America's DHS Is Expected to Stop Buying Access to Your Phone Movements (notus.org) 49
America's Department of Homeland Security "is expected to stop buying access to data showing the movement of phones," reports the U.S. news site NOTUS.
They call the purchasers "a controversial practice that has allowed it to warrantlessly track hundreds of millions of people for years." Since 2018, agencies within the department — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Secret Service — have been buying access to commercially available data that revealed the movement patterns of devices, many inside the United States. Commercially available phone data can be bought and searched without judicial oversight.
Three people familiar with the matter said the Department of Homeland Security isn't expected to buy access to more of this data, nor will the agency make any additional funding available to buy access to this data. The agency "paused" this practice after a 2023 DHS watchdog report [which had recommended they draw up better privacy controls and policies]. However, the department instead appears to be winding down the use of the data...
"The information that is available commercially would kind of knock your socks off," said former top CIA official Michael Morell on a podcast last year. "If we collected it using traditional intelligence methods, it would be top-secret sensitive. And you wouldn't put it in a database, you'd keep it in a safe...." DHS' internal watchdog opened an investigation after a bipartisan outcry from lawmakers and civil society groups about warrantless tracking...
"Meanwhile, U.S. spy agencies are fighting to preserve the same capability as part of the renewal of surveillance authorities," the article adds.
"A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, led by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in the Senate and Republican Rep. Warren Davidson in the House, is pushing to ban U.S. government agencies from buying data on Americans."
They call the purchasers "a controversial practice that has allowed it to warrantlessly track hundreds of millions of people for years." Since 2018, agencies within the department — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Secret Service — have been buying access to commercially available data that revealed the movement patterns of devices, many inside the United States. Commercially available phone data can be bought and searched without judicial oversight.
Three people familiar with the matter said the Department of Homeland Security isn't expected to buy access to more of this data, nor will the agency make any additional funding available to buy access to this data. The agency "paused" this practice after a 2023 DHS watchdog report [which had recommended they draw up better privacy controls and policies]. However, the department instead appears to be winding down the use of the data...
"The information that is available commercially would kind of knock your socks off," said former top CIA official Michael Morell on a podcast last year. "If we collected it using traditional intelligence methods, it would be top-secret sensitive. And you wouldn't put it in a database, you'd keep it in a safe...." DHS' internal watchdog opened an investigation after a bipartisan outcry from lawmakers and civil society groups about warrantless tracking...
"Meanwhile, U.S. spy agencies are fighting to preserve the same capability as part of the renewal of surveillance authorities," the article adds.
"A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, led by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in the Senate and Republican Rep. Warren Davidson in the House, is pushing to ban U.S. government agencies from buying data on Americans."
The capability is inherent in the tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm OK with the possibility existing, it's not really avoidable.
It should, however, be absolutely 100% illegal with severe penalties for all involved to store that data longer than required for billing purposes and 200% illegal to sell or share it with any person or entity unless a warrant is involved.
Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Or lacks the capability to process it and just gave up. They're not exactly America's finest security agency...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
So I take it that the DHS now has a way to get the information for free.
Ha, I came here to say this!
That's actually the more troubling problem (Score:4, Interesting)
it's not really avoidable.
Absolutely not true. It is not remotely inherent in the technology, it's inherent in the way the technology is currently implemented. It should be no surprised that private interests have implemented it this way, since it gives them the ability to sell your location. The entire online/social media/freemail/goole experience is tailored around divesting you of your privacy, and even today it is completely possible and doable to deny them this.
Addressing your "It's not really avoidable" assertion, the technology isn't just possible, but easily possible to implement in a way that sends no locations outside the device. Apps like Osmand [f-droid.org] have a downloadable map infrastructure that would be easy to adopt as a subsystem in Android itself. Any time an app or web site wants to show your location, it could invoke this which would require no data outside your device. It wouldn't be hard at all to manage your maps, and wouldn't take up much space on your device.
For people today, you can use Osmand instead of Google Maps, say no every time a web site wants your location, use services like Open Street Map for web access, (which anonymizes all access), and even just kick Google out of your life. If you want, there are even Android alternatives like e/OS (Murena) which takes LineageOS (AOSP made workable) and further de-Googles it. It's not just for resistor-heads and nerd-fests any more, it's getting more and more traction and it's even quite possible to buy phones with it on it. I personally use a Fairphone FP5 running Murena and it is implemented in such a way that stuff just works. It has a Google Play Services replacement that lets 99.5% of programs run, even if you intercept or deny access to Google push. I even have the ability to easily, form the OS level, turn on and off location spoofing, in case there are any bad-player apps that I give location access to.
Don't just give up and roll over. Don't assume it's a necessary evil.
It should, however, be absolutely 100% illegal with severe penalties for all involved to store that data longer than required for billing purposes and 200% illegal to sell.
