Privacy advocates gained access to a powerful tool bought by U.S. law enforcement agencies that can track smartphone locations around the world. Abortion clinics, places of worship, and individual people can all be monitored without a warrant.

Privacy advocates got access to Locate X, a phone tracking tool which multiple U.S. agencies have bought access to, and showed me and other journalists exactly what it was capable of. Tracking a phone from one state to another to an abortion clinic. Multiple places of worship. A school. Following a likely juror to a residence. And all of this tracking is possible without a warrant, and instead just a few clicks of a mouse.

  • John RichardEnglish
    36•1 month ago

    As people get ready to vote here in the US, one issue I haven’t even heard brought up is the lack of privacy regulations in the US. Do most people not care if the person they’re voting for is fine with every corporation selling and sharing personal data?

    • @[email protected]English
      15•1 month ago

      Our electoral system results in a choice between two candidates, and both are fine with it.

      • @itsJoelleEnglish
        4•1 month ago

        And more over the electorate is calcified along party lines where the outcomes for either side is perceived as being stark and dire. I suspect this means concerns like these might get stifled even if it is held by both parties.

      • @[email protected]English
        3•1 month ago

        I was just traveling in the UK and I had this discussion more than once having to explain why our options are always terrible and ignoring issues voters want addressed.

    • @UltravioletEnglish
      8•1 month ago

      Privacy regulations are to the left of the Overton window. The idea that corporations don’t have some divinely ordained ownership of our personal data is unthinkably radical.

    • GHiLAEnglish
      5•1 month ago

      It’s such a non-problem to my family members that if I even suggest it is a problem, I get ignored.

      No one cares. It’s either nothing anyone values or they figured they never had any privacy to begin with.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•1 month ago

      You don’t hear about it because the two major parties both oppose them and have nothing to argue about

    • @IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTIONEnglish
      3•1 month ago

      improving the healthcare system is not even a topic of discussion this time around let alone something most people would see as abstract

    • the post of tom joadEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      It’s not mentioned because only things rich people care about are mentioned on our rich people news programs

    • @[email protected]English
      0•1 month ago

      Omg there’s soo many critically important issues that never even get brought up.

      Like shutting down the nuclear arsenal, defunding the military and police, establishing a carbon tax, making carbon extraction illegal, establishing UBI. All of these basic policies never even get discussed on mainstream media and it drives me crazy.