Inside the U.S. Government-Bought Tool That Can Track Phones At Abortion Clinics (404media.co) 79
Slashdot reader samleecole writes: 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.
An investigation into tracking tool Locate X shows in the starkest terms yet how it and others — based on smartphone location data sold to various U.S. government law enforcement agencies, including state entities — could be used to monitor abortion clinic patients. This comes as more states contemplate stricter or outright bans on abortion...
An investigation into tracking tool Locate X shows in the starkest terms yet how it and others — based on smartphone location data sold to various U.S. government law enforcement agencies, including state entities — could be used to monitor abortion clinic patients. This comes as more states contemplate stricter or outright bans on abortion...
Leave your phone at home (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are worried about being tracked, DO NOT BRING YOUR CELLPHONE.
We cannot stop them from tracking us as we go about our daily lives, but we can choose to not carry our tracking devices when we want to avoid being tracked.
Jokes on them. (Score:1)
That's why I always take my landline when on abortion excursions. I can never be tracked that way. Fools!
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Of course, and there are no federal prohibitions on abortion anyway, so "U.S. law enforcement" would have no use for it in that context.
"... but rather concentrate on tracking parents going to school board meetings to inquire and protest against all the woke non-sense taught in schools in the USA nowadays."
So you're even worse than the gaslighters that wrote the article.
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>
"... but rather concentrate on tracking parents going to school board meetings to inquire and protest against all the woke non-sense taught in schools in the USA nowadays."
So you're even worse than the gaslighters that wrote the article.
Are you unaware that the DOJ and the FBI targeted outspoken parents? https://www.usnews.com/news/ed... [usnews.com]
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Actually they do track people going to abortion clinics. Just not necessarily the patients:
https://www.usnews.com/news/be... [usnews.com]
So what about the license plate readers? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one tier to a multi-prong strategy. You can't solve this with individual actions. It requires... collective action (duh duh duuuuuuun!).
You're up against large, well funded systems. Systemic problems cannot be solved with individual action. We're not teenagers anymore, we're adults. It's time to act like it.
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Remove your license plate before you go to the clinic. That doesn't mean the moment you leave your house. When you get close, then you remove it. Lessens the chance of a copy stopping you. When you leave, drive a short distance then put it back on.
Wear some prosthetics over your face to throw off facial readers. Wear a mask and sunglasses if you have to.
A cop will pull you over (Score:2)
Same thing with the prosthetics. Anything you put on your face that makes it hard for the cameras to read it will instantly get you flagged and a visit from the cops.
Most cities spend at least half their budget on police. They hide this by funneling the mone
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You're up against large, well funded systems. Systemic problems cannot be solved with individual action. We're not teenagers anymore, we're adults. It's time to act like it.
I would agree. You’re certainly up against a well-funded heavily supported organization when you try and limit or control abortion in ANY way.
As far as acting like adults, 90-95% of the abortion problem wouldn’t exist if people did that. Rather ironic you asking for that.
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or the facial recognition.
I think the idea is that cell phone tracking can be used to determine if a woman goes to an out-of-state abortion clinic, whereas those other things you've mentioned would require the neighboring pro-choice state to be a tattle-tale. Presumably, a state where abortion is banned isn't going to have any legitimate clinics, so the facial recognition, license plate scanners and jackbooted thugs with a badge won't provide any information beyond that a woman traveled outside of the state.
Of course, unless you're
Not necessarily (Score:2)
It doesn't even have to be accurate it just has to establish probable cause. Once that's done you can do a formal criminal investigation. From there you can get somebody's purchase history and you can use that to determine whether or not they were pregnant and wheth
Re:Leave your phone at home (Score:5, Informative)
Leave your phone at home and take a cab/rideshare if you have an EV, at least for the last leg of the trip.
Any car where you get OTA updates or have an emergency assist function built in could be (and almost certainly is) tracking you too. At the very least, they're logging the IP you connected from whenever it manages a connection, which can be run though a GIS database to figure out where you were at the time.
Because yes, in a place where the government has or is trying to criminalize abortion, if they're not already actively hunting you that's only because they haven't figured out the tools just yet... and start being paranoid NOW, because many of those tools are potentially useful retroactively. You don't know what your car manufacturer (or mobile phone provider, or the owner of the mobile network you connected through) are logging, how long they keep those logs, and how friendly they are to government 'requests'.
And vote Democrat straight-ticket in the upcoming election. You know which party is far, far more likely to get off on tracking you down and punishing you.
Re:Leave your phone at home (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? Which party has criminalized abortions and is actively pursuing methods for tracking women's bodies just to be sure they didn't sneak one in?
