Supreme Court Not Interested In Dispute Over Steinbeck Heirs Trying To Reclaim Copyrights

Official Geolocation Privacy Bill Introduced: Say No To Unauthorized GPS Tracking

from the don't-track-me,-bro dept

Wed, Jun 15th 2011 6:58pm — Mike Masnick

Last week, we wrote about the plan by Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Jason Chaffetz to simultaneously introduce bills in both houses of Congress to outlaw location tracking without consent. Those bills have now been officially introduced. The bill is mainly targeted at law enforcement officials who feel they can put GPS devices on cars without first getting a warrant (and the many courts that have backed them up on this). It appears that if this bill becomes law, law enforcement will have to (gasp!) actually get warrants to do GPS tracking.

The bill also does focus on private collection of geolocation data -- and I had initially been a bit worried about that, since there are many cases where that might be reasonable (work related, or when someone purposely allows such info sharing, via services like Google Latitude). However, it looks like the bill has put exceptions in place for such situations. I'm not sure I understand the wisdom of a blanket statement and then exceptions, rather than specifically carving out what's banned, but perhaps it makes sense. Others have pointed out that it would be nice if the bill included reporting on stats concerning how often the government accesses geolocation data, and I agree that would be useful. One reason why people don't think too much about this is they don't realize how frequently the government uses the power to get location data.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: gps, jason chaffetz, privacy, ron wyden, tracking

15 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 15 Jun 2011 @ 9:54pm

While the (anti) 'patriot' act had little problems passing with little to no scrutiny, how much difficulty do you think this bill will have (and scrutiny do you think it will receive) before it passes, if it even passes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jun 2011 @ 9:55pm

Re:
Heck, by the time it passes it will probably be watered down to allow for even easier unwarranted searches and seizures than before the bill was passed ;)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jun 2011 @ 10:05pm

Mike, I'm confused. You say it's Ron Wyden, but the other news I read said it's Al Franken's bill.

Which is it?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57062.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
slander (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 12:46am

Re:
Well, if final revision of the bill contains provisions for warrantless tracking by Big Media, then you can be assured that Franken was involved.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Tor (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 12:54am

Geotracking in the EU
It's interesting to compare this to the situation in EU. Due to the data retention directive the governments here plan to (or have already begun to) essentially geotrack the entire population.

In most cases (at least for now) I don't think the data is real-time accessible, but still...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike Masnick (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 2:46am

Re:
Mike, I'm confused. You say it's Ron Wyden, but the other news I read said it's Al Franken's bill.

That appears to be a different, but similar bill.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A Guy, 16 Jun 2011 @ 5:35am

Anyone else think this is what the stink he raised about the Patriot Act was about? Perhaps the "business records" referred to the tower location and signal strength of all our mobile phones signal. Just speculation, but it makes sense...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
iBelieve, 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:18am

If this law passes, Law Enforcement will be forced to use some pretty unsavory methods at their disposal to acquire evidence to ~get those warrants. Sneaking around like Navy Seals at night, eating donuts and doing dirty deeds, creating a completely new wave of TV shows will be the next Really Big Thing. "Get That Warrant", on the Travel Channel, sponsored by Dupont, "We're bringing you the chemicals in your face you can live with".. AND by Smith & Wesson, "Don't Mess with US". The word 'privacy' will be officially omitted from ALL dictionaries in the very near future 'Under Penalty of Law' sort of like China's 'protest squashing' and Tuscany's gafildafish fights.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RandDCzarLA (profile), 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:20am

How would this affect mobile localization services?
I would be interested in seeing if and how this ruling would affect geo-location services used by businesses and coupon-type sites (Groupon,et all) determining a users location for sending incentive-related marketing texts to mobile users when in proximity to a store attempting to attract customers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
iBelieve, 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:25am

Re: How would this affect mobile localization services?
This is very closely related to those subliminal messages advertisers used to flash on the TVs in the 60s and 70s and get everyone up to the refrigerator to get that soda drink or cigarette until it was outlawed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:34am

Nice details, Wyden
I like both his Q&A and his section by section discussion of the bill he and Chaffetz wrote. It's makes you think that he actually assumes his constituents have brains.

Most legislator's articles about a piece of legislation read more like a pep rally.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
iBelieve, 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:35am

Re: Re:
I can't believe that AL Franken has sold us out to big Media, has he? I used to see him begging for money on SNL..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 9:39am

Bill Numbers
FYI - the bill numbers are:
HR 2168
S. 1212
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 8:26pm

Wake up, United States of America. You live in a Police State!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2011 @ 11:29pm

Re: Re:
It's nice to see that Franken is the one in the media spotlight and I don't hear about Wyden unless it's on techdirt.
Now, where's that sarcasm tag...

Thanks for the reply Mike.
[ link to this | view in thread ]