{"id":8126,"date":"2020-06-17T06:02:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T12:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=8126"},"modified":"2020-06-17T06:02:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T12:02:13","slug":"political-groups-use-deeply-spooky-protester-location-data-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=8126","title":{"rendered":"Political groups use \u201cdeeply spooky\u201d protester location data, report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2020\/06\/political-groups-use-deeply-spooky-protester-location-data-report-finds\/\">Kate Cox<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Surveillance is<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/technology\/security\/a32851975\/police-surveillance-tools-protest-guide\/\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">widespread<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>at protests. Both local and federal authorities have<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/jasonleopold\/george-floyd-police-brutality-protests-government\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">broad authority<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>to undertake both covert and overt intelligence-gathering and surveillance of demonstrations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Law enforcement uses location data for other kinds of investigations as well. Cops need to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2018\/06\/supreme-court-rules-yes-govt-needs-warrant-to-get-cellphone-location-data\/\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">get a warrant<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>to track a specific individual&#8217;s mobile phone. Doing it the other way around, though\u2014picking a location, and then looking at who was there\u2014has fewer restrictions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Late last year, for example, federal investigators trying to solve an arson case in Wisconsin gathered location-history data from<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2019\/12\/feds-reap-data-from-1500-phones-in-largest-reported-reverse-location-warrant\/\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">1,500 devices that passed through the area<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>over a nine-hour window. A similar reverse location warrant used in Florida led police mistakenly to identify<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">a man who happened to be riding his bike<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>near the scene of a burglary as the top suspect.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Other private entities also use geofencing tools to zero in on individuals. Ambulance-chaser law firms, for example,<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2018\/05\/injury-lawyers-push-ads-to-patients-phones-when-they-go-to-geofenced-ers\/\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: rgb(105, 159, 179)\">have advertised to<\/a><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>people who have visited hospital emergency rooms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>While phone owners may understand that their devices collect location data for certain uses, consumers often have no idea how broadly sold and traded that information then is. That&#8217;s according to Keith Chen, a behavioral economics professor at University of California, Los Angeles, who spoke to the WSJ. &#8220;To the degree that this becomes very common, I do worry that it starts to put a chill on people\u2019s willingness to peaceably assemble,&#8221; Chen told the Journal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate Cox: Surveillance is&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;at protests. Both local and federal authorities have&nbsp;broad authority&nbsp;to undertake both covert and overt intelligence-gathering and surveillance of demonstrations. Law enforcement uses location data for other kinds of investigations as well. Cops need to&nbsp;get a warrant&nbsp;to track a specific individual&#8217;s mobile phone. Doing it the other way around, though\u2014picking a location, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8127,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions\/8127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}