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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone’s car without a search warrant.

In United States v. Maynard, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a car while it was on private property and then used it to track the position of the automobile every ten seconds for a full month, all without securing a search warrant. In an amicus brief filed in the case, EFF and the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital argued that unsupervised use of such tactics would open the door for police to abuse their power and continuously track anyone’s physical location for any reason, without ever having to go to a judge to prove the surveillance is justified.

The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. The court expressly rejected the government’s argument that such extended, 24-hours-per-day surveillance without warrants was constitutional based on previous rulings about limited, point-to-point surveillance of public activities using radio-based tracking beepers. Recognizing that the Supreme Court had never considered location tracking of such length and scope, the court noted: “When it comes to privacy…the whole may be more revealing than its parts.”

The court continued: “It is one thing for a passerby to observe or even to follow someone during a single journey as he goes to the market or returns home from work. It is another thing entirely for that stranger to pick up the scent again the next day and the day after that, week in and week out, dogging his prey until he has identified all the places, people, amusements, and chores that make up that person’s hitherto private routine.”

“The court correctly recognized the important differences between limited surveillance of public activities possible through visual surveillance or traditional ‘bumper beepers,’ and the sort of extended, invasive, pervasive, always-on tracking that GPS devices allow,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “This same logic applies in cases of cell phone tracking, and we hope that this decision will be followed by courts that are currently grappling with the question of whether the government must obtain a warrant before using your cell phone as a tracking device.”

“GPS tracking enables the police to know when you visit your doctor, your lawyer, your church, or your lover,” said Arthur Spitzer, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCA. “And if many people are tracked, GPS data will show when and where they cross paths. Judicial supervision of this powerful technology is essential if we are to preserve individual liberty. Today’s decision helps brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century.”

Attorneys Daniel Prywes and Kip Wainscott of Bryan Cave LLP also volunteered their services to assist in preparing the EFF-ACLU brief.

For the full opinion:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/US_v_Jones/maynard_decision.pdf

For more information on the case, formerly known as U.S. v. Jones:
http://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-jones

Beginning August 1, men’s blue jeans and underwear sold at Walmart will carry electronic radio identification tags. The company, the world’s largest retailer, insists the devices are crucial to improving the logistics of inventory management, while critics point to the privacy concerns associated with the tags.

The markers in question, called radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, are implanted in the garments and can be read by hand-held scanners. Wal-Mart officials praise the portability of the tags and the boost in speed and accuracy they bring to inventory control. “This ability to wave the wand and have a sense of all the products that are on the floor or in the back room in seconds is something that we feel can really transform our business,” crows Raul Vasquez, Wal-Mart’s representative for its stores in the western states.

RFID tags are nothing new at Walmart (or many other retailers). Until now, however, the tags were chiefly used to track pallets of goods from factory to warehouse to the local outlet. After August 1, though, for the first time Walmart will bring the technology out of the storeroom and into the consumer’s pants — literally.

In order to understand why Walmart’s selling of clothes loaded with RFID tags is worrisome, one needs to know a bit about how the devices work.

Radio-frequency identification tags are made of two principal components: an integrated circuit for storing and processing data and modulating a radio-frequency (RF) signal; and an antenna for receiving and transmitting the radio signal.

There are three types of RFID tags in common use: active RFID tags, which contain a battery and transmits signals autonomously; passive RFID tags, which have no battery and require an external source to stimulate signal transmission; and battery assisted passive (BAP) RFID tags, which operate only when “turned on” by an outside source, but have significant higher forward link capability providing greater range. The tags being used by Walmart are reportedly the passive version.

The workings of the technology reveals the privacy privations feared by critics. These tags can be scanned not just by Walmart employees, but by anyone with a scanner tuned to the signal. And, the signal given off by these “inventory control devices” cannot be turned off. Even if removed by consumers, as Walmart anticipates, the tags remain active and, whether sitting in the garbage or in the closet, they are emitting a signal.

That perpetually “on” aspect of the RFID tags is what sends chills down the spine of privacy advocates like Katherine Albrecht. Albrecht is the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, an organization dedicated to tracking the tracking.

Albrecht told reporters that, “This is the first piece of a very large and very frightening tracking system.”

