February 23, 2012
Your cell phone is the one link between you and the FBI. Using cell phone data, the FBI can track any American at any time. Seemingly, an American who is being monitored by the FBI must have done something wrong, and a search warrant must be obtained. But, this is not the case.
As it turns out, there aren’t any real laws concerning monitoring of American citizens through cell phone data.
In a recent hearing, Senator Ron Wyden asked the National Security Agency (NSA) if intelligence officers could use “cell site data to track the location of Americans inside the country.” The answer Wyden got was “it’s a very complicated situation.” In short, there are no laws and no rules regarding who can and can’t be tracked by the intelligence community.
For Wyden, the fact that intelligence agencies can track any American is a breach of the Fourth Amendment. Yet, there are no laws governing geo-tracking or location technology. Wyden believes that “…when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry (Atlantic Wire).”
Currently, the intelligence community is working on defining cell phone tracking laws. For the time being, any American is fair game when it comes to the curiosity of the intelligence community.
Article Written by Harriette Halepis