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Monday, August 15, 2011

CA - REGION: ACLU seeks police policy on high-tech tracking...

OFF THE WIRE
 tfigueroa@nctimes.com 
REGION: ACLU seeks police policy on high-tech tracking..........
Mike Johnson of Temecula talks on the phone as he looks over a Carlsbad beach Wednesday./JAMIE SCOTT LYTLE/mailto:LYTLE/lytle@nctimes.com...
Your smartphone knows where you are. Do the police know, too?
As technology advances, concerns are growing over how law enforcement officers use technology to track people.
Such concerns prompted the national American Civil Liberties Union to ask police in 31 states to turn over information about when, why and how they use cellphone tracking data, such as global positioning service, or GPS.
The ACLU asked 34 affiliate chapters ---- including the San Diego and Imperial counties chapter ---- to request such policies and other data from local law enforcement agencies.
"These are emerging technologies," said David Blair-Loy, staff attorney with the local ACLU chapter. "And with any new technology, it has promise and peril. One of the perils of the new technology as to mobile devices is the increasing potential for government control and surveillance.
"This request is sent out to find out what (police) are doing in this area, and to see if there are any protections and policies in place."
Oceanside and Escondido police say they have received the requests, sent out last week, and are processing them.
Oceanside police don't have specific written policies regarding "the use of covert devices or acquisition of information obtained from cellphone records absent a search warrant; we follow state and federal law," Oceanside police Lt. Leonard Mata said.
In Escondido, police leaders said they are meeting with the city's attorneys this week to go over the ACLU's requests.
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department said it had not gotten the ACLU's request as of Tuesday.
The ACLU, in a statement sent out last week, explained the reasons for the probe into police policy.
"All too often, the government is taking advantage of outdated privacy laws to get its hands on this valuable private information by demanding it without a warrant," the ACLU said.
The civil liberties group said it hopes the requests will reveal how and under what circumstances the government is tracking people.
At issue is the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against illegal search and seizure. Among the questions the ACLU raised is whether the use of tracking technology should require a search warrant.
It's the sort of question that the U.S. Supreme Court will tackle in the coming term, when it looks at a Washington, D.C., case regarding whether police needed a warrant to track a suspect through GPS.
In that case, the ACLU argued during the appeals phase that GPS technology gives police new powers to track people remotely over extended periods.
In Michigan, the ACLU has been locked in battle with police in that state for three years, after it learned the police had "acquired several devices that have the potential to quickly download data from cell phones without the owner of the cell phone even knowing it," the ACLU wrote in an April letter to the Michigan State Police.
Blair-Loy characterized police use of such devices without a search warrant as "extraordinarily chilling."
Then came reports this spring that iPhones kept a record of where the phone was and when it was there. The Wall Street Journal reported that it was unclear why the phones had that capacity, and there was no evidence the information was then sent to Apple, the company behind the iPhone.
In an email Tuesday, Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the ACLU's main offices in New York City, pointed to both the D.C. case and the iPhone matter and said, "This is a crucial year for deciding how much privacy Americans will enjoy in their movements."
"We are all increasingly aware that our phones can be used to track us," she wrote. She added, "It is important for the public debate that we have a clear and detailed understanding of whether the police are tracking people's cell phones without demonstrating the full probable cause standard."
Probable cause is the level by which police must prove that facts and circumstances exist that would tend to show, by reasonable standards, that a crime has been committed ---- and thus a search or seizure is warranted.
Among the information the ACLU is seeking from police agencies is:
  • Policies, procedures and practices that law enforcement agents follow to obtain cellphone location records;
  • How long the information is kept, and who else has access to it;
  • How often cellphone companies refuse to comply with police requests or orders.
The ACLU plans to gather the information and share it on their website: http://www.aclu.org/maps/your-local-law-enforcement-tracking-your-cell-phones-location.

Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_5ba123ca-18bd-5fa9-8dce-1acda7c2e0ca.html#ixzz1UxRPHhMm