Large and frightening are apt descriptions of a plan being implemented by a company with the global footprint of Walmart. The plain economic fact is that Walmart sets the standard for many other retailers by exerting control over suppliers and compelling them to alter their methods according to the wishes of the Behemoth of Bentonville.

This influence is felt by stores of all sorts that draw inventory from the same supply stream. Thus, as goes Walmart, so goes retail. This domino effect works to expand the scope of the RFID tracking issue to cover most of the population.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “several other U.S. retailers, including J.C. Penney and Bloomingdale’s, have begun experimenting with smart tags on clothing to better ensure shelves remain stocked with sizes and colors that customers want.”

International industry journals report that Indian suppliers to other retail heavy hitters such as Metro, Target and U.K.-based Tesco have already been issued directives to replace bar codes with RFID tags. While this may lower margins of these suppliers, it is also expected to create a demand for RFID tags in India. The value of the entire RFID market — tags, readers, software/services and labels — is expected to touch $5.63 billion in 2010, according to a recent survey conducted by IDTechEx.

Is there any doubt that supply will meet the challenges of demand? Especially when the demand is made by those earning their livelihood by catering to the wishes of Walmart.

Industry insiders, while trying to downplay the “Big Brother” aspect of the technology and promote the logistics applications, illuminate red warning lights in their praise of RFID. Robert Carpenter, chief executive of a group that helped universal product codes (UPC) reach ubiquity, now predicts the same saturation of retail by RFID codes.

There is, of course, a stark distinction between UPC and RFID. As stated above, RFID is always “live” and continuously transmits a signal despite the consumer’s efforts to remove them. UPC, on the other hand, can be removed and is a static, or dead, device and can be defaced or erased, thus terminating its tracking capabilities.

Another concern to Albrecht and others protective of the privacy of citizens is the potential for coordination with other objects embedded with the chips and carried by people who shop at Walmart.

According to Albrecht and other privacy sentinels, drivers in states along the Canadian border (Michigan and Washington) are now issued licenses containing RFID tags that enable them to cross back and forth across the border with ease. Albrecht explained her fear to USA Today that “retailers could scan data from such licenses and their purchases and combine that data with other personal information.”

Theoretically, stores could scan these licenses without foreknowledge of the consumer, then amalgamate all the data broadcast by the RFID tags to form a composite image of the activity, movements, and buying behavior of those carrying such licenses. Then the next time the consumer comes in the store, employees could instantly indentify the person and know how to tailor the consumer’s shopping experience, including the ads that run on the TVs placed throughout Walmart.

While such corporate surveillance may sound far-fetched, Albrecht argues that “there are a lot of corporate marketers who are interested in tracking people as they walk sales floors.” It isn’t just inventory that could be controlled, but access and advertising, as well.

Despite assurances from Walmart executives that the RFID technology will only be used to better manage inventory in order to cut costs and pass along those savings to consumers, those familiar with the immense potential for RFID scanning admit that “they’ll cut down on employee theft because it will be easier to see if something’s gone missing from the back room.”

So, the party line has gone from supply chain management, to cost-cutting for the consumer, to monitoring of employees. Still, advocates contend that there is nothing to worry about — unless you’re a supplier, a consumer, a driver, or an employee of Walmart.

Source: The New American

German officials have launched legal proceedings against Facebook for accessing and saving the personal data of people who do not use the site.

Facebook could face fines of tens of thousands of euros under privacy laws.

The social networking firm confirmed it had received a letter about the action.

“We consider the saving of data from third parties, in this context, to be against data privacy laws,” said Johannes Caspar, head of Hamburg’s Data Protection Authority.

Mr Caspar said he had received a number of complaints from people who had not signed up to Facebook, but whose details had been added to the site by friends. He accused Facebook of saving private data of non-members without their permission, to be used for marketing purposes.

Switzerland is also reported to be concerned about the use of third-party data.

Facebook has until 11 August to formally reply to the legal complaint against it.

The California-based company told the BBC in an email that it was “currently reviewing (the complaint) and will readily respond to it within the given time frame”.

“Millions of Germans come to Facebook each day to find their friends, share information with them and connect to the world around them,” wrote spokesman Stefano Hessel.

Facebook has nearly 500 million users worldwide but according to figures by ComScore is only the fourth biggest social network in Germany.

‘Human right’

This is not the first time the social networking site has landed in hot water with data protection officials.

