Child Monitoring and Security Information Archive 2019 - 6.10.31
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Can Police Monitor Phone Calls
Text messages are treated like emails, according to the ECPA. That means, under this crucial and controversial law, officers must obtain a warrant from a judge for content stored by a service provider (like Verizon or AT&T) that is less than 180 days old, but not for content that’s 180 days or older.
As noted by The Intercept, one thing Apple knows is which phone numbers a person is at least considering sending a message to. That’s because as soon as an iPhone owner types in a phone number, Apple’s servers are pinged to determine whether the number represents another iOS device.
The surveillance system has been procured by the Metropolitan police from Leeds-based company Datong plc, which counts the US Secret Service, the Ministry of Defence and regimes in the Middle East among its customers. Strictly classified under government protocol as "Listed X", it can emit a signal over an area of up to an estimated 10 sq km, forcing hundreds of mobile phones per minute to release their unique IMSI and IMEI identity codes, which can be used to track a person's movements in real time.
Datong's website says its products are designed to provide law enforcement, military, security agencies and special forces with the means to "gather early intelligence in order to identify and anticipate threat and illegal activity before it can be deployed".
Courts are split on whether investigators need a warrant based on probable cause to acquire location data. In some states, a warrant is required for any sort of cellphone tracking. In other states, it is needed only if an investigator wants the data in real time. And in others no warrant is needed at all.
Monitor Cell Phone Activity
To check if your internet self is at risk of exposure, below are five ways your information might be more public than you imagined.The right to privacy is one of America’s most beloved freedoms, yet with the ever-present specter of government surveillance looming in our midst, it’s also one of the country’s biggest underlying issues.
Do Local Police Departments Have The Ability To Listen To Cell Phone Calls? If So, Could This Power Be Abused By An Operator?
In April 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Email Privacy Act, which would update ECPA to remove the administrative subpoena loophole and thus stop police from gaining access to emails, text messages, and other personal communications without a search warrant obtained with probable cause. The Email Privacy Act has so far stalled in the Senate.
About three weeks ago, Mr. Thomas said, someone mailed a letter containing methamphetamine to an inmate. By using the tool, Mr. Thomas said, investigators were able to link phone calls between the address and the inmate and make an arrest.
The Justice Department has said its policy is to get warrants for real-time tracking. The Supreme Court has ruled that putting a GPS tracker on a car counts as a search under the Fourth Amendment, but this was because installing the device involved touching a person’s property — something that doesn’t happen when a cellphone is pinged.
The location service has proved to be a selling point. Matthew Thomas, chief deputy of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, said that the department had been using Securus’s location tool for about a month, and that it had already come in handy. “We use it for search-and-rescue operations, and at the jail they use it to maintain security and to put cases together,” he said.