[Vision2020] GPS Tracking and Secret Policies

[Sunil Ramalingam]

Obama promised the most transparent administration ever, but has instead gone after leaks and whistleblowers with more prosecutions than any - or is it all put together - previous administrations. He's against leaks except when it suits him politically; then leaks are okay.

Sunil

Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 07:50:57 -0400
From: art.deco.studios at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] GPS Tracking and Secret Policies




   
   


   
   


   


August 16, 2013

GPS Tracking and Secret Policies

By 

THE EDITORIAL BOARD

 


 

    
This week brought fresh revelations about the National Security Agency’s
 sloppy and invasive collection of phone data on Americans and others, 
as reported first by The Washington Post. In another realm of 
surveillance — the government’s broad use of location tracking devices —
 the Justice Department was in federal court on Thursday defending its 
refusal to release memos containing information about its policies 
governing the use of GPS and other potentially invasive technologies.   
     


The American Civil Liberties Union had brought the lawsuit to demand 
that the department make the memos public. The documents were prepared 
after a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, United States v. Jones, which held 
that placement of a hidden tracking device on a suspect’s car 
constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.        


That case left lots of questions unanswered, including whether GPS 
tracking always requires a warrant based on probable cause, and how the 
Fourth Amendment applies to tracking someone 24/7 with cellphone 
location technology. After the decision was released, the F.B.I.’s 
general counsel, Andrew Weissmann, mentioned in a public talk that the 
government was issuing memos containing official guidance for federal 
agents and prosecutors on when they can use tracking technology and how 
the Jones decision applies to other types of techniques, beyond GPS.    
    


The public has a right to know the government’s policies on these 
matters. There is very good reason to be concerned about the 
government’s interpretation of its police powers, especially given the 
Obama administration’s insensitivity to privacy in its mass collection 
of phone data in the national security sphere.        


When the A.C.L.U. filed a request for the memos under the Freedom of 
Information Act, the Justice Department responded by handing over copies
 with the text nearly entirely blanked out, prompting the lawsuit. The 
Justice Department claims that the memos were prepared anticipating 
litigation and are exempt from disclosure because they are a lawyer’s 
work product. But to the extent Mr. Weissmann accurately represented the
 memos, they also amount to statements of official policy, not merely 
exchanges by lawyers on legal theories, which the work-product exception
 is meant to protect.        


Our strong hunch is that there is material in the memos that can and 
should be revealed without harm to law enforcement or the appropriate 
discussion of confidential legal strategies. At Thursday’s hearing, 
Judge William Pauley III said he would personally review the documents 
before deciding whether they should be released.        


It is distressing that the administration, which claims to welcome a 
debate over the government’s surveillance practices, time and again 
refuses to be transparent about those practices. Instead of awaiting a 
court order, the administration should release the tracking memos on its
 own.        

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com






=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
               http://www.fsr.net
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
======================================================= 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20130817/40e1cf86/attachment.html>