Tracking Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Legal Context
A new report from the Congressional Research Service explores ongoing legal debates over the tracking of private cell phones and vehicles by law enforcement agencies.
“It is undeniable that… advances in technology threaten to diminish privacy,” the CRS report says. “Law enforcement’s use of cell phones and GPS devices to track an individual’s movements brings into sharp relief the challenge of reconciling technology, privacy, and law.”
The 22 page CRS report provides a survey of relevant Fourth Amendment law, federal electronic surveillance statutes and case law, pending GPS-vehicle tracking cases, and electronic surveillance legislation that is before Congress.
“The primary debate surrounding cell phone and GPS tracking is not whether they are permitted by statute but rather what legal standard should apply: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or something less,” the report says.
A copy of the CRS report was obtained by Secrecy News. See “Governmental Tracking of Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Confluence of Privacy, Technology, and Law,” December 1, 2011.
It is in the interests of the United States to appropriately protect information that needs to be protected while maintaining our participation in new discoveries to maintain our competitive advantage.
The question is not whether the capital exists (it does!), nor whether energy solutions are available (they are!), but whether we can align energy finance quickly enough to channel the right types of capital where and when it’s needed most.
Our analysis of federal AI governance across administrations shows that divergent compliance procedures and uneven institutional capacity challenge the government’s ability to deploy AI in ways that uphold public trust.
From California to New Jersey, wildfires are taking a toll—costing the United States up to $424 billion annually and displacing tens of thousands of people. Congress needs solutions.