More and more phone service for the imprisioned population is run through a single company. The ACLU writes that the company which handles prison phone calls, Securus, is also surveilling people who aren't in prison. This last week Senator Wyden (D-Oregon) described Securus' ability to obtain and share the cell phone location information of virtually anyone who uses a phone.
Real-time cell phone location tracking of a suspect requires a search warrant under federal law and, as some courts have held, the Fourth Amendment. Normally, when police want to track a suspect's cell phone in real time, they provide a warrant directly to the phone service provider, which reviews the warrant to confirm that it is valid before complying with the request. The major cellular service providers have law enforcement compliance teams comprised of trained staff who review warrants and other law enforcement requests and regularly reject or narrow requests that are improper or overbroad.
However, major phone carriers appear to have allowed Securus to bypass these procedures. Government investigators contracting with the company upload documentation justifying a request for cell phone location data to Securus' system. Securus, functioning as a middleman, pays other middlemen, who then pay major telecommunications carriers for the location information.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @01:00AM (3 children)
TSA gropping those moving in, agencies intercepting all comms, deadly force against any minor issue.... maybe it's a prison. Free range kind, but prison.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Fluffeh on Monday May 14 2018, @01:02AM
That would certainly explain the whole "fence/wall" thing and why the people on the OTHER side are being asked to pay for it...
*sips coffee*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @04:57AM (1 child)
There's an analogy with the minimum security Federal prison camps. There's free movement within and not even a fence outside but communications are monitored and patdowns and strip searches are routine. Step outside the fence and it's a five-year sentence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @07:01AM
Have you ever tried stepping outside ... into Cuba?
*malicious grin* I suggest you do!