"Activists Worry That Mobile Phones Could Do More Harm Than Good"

Published on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 by Color Lines
Activists Worry That Mobile Phones Could Do More Harm Than Good
by Jamilah King

Nearly three years before thousands of Egyptian activists took to the streets to boot former president Hosni Mubarak from office, there was a much more quiet fight over bread and cell phones. On April 6, 2008, Egyptians demanded government accountability for a growing shortage of bread. Protesters tore down posters of the president and shouted anti-government slogans. More than 12,000 people had been detained by police for selling flour on the black market, facts that helped to swell the outrage. Many of the protesters were also armed with cell phones, which they used to take photos and send e-mails.



By December, 22 people were convicted of crimes related to their roles in the food riots. And by February, Vodafone, the world’s second leading mobile wireless carrier, announced that the company had been forced by Egyptian authorities to hand over communications data that helped implicate the protesters and lead to their convictions.

The incident sparked fierce debate over the advantages and perils of government regulation, particularly in countries swept up in civil unrest. But it was also a rude awakening for activists who relied on their phones to help do their political work. Yes, Big Brother is watching, and there aren’t many rules to say just how long he can watch, and how much he can see. Activists in Egypt found that out again last year during Arab Spring protests, when Mubarak’s regime ordered the company to suspend cell phone service to once again thwart activist organizing efforts.

More and a good read at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/07-5

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AND....HAT TIP to DU-2's "Dain Bramaged" for this post...which I'm stealing to post here:

Obama admin wants warrantless access to cell phone location data

A Maryland court last week ruled that the government does not need a warrant to force a cell phone provider to disclose more than six months of data on the movements of one of its customers. Two defendants had been accused of armed robbery, and a key piece of evidence against them was data about the movements of the pair's cell phones. The defendants had sought to suppress this location evidence because the government did not get a warrant before seeking the data from network providers. But last Thursday, Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled that a warrant is not required to obtain cell-site location records (CSLR) from a wireless carrier.

Courts all over the country have been wrestling with this question, and the government has been on something of a winning streak. While one court ruled last year that such information requests violate the Fourth Amendment, most others have reached the opposite conclusion.

The Obama administration laid out its position in a legal brief last month, arguing that customers have "no privacy interest" in CSLR held by a network provider. Under a legal principle known as the "third-party doctrine," information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. The government contends that this rule applies to cell phone location data collected by a network provider.

While this may be a plausible reading of previous precedents, the practical implications are alarming. While CSLRs are not as detailed as data that can be gathered via GPS, months of data can still reveal a host of sensitive information about a person's movements. If the third-party doctrine allows the government to obtain such information without a warrant, that's a strong argument for re-considering the third-party doctrine.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/obama-a

EDITED: Missing part of sentence in quote before photo.
EDIT #2: Typo: "Dain Bramaged" posted on "DU-2" not 3