Expectations of privacy...

[Lamplighter]

Years ago, I came to a belief about difficult private and personal relationships:
Most often, arguments/fights arise from "different expectations".

In the US, the public generally has certain expectations based on a Constitutional "right to privacy".
For example, we have required law enforcement to secure warrants
from the judiciary before conducting searches or surveillances.

Here is an article that presents several different aspects of the GPS
location devises... some I agree with and some I find repulsive.

My primary issue is that a GPS devise reports only it's own position,
not the person being targeted. That is, unless there is a way to prove/confirm
at every point that the target person is, in fact, at that same point,
the information can be faulty.
In some instances this may be important, in others not so much.

NY Times
ERIK ECKHOLM
January 28, 2012

Private Snoops Find GPS Trail Legal to Follow

But today, anyone with $300 can compete with Jack Bauer.
Online, and soon in big-box stores, you can buy a device no bigger than a cigarette pack,
attach it to a car without the driver’s knowledge and watch the vehicle’s travels
— and stops — at home on your laptop.

Tens of thousands of Americans are already doing just that, with little oversight,
for purposes as seemingly benign as tracking an elderly parent with dementia or a risky teenage driver,
or as legally and ethically charged as spying on a spouse or an employee
— or for outright criminal stalking.

The advent of Global Positioning System tracking devices has been a boon to law enforcement,
making it easier and safer, for example, for agents to link drug dealers to kingpins.

Last Monday, in a decision seen as a first step toward setting boundaries for law enforcement,
the Supreme Court held that under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution,
placing a GPS tracker on a vehicle is a search.
Police departments around the country say they will be more likely
to seek judicial approval before using the devices, if they were not already doing so
.
Still, sales of GPS trackers to employers and individuals,
for a multitude of largely unregulated uses, are growing fast,
raising new questions about privacy and a legal system that has not kept pace with technology.

This easy tool for recording a person’s every move is a powerful one that,
when misused, amounts to “electronic stalking,” in the words of one private investigator.<snip>

“Selling a tracking device is similar to selling a firearm: you don’t ask
what they are going to use it for, and what they do with it is entirely out of our control,”
said Brad Borst, the owner of Rocky Mountain Tracking in Fort Collins, Colo.<snip>

[Griff]

UT would say, "if you're scared get a dog." but my dog doesn't know anything about this stuff, he's more about perimeter defense. Everything is hackable and privacy does not exist with any of this tech (expanding this to googlyfaceybook). Maybe corporations won't do anything more nefarious than trying to sell me Preparation H, but they can lose my private information giving criminals access to it.

[footfootfoot]

Privacy

You haz none

[Clodfobble]

I figure that as long as no one has privacy, I mean really no one, it won't be such a big deal. There's this temptation to think everyone is all getting into your business, just like when you're at a party and you say something dumb and you think everyone is mocking you... except in truth no one gives a damn, they're too busy worrying about what you think of them.

[infinite monkey]

They can have my identity, really. I'm not doing much with and it's not worth anything. In fact, take it off my hands, it's costing too much money.

[Lamplighter]

I can see that I'm in the minority here, but that's OK.

On a somewhat different tack, here's a federal judicial decision about police seizure of electronic equipment.

It is a moderately long article detailing the events leading up to the arrest
and the police officer's viewing the video in a camera used to record the event.
Jury verdict: arrest without probable cause
Judge's ruling: search without a warrant

The Oregonian
Bryan Denson,
January 30, 2012

Eugene verdict clarifies legal protections for protesters who turn video cameras on police

[Oregon] State law permits protesters to record police in public places.
But courts have made few rulings on what officers can do with the
recording devices they seize from people during arrests.

The rules of engagement became clearer in Eugene's U.S. District Court last week,
when a civil jury determined that a city police sergeant violated an environmental activist's
constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure
during a 2009 leafletting campaign outside a bank.<snip>

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled in a pretrial hearing in the Eugene case
that [police officer] Solesbee violated [activist] Schlossberg's Fourth Amendment rights
by searching the contents of his camera without a warrant.
That ruling marked the first time that a federal court in Oregon
weighed in on warrantless seizures of digital devices.

"Across the country right now, legal scholars and lawyers are just eating it up,"
Regan said of the ruling, "because it's actually a solid statement
of the right to privacy in the age of technology."

[richlevy]

Just from a legal standpoint, if someone deliberately attaches a $300 device to my vehicle, does it become my property? Should I tape a nice 'thank you' note to wherever they attached it?

[SamIam]

Various agencies have already been tracking people by their cell phone use, so the GPS thing is just a refinement on what law enforcement has already been doing.

Now DHS wants to build a better mousetrap in the form of a "Federated Information Sharing System." That should be fun. What 4th Amendment?

In an effort to enhance DHS’ information sharing capabilities, the department is looking to construct an integrated database known as the “Federated Information Sharing System,” a move which has raised concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Currently data is restricted to individual systems within various DHS components which were created to fulfill specific mission requirements.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I can see that I'm in the minority here, but that's OK.

I'm with you. I have no cell phone, don't use electronic highway toll payment, and no social media sites.
Ain't nobody's business but my own.

[SamIam]

Wow! We must be the last two people on earth who don't have cell phones! I don't have to worry about highway toll payments out here, and I have an ancient GPS that comes along on camping trips only. Still, I bet they'd can track me, anyway.

[Griff]

Jimmy Fallon was doing a gag on Late Night where he needed people's cells. Everybody he asked had one. We don't need to be chipped, we do it voluntarily. <shrug>

I think my fazebook issue is just an extension of my default anti-crowd outlook. It is really had for me to be "on" and go out among the humans each day, so exposing myself on fb doesn't feel right either.

[mw451]

"Online, and soon in big-box stores, you can buy a device no bigger than a cigarette pack,attach it to a car without the driver’s knowledge and watch the vehicle’s travels"

These have been around for years.