US Revolution? Privacy -v- Intrusion

US Revolution? Privacy -v- Intrusion

At DEEU research we are noticing an interesting trend in the United States pushing a revolution to claw back the rights of 'privacy' regarding mobile phone communications and GPS tracking, perhaps to counteract what appears to be the underlying suggestion of high level of 'intrusion'. A number of recent cases that have been reported are well worth reading and the rise of these cases suggest landmark judgments may not be far off. The effect of such judgments might bind the US's member states to possibly a single code of conduct. This may make sense where an operator, providing national coverage, has a uniform privacy policy as opposed to a single member state imposing local laws to such a degree that it might be possible to cause:

- the US constitution to be eroded by localised politics in a single member state
- national security may be undermined if a single member state bleeds information about a person's movements simply obtained via a production order application

The points above and below are not statements of fact but merely observations and, rather than my comments influence readers' thought-processes, below is a list of cases and some additional reading that may be of interest. The British legal system may well be interested in what is taking place and such cases can influence aspects of our case law. Mobile forensics and evidence might equally see requirements imposed as to the level of data that maybe accessed from the network and/or acquired from mobile devices. The US, whilst is still in its infancy, due to arriving fairly late to the table in these fields (but making up ground) regarding mobile phone forensics and evidence may, no doubt, want to keep an eye of how these cases impact on the area of data acquisition and harvesting.  

Mobile Phone and GPS Privacy Cases:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/20/tech/mobile/california-phone-search-law/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/judge-says-warrant-required-for-cell-phone-location-data.ars?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
http://www.llrmi.com/articles/legal_update/2011_co_schutter.shtml
http://www.theolympian.com/2011/08/21/1767625/courts-grapple-with-gps-technology.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/22/BABR1KQFL7.DTL
http://trewmte.blogspot.com/2009/02/cellular-phones-warrantless-searches.html

Further reading material
http://www.aele.org/law/2011-02MLJ401.html
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=6c7c563a-d772-413f-b28a-6074c5673f45
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/lost_iphone_5_apple.php
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/08/apple_iphone_lost.php