At the beginning of the year, Canada’s privacy commissioner launched an investigation into the site following complaints about privacy policies.

And back in May, Facebook faced a storm of criticism for the way it handled members’ data after unveiling new privacy settings.

A number of US senators made public calls at the time for the company to rethink its privacy safeguards.

Consumer Watchdog said it was not surprised that Europe was driving this latest legal action against Facebook.

“There are much stronger privacy laws in Europe than here, where privacy is viewed as a consumer protection issue as opposed to a fundamental human right,” the group’s John Simpson told BBC News.

“We see that a number of Silicon Valley companies don’t really understand how seriously privacy issues are taken in Europe and they will continue to run afoul of data protection laws there. I also think there is a growing reaction in the US that we should beef up our privacy laws along the lines of those in Europe.”

Source: BBC

The Pentagon’s spy unit has quietly begun to rebuild a database for tracking potential terrorist threats that was shut down after it emerged that it had been collecting information on American anti-war activists.

The Defense Intelligence Agency filed notice this week that it plans to create a new section called Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records, whose purpose will be to “document intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic operations relating to the protection of national security.”

But while the unit’s name refers to “foreign intelligence,” civil liberties advocates and the Pentagon’s own description of the program suggest that Americans will likely be included in the new database.

FICOR replaces a program called Talon, which the DIA created in 2002 under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as part of the counterterrorism efforts following the 9/11 attacks. It was disbanded in 2007 after it emerged that Talon had retained information on anti-war protesters, including Quakers, even after it was determined they posed no threat to national security.

DIA spokesman Donald Black told Newsweek that the new database would not include the more controversial elements of the old Talon program. But Jeff Stein at the Washington Post reports that the new program will evidently inherit the old Talon database.

“Why the new depository would want such records while its parent agency no longer has a law enforcement function could not be learned,” Stein reports. “Nor could it be learned whether the repository will include intelligence reports on protest groups gathered by its predecessor.”

The Pentagon’s notice states that the database will collect “identifying information such as name, Social Security Number (SSN), address, citizenship documentation, biometric data, passport number, vehicle identification number and vehicle/vessel license data.” As only US residents have Social Security Numbers, it appears the program is being designed at least partly to contain domestic information.

Newsweek cites two unnamed US officials as suggesting that the new program essentially echoes the old one. When CIFA, the DIA division running Talon, was disbanded in 2008, “many of its personnel and some of its functions were transferred” to the new DIA unit running the new database program. The new program will be housed “in the same office space that CIFA once occupied, in a complex near suburban Washington’s Reagan National Airport.”

Mike German, a former FBI agent now working with the ACLU, says “Americans should be just as concerned” about the new database as the previous one under the Bush administration.

“It’s a little hard to tell what this is exactly, but we do know that DIA took over ‘offensive counterintelligence’ for the DoD once CIFA was abandoned,” he told the Post‘s Stein. “It therefore makes sense that this new DIA database would be collecting the same types of information that CIFA collected improperly.”

Source: Raw Story

Google’s roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it’s got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users’ unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.

Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he’s “horrified” by the discovery.

“I am appalled… I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View,” according to German broadcaster ARD.

Spooks have long desired the ability to cross reference the Mac address of a user’s connection with their real identity and virtual identity, such as their Gmail or Facebook account.

Other companies have logged broadcasting WLAN networks and published the information. By contrast Google has not published the WLAN map, or Street View in Germany; Google hopes to launch the service by the end of the year.

But Google’s uniquely cavalier approach to privacy, and its potential ability to cross reference the information raises additional concerns. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn’t worry about privacy unless they have something to hide. And when there’s nowhere left to hide…?

Source: The Register UK

Mayor In London, Meets With Police Chief And Examine City’s Security System Consisting Of 500,000 Cameras

Fact: Average Londoner  Can Be Filmed 300 Times In A Single Day

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his eye on more security against terror attacks. He went to London Tuesday to check out their surveillance camera system, one of the largest in the world.

Ever since the Times Square car bomb scare on May 1, the mayor’s been looking to build up New York’s camera network.

That means adding to the ring of steel in Times Square, similar to central London’s. The mayor said more NYPD surveillance cameras may prevent another terror scare.

London has 500,000 surveillance cameras, more than any other city in the world.

Bloomberg visited London’s mayor to see how these help Britain fight terror.

