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.

  • sunzu2
    4•8 hours ago

    Tower dats i guess is harder to get as it requires a warrant?

    • OptionalEnglish
      3•8 hours ago

      Unless you become a phone company or use a StingRay

      • @[email protected]English
        4•7 hours ago

        Or you just have some money to buy the data from a data broker that phone company sell your data to already.

      • sunzu2
        2•8 hours ago

        Well i meant why wouldn’t telco sell or provide it to the feds?

        • OptionalEnglish
          1•6 hours ago

          If they get a warrant, sure. Sell it I dunno. There’s more legal cases about cell tower data simply because it’s some form of technology courts have at least made an effort to understand at some point.

          • sunzu2
            3•6 hours ago

            Well we know telco sells your traffic data as ISP as “anonymized” i dont see how they are not doing this with tower data but i am not familair with case law on the issue.

            So maybe there is some legal bar to that…

            Amazing how warrant got turned into a joke in modern age tho all within last 30 years.