Worrying about the Democrats putting you in jail for an abortion is stupid. You can worry about them tracking you AFTER you've dealt with the people who going to use such data to incarcerate you.
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So a housewife who wants to have kids should never have sex on the off chance they have a medical emergency after the first 6 weeks?
A rape victim should always politely decline to be assaulted?
You really are incredibly ignorant and stupid. Perhaps you should actually get some education yourself. Crawl back into your basement and let the adults talk.
Re:Leave your phone at home (Score:4, Insightful)
People want to have sex, and most of the time *don't* want to have kids.
Sometimes things happen, either because of stupidity or chance.
They still don't want kids. It's not on anyone else to tell them what to do about it.
I'm tired of the left hiding behind this, "Oh but in rape and incest cases" "For the life of the mother"
No. It's a woman's right, up until the baby can be cared for outside of her body by the State, to have an abortion.
Anything else borders on breeder slavery.
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No. It's a woman's right, up until the baby can be cared for outside of her body by the State, to have an abortion.
I absolutely agree.
But the reason the left keeps bringing up rape/incest/medical issues is because they are very real, and the laws that have been passed since Dobbs all (well, most) claim to offer protection-- but it's an illusion. In Florida, for example, you have to have two doctors willing to sign a form that says the mother WILL DIE without an immediate abortion. But carrying a dead child around won't be a direct threat to the mother's health for a month or two-- so until she's actually at risk of de
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I like how you think you can educate away medical conditions. Don't we call that witchcraft?
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wouldn't ride share apps require taking a tracking device with you?
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Leave your phone at home and take a cab/rideshare if you have an EV, at least for the last leg of the trip.
What's the EV got to do with things? Are you under the impression that modern connected cars are technologies limited to just EVs?
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That is a bit extreme. Just switching it off before it becomes obvious where you are going and removing the battery is quite enough. (You have a removable battery, right?)
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Opsec should really be the last thing that someone seeking an abortion should have to worry about.
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True. But abortion is a red herring in this instance. Abortion is just one example where details about your location/activities/associations may be used against you by zealots.
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No mod points, but absolutely correct.
So far there is no law requiring your cell phone to be with you at all times. I don't know how much longer that will last.
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"So, your cell phone was unnaturally still. This gave us probable cause to run your plates and facial id through the camera system. Now we want to know why you were at ."
Also don't take your car: ALPRs are everywhere (Score:2)
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Today's the sabbath, so you should probably be stoned to death.
You're the sort of person who says "Thou Shalt Not Murder", and then calls for bombing of abortion clinics.
You are truly the walking stupid.
No need for the scare words (Score:1)
Re: No need for the scare words (Score:1)
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Roe v Wade was the second poorest reasoned decision authored by SCOTUS, eclipsed only by Dred Scott v Sandford and followed closely behind by The Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company; Paul Esteben, L. Ruch, J. P. Rouede, W. Maylie, S. Firmberg, B. Beaubay, William Fagan, J. D. Broderick, N. Seibel, M. Lannes, J. Gitzinger, J. P. Aycock, D. Verges, The Live-Stock Dealers' and Butchers' Association of New Orleans, and Charles Cavar
Re: No need for the scare words (Score:3)
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
https://www.archives.gov/found... [archives.gov]
Re:No need for the scare words (Score:4, Insightful)
abortion is NOT a right
But bodily autonomy is as is the right to privacy.
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But bodily autonomy is as is the right to privacy.
The pro-life side asserts that abortion violates the bodily autonomy of the fetus, which has the same legal and moral status as an infant.
The pro-abortion side asserts that the fetus does not have independent personhood, and an abortion is morally equivalent to an appendectomy.
The right to privacy does NOT mean "It's hard to figure out if someone has done <x>, so <x> can't be a crime". (This is the justification for the Roe vs Wade decision). It DOES mean "The government can't investigate for
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"The pro-life side asserts that abortion violates the bodily autonomy of the fetus,"
While ignoring the bodily autonomy of the mother.
The *compromise* (which these people won't agree with) is *reasonable* abortion laws.
The compromise.
Instead, they want the mother to be a breeder slave. That's their "compromise" and end goal.
So no, I don't care what they say anymore, they are simply dead wrong, now, given what has ACTUALLY happened in the NEWS under THEIR POLCIES PEOPLE ARE DEAD!!!!
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The pro-life side asserts that abortion violates the bodily autonomy of the fetus
Adult rights overrule rights of a child in virtually every other legal situation, to say nothing of a fetus. If the two rights clash then there will be one clear winner.
Not anymore it's not (Score:2)
So if you're a right winger celebrating the death of roe congrats You're also celebrating the death of literally all of your constitutionally protected privacy rights.
