The government has routinely used records of cellphone calls and caller locations to show where a suspect was at a particular time, with access to those records obtainable under a lower legal standard. (Wireless operators keep cellphone location records for varying lengths of time, from several months to years.)
But it is unclear how often prosecutors have asked courts for the right to obtain cell-tracking data as a suspect is moving. And the government is not required to report publicly when it makes such requests.
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Legal experts say that such live tracking has tended to happen in drug-trafficking cases. In a 2003 Ohio case, for example, federal drug agents used cell tracking data to arrest and convict two men on drug charges.
Mr. Fishman said he believed that the number of requests had become more prevalent in the last two years - and the requests have often been granted with a stroke of a magistrate's pen.
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"The distinction between cell site data and information gathered by a tracking device has practically vanished," wrote Judge Smith. He added that when a phone is monitored, the process is usually "unknown to the phone users, who may not even be on the phone."
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(Emphasis added)
So, now our cell phones, RFID tags on purchases, electronic toll cards, OnStar locator system in vehicles, increasing talk of implanted microchips in passports, driver's licenses, and under human skin are all designed to follow the movements of "certain people".
Hmmmmm