“The U.S. Congress needs to pass legislation that would require law enforcement agencies to get permission from a judge before tracking suspects through their mobile phones, instead of the now-common practice of tracking a mobile subscriber’s location after a prosecutor-issued subpoena, two U.S. lawmakers said Tuesday,” Grant Gross reports for IDG News Service.
“Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, joined several advocacy groups from across the political spectrum to push for the passage of the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act, introduced back in June,” Gross reports. “The legislation would require U.S. law enforcement agencies, in most cases, to get court-ordered warrants to track suspects through GPS information on smartphones and other mobile devices.”
Gross reports, “The two senators used the anniversary of ECPA as a hook to push for passage of the GPS Act and to host a retro tech fair featuring products marketed in 1986. Joining Wyden and Kirk were the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among other groups… Kirk, a new sponsor of the GPS Act, said the bill is a good first step toward protecting the privacy of U.S. residents, although more sweeping changes to ECPA may be needed. ‘Government needs restrictions,'” added Fred Smith Jr., president and founder of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]