Americans are getting a warning that they are being watched digitally, whether they agree to the spying or not.
Read more by Bob Unruh at WND News Center.
The warning is coming from the Rutherford Institute, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a dispute now pending before the Supreme Court, in Hammond v. U.S.
The warning is that “Americans are being swept up into a massive digital data dragnet that does not distinguish between those who are innocent of wrongdoing, suspects, or criminals. ”
The Rutherford Institute said it is “challenging the government’s unconstitutional practice of warrantlessly tracking people’s location and movements through their personal cell phones in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
Institute attorneys charge that technological advancements in cell phone providers’ ability to obtain data on their users’ whereabouts, especially as a result of cell site proliferation due to 5G networks, means that law enforcement can use “triangulation methods” to identify a person’s location, very specifically.
So the technology knows when you are at church, or at home, at a library, a theater or a political event.
The amicus brief, filed in cooperation with the Cato Institute, addresses the issue.
“Cell phones have become de facto snitches, offering up a steady stream of digital location data on users’ movements and travels,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.
“Added to that, police are tracking people’s movements by way of license plate toll readers; scouring social media posts; triangulating data from cellphone towers and WiFi signals; layering facial recognition software on top of that; and then cross-referencing footage with public social media posts, all in an effort to identify, track and eventually round us up. This is what it means to live in a suspect society.”
The case at hand developed following a series of armed robberies in 2017 in Michigan and Indiana.
Federal investigations traced one of the weapons used to a former owner, who reported he sold it to a Rex Hammond. The former owner gave officers Hammond’s phone number
“Without obtaining a search warrant, a local police detective then requested cell site location information (‘CSLI’) from AT&T to geolocate Hammond’s cell phone using real-time pings to nearby cell towers about every fifteen minutes,” the institute reported.
They also traced his movements back in time.
Then they arrested him, and a grand jury indicted him on eight charges connected to the robberies. He was convicted and sentenced to 47 years in prison.
Appealing to the Supreme Court, Hammond’s lawyers warned “real-time cell phone pinging thus allows the state to surreptitiously track the movements of any individual with a cell phone (essentially all Americans) with a voyeuristic level of precision, and without ever leaving the precinct.”
They charge that violates the Constitution.
Other law enforcement spying has met with varying results at appeals courts. One previous ruling said officers were not allowed to attach a locator unit to a suspect’s vehicle and trace his movements, without a search warrant.
Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash.
Toss your mobile phones in the garbage, and go back to using desktops.
Do what I do .Where a police body cam with gps every where you go. let them file false charges on you then break out your gps video of you showing you are not where they say you were. also once the law knows you got a police body cam and you never take it off the law will disapate fast. beat them with there own devices . mufiy body cam amazoe
I assumed this was happening since I saw Enemy of the State as a younger man.
Stopped taking my cell phone anywhere after they force downoaded the “covid” tracking app onto all phones.
The State does not use triangulation to keep tabs on you anymore. They use the GPS in the phone itself that is continuously transmitting your precise location and even the direction you are facing. How else can it tell you that the restaurant you are looking for is 100 feet ahead on the left?? Coupled with all of your personal data that you willingly put online with enemy sites like fakebook, twitter, ancestry, etc., finding you and what you are doing is simple. And since you voluntarily provide the data, there is no violation of privacy (debatable but true to a point). Remember you allow the apps that you load on your phone to track you and report on you. You allow it.
Get a mylar foil bag and put your phone in it when you are not using it, which should be most of the time. Can’t track what they can’t communicate with.
Came here to say the bit about a mylar bag.
Seriously, get a piece of trash off the side of the road, or from any trash can that isn’t on camera, called a chips bag and chuck your phone inside and then fold the top down.
When they first put GPS into cellular devices and you started carrying it everywhere you went they had the ability to trackyou everywhere you went, even if you try to block others from seeing your location. Thise “signal strength” bars? That comes from the closest cell phone tower and yout phone, regardless if you are using it or now, tells them the location of the phone. You can shield it in a mylar bag but as soon as you take it out to use it they know where you are. Also, unless you can remove the battery (not many of those around today) it’s never off unless the internal battery is dead. With those phones an easily installed app allows it to “look” like it’s off but the people who put the app there without your knowledge have complete access to your phone and listen to everything in the room around the phone even if it “looks” like it’s off. So, if you are conserned with privacy in any way, throw away your cell phones.
Personally I no longer use cell phones to communicate via text messages or speaking. The use of person-to-person communique and email.
Well I guess the lesson here is…
Don’t take your phone with you on a robbing spree.
As a matter of fact, use it as your Alibi…leave it at home attached to your smart TV..
Then you CAn say “I din do nuffin, I watching Sesame Street.
Something is definitely going on. Today (12/26/21) I opened my email account and was met with a demand from Amazon. Amazon wants control of my email account to read/delete all my emails, and more. Naturally I refused. We are going into very dark times in our nation. God help us.
The best part is that THEY don’t realize that WE know their game, are organized and watching THEM. We have infiltrated every nook and cranny of their network and political machine and will rise up and crush them whenn we get the word.
I gave up a cell phone 15 years ago.
Golllieeee, surprise, surprise……Gomer…..