Re: No need for the scare words (Score:2)
Actually not paying for a child is a right afforded to women. They just need to put it up for adoption and walk away.
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Making a woman a breeder slave is NOT a right.
Ftfy
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Click-whoring. (Score:1)
Abortion clinics, places of worship, and individual people..
For those writing articles, can you explain why abortion places and places of worship, somehow do not contain “individual people”?
To clarify, I meant without admitting blatant click-whoring.
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If it's during or after the 6th month of pregnancy [biblegateway.com] then maybe.
if only there was a way.. (Score:2)
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Sorry, but NOBODY is going to carry around a WORKING faraday cage for shit like this.
Ideologically, it seems semi-sane.
Now remember that PEOPLE ARE COMFORT-LOVING LAZY PEOPLE!
So TALKING aboutthe impossibility INCESSANTLY as your pussy bleeds is INFINITELY better because of you can simultaneously signal your "virtue"!
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>Sorry, but NOBODY is going to carry around a WORKING faraday cage for shit like this.
We're already in a world where Faraday pouches for phones are a thing. I don't know how effective they are against a nearby WAP, but they'll easily block your cellular signal even if they're not made very well.
Seriously? (Score:2)
What about automatic license plate readers or even facial recognition? You are a fool if you think individuals can thwart a police state.
What, you mean GPS? (Score:1)
You can track people with GPS, but you can also locate people who accessed the data. There's no relevance in mentioning this unless the goal is to attack women and make them feel insecure.
Do Russians have mothers, or do they just spring fully-formed out of toilets?
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The current state of abortion law and politics in the US means that discussion of abortion is more likely to increase votes for Democrats.
Putin is fine sowing chaos in general, and the GRU certainly loves to rile up both sides to drive in social wedges towards that cause... but Putin also gets cooperation and adoration from Trump. With Trump, Putin will have a much easier time with Ukraine and will weaken NATO (and the US).
I seriously doubt you're seeing Russian agitprop right now using abortion as a wedge
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When Vice Media went bankrupt, a bunch of the now-unemployed journalists formed 404 Media [wikipedia.org].
You're either a troll or a dumbass who doesn't know how to use Google.
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Re:Slashdot, you've got to stop this kind of BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Technology does not stand alone, it matters because of what we do with it today and could do with it tomorrow.
The abortion angle is a pertinent topical issue. You can strip the politics off it if you don't want to talk about which party is the threat... there's still a threat enabled by this technology.
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This kind of article is a warning to the brownshirts to not have their phones one them during upcoming operations
The political situations will hit boiling points at Nov 5 & Jan 20
The rest of us can just know that your phone is being tracked 24/7 and any person or group movement can be tracked & mapped
The Feds in the crowd can be identified, fake bombers also
2000 mules in every area
Map a persons regular pattern and flag a realtime alert when out of normal event happens.
Think parole conditions for ev
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Don't you think the possibility of the anti-science far-right coming to power is kind of important to technology? Not just denying, but banning the words "climate change", pushing fake drugs, banning vaccination (look at who Trump want to put in charge of healthcare), teaching bible and the 10 commandments in schools, firing scientists that don't support the dear leader latest bullshit... That is not politics anymore.
Not to mention privacy-related technology issues has always been a subject here.
If you live in a totalitarian state ... (Score:2)
... you need to learn to view the state as an enemy and how to protect yourself. The approach here is not only to switch your phone off, but to remove its battery. (You bought one with removable battery, right?)
Also remember who is responsible (Trump put those judges on the supreme court) and do _not_ trust any of the supporters of evil. They will just rat you out.
Orwellian Talibanjelicals (Score:1)
Red states compete with each other to be the scariest, and not just on Halloween.
Stop giving applications location permission. (Score:2)
Don't give every random app permission to track your location, especially background location permission. That's where this data is coming from. App makers make extra money by selling GPS data on their users to data brokers that sell it to companies like this.
The land of the free. (Score:2)
Just wanted to leave that subject title here.
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Don't forget inalienable rights. Americans like to insist that rights are god given or somesuch and also clearly demonstrate that's not the case by bestowing and revoking them based on fashion.
Simple solution (Score:2)
If we do like Handmaid's Tail, then the women won't be allowed to carry phones. So they can't be tracked. Duh.
Entrapment vs. Enforcement. (Score:1)
If a city or state has created laws that prevent abortion, then why exactly aren’t they going after the medical clinics instead of “tracking” the cell phones of potential violators?
You’re either going to be known as law enforcement or law entrapment. “Leaders” choosing the latter, won’t be leaders for long.