Cell Phone tracking legislation

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ben Masel <bmasel () tds net>
Date: December 5, 2006 9:59:47 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Cell Phone tracking legislation

For IP:

Rep. Marlin Schneider has initiated legislation in Wisconsin to limit  
retention of location data by cell carriers absent customer opt-in,  
and requiring warrants for real-time tracking by State and Local law  
enforcement.

We're still waiting on the Legislative Reference Bureau for actual text.

US House Rep. Tammy Baldwin has expressed a willingness to introduce  
something similar at the Federal level.

Any thoughts on what exceptions should be included in such a bill? A  
parental exception seems inevitable.

When I bounced the State version off a Republican legislator, he  
wanted an employer exemption, with notice, employer pays for the  
phone, and would only get records for hours the  person carrying it  
is getting paid.


> From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Date: 2006/12/05 Tue AM 04:14:39 CST
> To: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: [IP] more on  How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Phil Karn <karn () ka9q net>
> Date: December 4, 2006 9:26:42 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: Re: [IP] How To Tell If Your Cell Phone Is Bugged
>
> > A story is making the rounds right now regarding FBI use of cell
> > phones as remote bugs (e.g. http://news.com.com/
> > 2100-1029-6140191.html ).
>
> Personally I am much more concerned about the use of mobile phones as
> physical tracking devices than as audio bugs.
>
> Every mobile phone, whenever it's turned on, is *already* a physical
> tracking device. *EVERY* mobile phone. Even when idle, phones
> periodically transmit "registration" messages to the base station so
> that the network will know where to deliver an SMS or inbound call
> message. (This is why airlines require phones to be completely shut
> off in flight; it's not sufficient to simply avoid making calls to
> prevent transmissions.)
>
> In the old analog days, low user populations and lack of automatic
> wide-area roaming sometimes made it practical to "flood" paging
> messages over a network so that mobile registrations were not
> necessary. But flood paging has long become impractical in digital
> cellular networks.
>
> Cellular networks have a perfectly legitimate need to know where you
> are, at least to the nearest cell sector, so they can do their job.
> The recent addition of GPS reporting to E911 calls increases the
> positioning accuracy still further.
>
> And this is what's so problematical. Location data, like so much
> other personal data necessarily collected in the routine operation of
> modern communication networks, has both benign -- lifesaving, even --
> and harmful uses.
>
> At least the content confidentiality problem has an effective
> technical defense (end to end encryption) even if it isn't widely
> used. But there seems to be no such technological defense against the
> abuse of cellular location data. Your only choice is to turn your
> phone off, preferably by removing the battery, when you don't want to
> be tracked. If you turn it on, even for a moment, the system will
> again know where you are.
>
> Another alternative is to forego a cell phone in favor of a one-way
> pager, if they're even still available. But should you answer a page,
> even with a pay phone, you could in principle still be tracked unless
> you encode your pages.
>
>
>
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