Sad: Federal court rules government can track your cell phone location without a warrant

Hopefully, this one will go to the Supreme Court and get overturned, but I am not optimistic. There aren't a lot of Justices who actually believe in the Constitution, and what our Founding Father intended, still on the Supreme Court. I believe the idea of the government tracking their locations at all times without a warrant would have outraged the people who wrote the Constitution.

Via WaPo:

A federal appeals court in Atlanta reversed itself in a ruling Tuesday, saying that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their historical cellphone location records and so the government needs no warrant to obtain them.
The ruling was issued by the full 11-judge court of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, overturning an opinion last year by a three-judge panel.
The case arises out of the 2012 conviction of Quartavious Davis for a string of robberies in the Miami area. He appealed his conviction, in part, on grounds that the cellphone tower records used to place him near the crime scenes were obtained on a court order and should have required a warrant.
Federal investigators obtained Davis’s records with a court order based on “specific and articulable facts” showing “reasonable grounds” to believe that his cell tower location records were “relevant and material” to the investigation. That is a lesser standard than a warrant based on probable cause that the records sought will yield evidence of the crime.
“Cell tower location records do not contain private communications of the subscriber,” the court said in its ruling.

Reports of cell phone towers near Cliven Bundy ranch being shutdown...

Bundy family reports cell towers near ranch have been shut down,preventing communication & video uploads. #BundyRanch pic.twitter.com/FveMU8U73j
— Marie (@Tmariestweets) April 11, 2014

WTH? Jail breaking Unlocking your cell phone is now illegal...

How many lobbying dollars did it take to buy this travesty of justice?  If you unlock your cell phone software in order to use a different network, it is now a copyright violation. This is kind of like buying a car and having the vehicle manufacturer install a GPS device that only allows it to be driven on their toll roads. Then, the government makes it a crime to disable the GPS.You can still get a HTC G2 Vision Google Cellphone - Unlocked from Amazon.


Via Mail Online:

A new law that makes it illegal to 'unlock' your cell phone and switch carriers goes into effect today and will carry fines between $2,500 and $500,000, and in some cases, prison time.

The change made by the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will make it illegal for consumers to unlock mobile devices without the permission of their carrier.

The lock feature on mobile devices essentially allows carriers a way to prevent customers from switching to a new plan with a different company. Unless your phone came unlocked and are grandfathered in under the law, you're device is legally chained to your service provider.[...]

Now, it is illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier's permission.

'It wasn't a good ruling,' Rebecca Jeschke, a digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told ABC News. 'You should be able to unlock your phone. This law was meant to combat copyright infringement, not to prevent people to do what they want to do with the device they bought.' Keep on reading...

Good News: Bankrupt California buying homeless persons cell phones...

They will use them to call their crack dealers...

Via Breitbart:

In California, the unemployment rate may be above 10.2%, and the state debt may be above $16 billion, the state’s GDP may be in serious trouble and businesses may be leaving in droves due to ever-increasing tax rates, but that isn’t going to stop the gravy train for the state’s poor and dispossessed. The California Public Utilities Commission is all set to greenlight a new program that would give homeless and low-income people free cell phones – call them Obamaphones – with free service. The idea is to help them reach out to possible job opportunities and stay connected with family.

San Francisco’s head of homeless initiatives, Bevan Dufty, was overjoyed: “This is great – it is transformative for homeless and low-income people. I expect San Francisco to be in the forefront and a model city for this program. Fundamentally, to be in the mainstream of our society you have to have a phone.

Keep on reading…