privilege, and b) "shall not be infringed"?
If this is legal, then... (Score:1)
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That would be a great start to lighting a fire under their asses.