As if there was any doubt, Big Brother is, indeed, watching:
A former federal prosecutor running for governor approved the tracking of citizens through their cell phones without warrants while he was head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey, civil rights attorneys said Thursday.
Christopher Christie, a former U.S. Attorney who is the Republican front-runner in the governor’s race said all actions were approved by the court.The American Civil Liberties Union released documents Thursday showing federal officials in New Jersey have gotten judges to approve the surveillance without showing evidence that a crime is taking place.
Tracking without a warrant disregards an internal U.S. Justice Department recommendation that prosecutors obtain probable cause warrants before gathering location data from cell phones.
Using a little-known GPS chip inside a cell phone, federal prosecutors can locate a person to within about 30 feet. They’re also able to gather less exact location data by tracing mobile phone signals as they ping off cell towers.
Anecdotally, all of the GPS-equipped cell phones I have used have all had an option buried somewhere in their menus that allows their users to disable the GPS chip in question. That said, I have absolutely no idea if disabling the chip really disables the chip, or if the phone tells me it does just to placate me – Joe might know, but he probably cannot say.
And, as with so many governmental programs intended for one thing and used for another, it is uncertain how useful this one in particular actually is:
Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Ralph J. Marra Jr. said GPS tracking is typically used in cases of “known, dangerous criminals or in the apprehension of fugitives.”
In Florida, there were 63 cases since September 11, 2001 in which federal prosecutors obtained a court order to track suspects via cell phone. It’s unclear how many resulted in prosecutions.
Why do I have the nagging suspicion that if this program had resulted in a prosecution, the government would be trumpeting it to the high heavens?
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