“We live in a world of suicide bombers. We live in a world of international terrorism,” Bloomberg said.

And a world where both cities have been targets. Bloomberg came to take a closer look at the sprawling security network throughout London — known as the “Ring of Steel.” The mayor’s hoping to beef up New York’s own surveillance system in the wake of the failed car bomb attack in Times Square.

“It’s not clear that they would have helped in Times Square. Other than if the perpetrator knew there were cameras, he might not have tried to come into Times Square,” Bloomberg said.

London’s about the same size as New York and its transit systems handle roughly the same number of people every day.

Nearly everywhere you look in London, there’s someone or some “thing” looking right back at you. In fact, you could be caught on camera as many as 300 times in the course of one day.

Cameras record the license plate of every single car that enters the capital. Yet it didn’t stop terrorists from planting a car bomb outside this downtown nightclub three years ago. It failed to go off.

“Nobody’s going to make the world perfectly safe, but wouldn’t you rather be somewhat safer?” Bloomberg said.

He’s banking on it as he plans to take “Big Brother Britain” back to New York City.

London’s “Ring of Steel” was the inspiration for the 3,000-camera network being installed in lower Manhattan and Midtown. The NYPD hopes all the cameras are installed by the end of 2011.

Source: WCBS TV

Cops: New high-tech screener triggered fight over manhood insult

A Transportation Security Administration screener is facing an assault rap after he allegedly beat a co-worker who joked about the size of the man’s genitalia after he walked through a security scanner. The May 4 confrontation involved Rolando Negrin, 44, and other TSA employees who had previously taken part in a training session at Miami International Airport, according to the below Miami-Dade Police Department reports. Negrin, pictured in the mug shot at right, and his co-workers had been training with new “whole body image” machines–the controversial kind that provide very revealing images of a traveler–when Negrin walked through the scanner. “The X-ray revealed that [Negrin] has a small penis and co-workers made fun of him on a daily basis,” reported cops. Following his arrest, Negrin told police that he “could not take the jokes anymore and lost his mind.” After work Tuesday evening, Negrin confronted fellow TSA screener Hugo Osorno in an airport parking lot. Negrin wanted to “resolve a problem,” and get Osorno, 34, to “finally respect him.” Instead, Negrin allegedly pulled out a police baton and began striking Osorno, while demanding an apology. A witness told cops that Negrin told Osorno, in Spanish, “Get on your knees or I will kill you and you better apologize.” When Negrin, wearing his TSA uniform, arrived for work yesterday, he was arrested on an aggravated battery count and booked into the Miami-Dade lockup. Osorno, police reported, suffered “bruises and abrasions on his back and arms” during the attack.

See Arrest Report (4 pages)

Source: The Smoking Gun

A new type of speed cameras which can use satellites to measure average speed over long distances are being tested in Britain.

The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks.

The AA said it believed the new system could cover a network of streets as opposed to a straight line, and was “probably geared up to zones in residential areas.”

The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.

The `SpeedSpike’ system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.

Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled “number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day”. It also referred to the system’s “low cost” and ease of installation.

The system could be used for “main road enforcement for congestion reduction and speed enforcement”, and could help to “eliminate rat-runs” and cut speeds outside schools, it added. It could also reduce the need for speed humps.

The development of speed cameras has raised concerns about expanding state surveillance.

The Home Office said it was unable to comment on the trials because of “commercial confidentiality”.

The AA said it would watch the system “carefully” but it did not believe there was anything sinister. “It is a natural evolution of the technology that is out there,” a spokesman said.

Source: Telegraph UK

Lawsuit: School administrator ‘may be a voyeur’ who spied on kids for personal gratification

A Philadelphia-area school district secretly took “thousands” of webcam photos of students in their homes and tracked their Web site visits and parts of online chats through spy software installed on the students’ school-issued laptops, a Pennsylvania court heard yesterday.

In February, the family of Blake Robbins, a student at Harriton High School in Rosemont, sued the Lower Merion School District after the district admitted to them it had been spying on students via a remote-activated feature on the laptops it issued to all its 2,300 high school pupils.

In a motion filed in court on Thursday, Robbins’ lawyers asserted that the school district had taken at least 400 snapshots of 15-year-old Robbins, including some of him sleeping. The motion also stated that “thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

And in a strange twist to the story, the lawyers also suggested that Carol Cafiero, one of two school administrators with access to the spying technology, “may be a voyeur” who spied on students for her personal gratification, as some of the images taken by the laptops may have ended up on her personal computer.