Here is where we 100% agree. But I would go a step further and impose penalties for even collecting it. I would even go another step further, and pass consumer protection laws that state that no free service can be operated where allowing the operator permission to collect, peruse, and/or share your data is a required component outside of the immediate context of that service. IE: If you offer an email service, they can't predicate it on you agreeing to give your location, and they can't look at your emails. If they offer a map service, they can't store your location, and they can't make you agree to let them as a condition of the service. If that means that we lose a lot of free stuff, so be it. I don't mind killing Google's current revenue paradigm.
We need something, because 14-year-olds don't care what they give away, and by the time they are 19 or 20 they are saying things like what you opened up with.
Re: (Score:3)
>Absolutely not true. It is not remotely inherent in the technology, it's inherent in the way the technology is currently implemented.
I am curious to hear how you would implement routing to mobile devices across external networks without having routing/location information that persists longer than the connection for billing purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
>Absolutely not true. It is not remotely inherent in the technology, it's inherent in the way the technology is currently implemented.
I am curious to hear how you would implement routing to mobile devices across external networks without having routing/location information that persists longer than the connection for billing purposes.
Routing.... as in network routing? I don't much care about tracking network routing since IP tracking is more and more becoming yesterday's news. There is a already a lot of (old but still valid) common-carrier legislation on the books protecting your phone location data obtained from what cell tower you are on from being sold or used. Which is why Google et al are making it harder and harder to do anything on any app without signing away your phone's satellite location data permissions - they need it.
Re: (Score:2)
In response to "how would you handle this necessary feature?" you answered "I don't care", and in a way that indicates you didn't even understand the question.
The rest of your post is utterly, utterly irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
If I misunderstood your question, which I may have (hence the initial question mark), then how about you explain the question. What aspect of "routing to mobile devices across external networks" is relevant to or causes inherent tracking in a context which I didn't address?
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I thought. Vaguish question. Claim ignorance in your reply and then disappear. Tactics on how to discredit without actually answering to the issue. Do you consult for the Republicans?
Republicans will hate this (Score:2)
Re:Republicans will hate this (Score:4, Interesting)
Everything that followed 9/11 was sadly predictable, and you can't even really blame the politicians.
Americans got attacked on their home soil, and it was a very effective attack teaching them they were vulnerable in their own urban centres. People were frightened and panicked and demanded action, and the politicians responded with the only thing they could do - implement security theatre resulting in another step towards an authoritarian state.
The reality is that so long as anyone is pissed at you, you're at risk of ending up dead. A neighbour who doesn't like you can get unexpectedly stabby, another country your country is politically involved with can breed terrorists who destroy buildings full of your citizens. There is no stopping this risk other than not getting involved in other people's business - and even then you can get some asshole regime that takes a liking to your property and invades.
Re:Republicans will hate this (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, so why did the Republicans lead us down a regressive path of racism, homophobia and xenophobia that pissed off our closest allies, closed the borders to Canada and Mexico, and restricted American freedoms in a way that the Taliban absolutely craved us to do?
I'm unconvinced that the Republican Party isn't a terrorist organization bent on destroying the US. Especially when Trump's now the chair and his inlaw is a cochair.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Republicans will hate this (Score:4)
>Exactly, so why did the Republicans lead us down a regressive path of racism, homophobia and xenophobia that pissed off our closest allies, closed the borders to Canada and Mexico, and restricted American freedoms in a way that the Taliban absolutely craved us to do?
Shared fundamental values. Both are tribalistic groups that use ignorance and fear of 'the other' to maintain group cohesion, and the smarter ones use the resulting environment for personal enrichment at the expense of the rest of the group. Malignant religion isn't actually the cause, it's an emergent property of such groups that reinforces group cohesion with more ignorance and fear.
Re: (Score:3)
Everything that followed 9/11 was sadly predictable, and you can't even really blame the politicians.
But people in other countries didn't react the same way to terrorist attacks. France and Belgium had attacks (and ongoing threats), but didn't bring in such repressive measures as the TSA and the no fly lists. The twin towers attack was the biggest single event than any Western country has faced, but the airport and a metro station in Belgium was blown up in a coordinated attack, and Belgium is a tiny country. France has had multiple attacks, including a truck running over people along a beach side road.
So
Re: (Score:1)
Most people have set number of miles or hours they would rather drive vs flying. For many TSA raised that. I'm personally willing to drive a few hundred more
Re: (Score:3)
Personally I'd rather see the money go towards healthcare and the asphalt variety of roads, but that's mostly because I live in suburbia where you're not going to be taking a train to McDonald's and Walmart.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Push for infill development. One shouldn't need a car to live in the city, and suburbs are part of the city.
That sounds like living in a crowded, smelly city with extra steps.
