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.

  • OptionalEnglish
    2•5 hours ago

    Unless you become a phone company or use a StingRay

    • @[email protected]English
      2•4 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•5 hours ago

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

      • OptionalEnglish
        2•4 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
          2•4 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.