The motion asks the judge to force Cafiero to turn over her home computer, which she has refused to do so far. Earlier this week, during a deposition, Cafiero pleaded the Fifth Amendment to all questions regarding her involvement in the alleged school spying.

Watching the students at home was like “a little [Lower Merion School District] soap opera,” said a staffer in an email obtained by Robbins’ lawyers.

“I know, I love it,” Cafiero responded in a reply email, as quoted at the Inquirer.

If true, the allegations against Cafiero would realize privacy advocates’ worst fears about the school district’s monitoring of students at home: That the technology is all too open to abuse by those who would seek to exploit children.

So far, there have been no allegations that the cameras captured any images of nude students, which could fall within the definition of child pornography.

On Thursday, the judge presiding over the case in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia restricted access to the images to the lawyers involved in the case, reports KYW news radio. The school board says it will soon notify the parents of children whose pictures were taken by the spy software, and is working on a way to transfer the photos to the parents, the Inquirer reported Friday.

The latest claims made against the school district contradict what the district itself has said about the use of the cameras. In February, when news of the spy software broke, the school district published a statement saying administrators had activated the monitoring system only 42 times, most of those in order to retrieve lost or stolen laptops.

But the allegations made Thursday suggest “there were 42 instances when they began intensive surveillance on the suspected stolen computers,” reports tech blog Slashdot. “This consisted of (among other things) transmitting a picture from the laptop’s webcam every 15 minutes. This may have gone on for weeks.”

The school district announced in February it was shutting down the spy software, shortly after news of the spy software went public.

Robbins’ family launched the lawsuit two months ago after Blake Robbins was called into a vice-principal’s office and accused of taking drugs. As evidence, the vice-principal showed a photo of pills in Robbins’ bedroom. The Robbins family said the pills were candy, and launched a class-action lawsuit alleging the school district violated Blake’s right to privacy.

This week, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who held hearings into the Lower Merion School District’s spying activities, introduced legislation limiting the use of surveillance software.

The proposed Surreptitious Video Surveillance Act of 2010 “would update the federal wiretapping statute to create serious criminal and civil penalties for secret, nonconsensual video surveillance inside any temporary or permanent residence, be it your house, your apartment, or your hotel room,” reports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

All charges have been dropped against a Chicago-area man, who was charged last month with reckless driving and resisting arrest, after a police dashboard video showed the arresting officer beating him until he collapsed. That officer has now been charged with aggravated battery and is on administrative leave pending disciplinary action.

The incident occurred on March 28, when Ronald Bell was driving home after an evening out with friends. Officer James Mandarino allegedly saw Bell spin his tires before heading down a side street and followed the car until it pulled up outside the residence Bell shares with his brother’s family.

Mandarino ordered Bell and his passenger, Nolan Stalbaum, out of their car. He then tasered Stalbaum and ordered Bell to kneel on the ground. Even though Bell complied, Mandarino began striking him repeatedly with his baton, resulting in a concussion and multiple contusions.

In the video below, Mandarino can be seen beating Bell as Bell’s brother Stacey runs outside and attempts to argue with the officer. “He always had his hands in the air … and then (the officer) just started going to town on him, beating the hell out of him,” Stacey Bell told the Chicago Tribune.

“I told him he didn’t have to do this,” Bell explained to the Chicago Sun-Times. And he just said, ‘I told him to get down.’ He might have had a bad night or something going on in his personal life because he lost control.”

Both men were charged with multiple misdemeanors, but the suspicions of a Streamwood Police Department official were aroused the next day after seeing a booking photo of Bell with his head bandaged. The official checked the police reports and found the dashboard video of the unprovoked attack.

In announcing the felony charges against Mandarino, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez called the dashboard camera “a wonderful tool” and said of the alleged beating that it was “not only disturbing. It’s outrageous. It’s unacceptable.”

Now all charges against Bell and Stalbaum have been dropped and Mandarino is out on bail awaiting disciplinary action. “We’re elated,” Stacey Bell said. “If he loses his badge and loses his job and goes to jail, then I’ll feel vindicated.”

This video is from Sun-Times, broadcast April 15, 2010.