As difficult as it is to believe, not everyone wants to live six inches from their neighbor, have to go somewhere to walk on the grass or sit under a tree, live where the heat broils off the blacktop for months on end, or in general be shoulder to shoulder every single day with other people. Privacy and quiet are a thing. Look them up sometime.
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Re: (Score:2)
Push for infill development. One shouldn't need a car to live in the city, and suburbs are part of the city.
That sounds like living in a crowded, smelly city with extra steps.
No. It's possible to have space and not dedicate 50% of all the land available to the movement and storage of cars. Build where there's existing parking lots. Let people open a cafe or auto repair shop or convenience store in their garage or in a new building where their front yard was. There's a LONG way between Hong Kong and America's completely useless suburbs.
Re:Republicans will hate this (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a LONG way between Hong Kong and America's completely useless suburbs.
Thank you for proving my point. Hong Kong has people packed shoulder to shoulder with almost no open space and certainly no peace and quiet. If you want to have an auto repair shop next door to you and all the associated noise and smell, have at it. I prefer not to be choked by fumes 24/7.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a LONG way between Hong Kong and America's completely useless suburbs.
Thank you for proving my point. Hong Kong has people packed shoulder to shoulder with almost no open space and certainly no peace and quiet. If you want to have an auto repair shop next door to you and all the associated noise and smell, have at it. I prefer not to be choked by fumes 24/7.
Sure, you just prefer all of us live with the noise and pollution of cars while avoiding building in things like walkability, cycleways and public transit instead. That's antiamerican.
Re: (Score:2)
My suburban neighborhood is walkable. Five minutes to the nearest grocery store, park and library. And yet I don't have to put up with "noise and pollution of cars". At least none other than those of the people living on my street. The main arterial is where the through traffic stays. But almost nobody lives along that. That's where the businesses and apartments with off-street parking are located.
And yet my type of neighborhood is one that the urbanists tend to scream loudly about. Because we all have ya
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All I know is that the single qualification for urbanists is to hate cars. If there are any others out there claiming the title, they can't get a word in edgewise at planning meetings.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Urbanists hate designs that preclude people from getting around in a city without a car.
Urbanists are simply people involved with city planning. The urbanist [theurbanist.org] agenda has been co-opted by people who, as you say, go in with a preconceived hate for some topic or other. And what seems to preclude people from getting around with a car is the need to wander across streets with no attention paid to cars (or bicycles). Gotta hate pressing that "beg button" at the corner.
Cars are important and useful, just not for most trips in the city.
That depends on who you are. My parents are closing in on their 90s. They were quite dependent on their car but now are going to need
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I visited Toronto today. Holy cow! I don't see how people deal with this crowded crap every day. I was there on a Saturday and it was ridiculous. I've never seen any store in my life that was as busy as the Costco. The traffic is completely ridiculous. Way too many people here.
Glad I don't have to live someplace like this.
Re: (Score:2)
There ought to be two classes of concourses and planes. One for normal folks who go through screening, and one for people like you who eschew any sort protection against bringing on the plane anything they like. Good like getting any pilots and flight crews to man the planes.
Re: (Score:2)
Known issues (Score:5, Insightful)
We've been having this discussion since before Snowden, the first I remember is echelon.
1) 4th amendment issues.
2) Buying info on your own citizens from OTHER countries to bypass laws.
3) If there is a legitimate legal & security reason to have access to this data, that's what a warrant is for with judicial oversight involved.
4) What is the actual cost (and profit) of the government paying private companies for continuous mass surveillance of its own citizens?
The real problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just means they have some other way now (Score:2)
Surveillance fascists never relent or give up.
They can continue to collect the data... (Score:3)
Of course they will. We can trust them! (Score:2)
"it would be top-secret sensitive" (Score:5, Insightful)
What disturbs me here is that the information is routinely being collected without most people's knowing permission, and being sold to whoever wants to buy it. DHS decided not to purchase it anymore (publicly at least) but it is still available on the market. The cellphone carriers and the handset manufacturers are complicit. It should be illegal.
I've got software on my phone that blocks trackers by means of an internal VPN that can intercept and examine all the destination IP's. It reports that it blocked 225k tracking attempts from 12 apps in the past week.
BS (Score:3)
NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ (Score:1)
GCHQ expected to 'pull its weight' for Americans [theguardian.com]
Weaker regulation of British spies 'a selling point' for NSA
delete this stuff (Score:2)
delete it from backups too. govt is too insane to have this kind of data beyond maybe 1 year in history .. delete everything else including backups.
All in the name of commerce. (Score:1)
Of course (Score:2)
After the Covid injection program to microchip every citizen, who needs to track phones anymore?
All you had to do was ask (Score:2)
Come to me and I'll sell you my data. If you buy my data from anyone else you are trafficking in stolen intellectual property. All data that I produce is my property.
I will sell (Score:2)
I will sell it myself, $100/month, to any interested party.