I know first hand that getting warrants can be a pain in the ass, but too bad, its our job to defend and protect the constitution, not whine about how hard it is to do our jobs and still abide by the “current” law, or to look for shortcuts and ways to get around the only document that stands between freedom and totalitarianism.

But don’t worry, I’m clearly over reacting because if I wasn’t, those vigilant watchdogs of the Fourth Estate would surely mention the trampling of our fundamental freedoms in their newspapers, websites and TV news shows, wouldn’t they?

Here is the latest assault on our freedoms from the EFF

DOJ Official: Any Privacy Protection is Too Much Privacy Protection for Cell Phone Tracking

Jason Weinstein, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s criminal division, told a panel at the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee’s ”State of the Mobile Net” conference yesterday that requiring a search warrant to obtain location tracking information from cell phones  would “cripple” prosecutors and law enforcement officials. We couldn’t disagree more.

For years, we’ve been arguing that cell phone location data should only be accessible to law enforcement with a search warrant. After all, as web enabled smart phones become more prevalent, this location data reveals an incredibly revealing portrait of your every move. As we’ve waged this legal battle, the government has naturally disagreed with us, claiming that the Stored Communications Act authorizes the disclosure of cell phone location data with a lesser showing than the probable cause requirement demanded by a search warrant. 

Since the new year, a number of significant developments has led to increased awareness on this important topic. First, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in United States v. Jones which held that the warrantless attachment of a GPS device on a car violated the Fourth Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable government searches. In concurring opinions, Justices Sotomayor and Alito both noted that technology had the power to shrink privacy, particularly with respect to locational privacy, as the information gleaned from web enabled smartphones supplanted the need for law enforcement to physically install GPS devices in order to track someone. Then in March, we filed an amicus brief along with a number of other civil liberties organizations, urging the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that cell phone location data requires a search warrant. In April, the ACLU released the results of a coordinated FOIA request that found law enforcement officials throughout the country were routinely obtaining cell phone location tracking information with differing legal methods and standards, and were frequently getting this information without a search warrant.

Its this last point — the differing standards for disclosure and legislative attempts to make those standards uniform — that sets up Weinstein’s comments (you can hear the full audio here). Noting that Jones requires a warrant for GPS data, but that courts have reached conflicting opinions on whether a search warrant is necessary for cell phone location tracking records that are held by wireless company providers, he rightfully noted ”there really is no fairness and no justice when the law applies differently to different people depending on which courthouse you’re sitting in.” But unfortunately, the DOJ’s solution for this problem is for Congress to say that cell phone location tracking records held by third parties — typically the cell phone providers — are not subject to the search warrant’s probable cause requirement, as it would “cripple” law enforcement. To be clear, despite Weinstein’s comments that he’s only speaking for himself, DOJ’s explicit position is that no warrant is necessary, as that’s what they’ve consistently told courts, including the Fifth Circuit.

The problem with the DOJ’s position is that it fails to take into account privacy. The only way to ensure “fairness” and “justice,” is to demand that our Fourth Amendment rights not be violated by law enforcement working closely with cell phone providers to access your location information without your knowledge. We’ve already seen that despite the ruling in Jones, law enforcement and the wireless industry are finding ways to continue their pre-Jones practices of warrantless surveillance amid a stunning lack of transparency. We’re slowly seeing legislative action in the right direction on these important issues. On the federal level, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Or) has proposed the GPS Act, that would require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant to access location information. In California, we sponsored a bill with the ACLU of Northern California, to require law enforcement to get a search warrant anytime it wants location information about another person in California. And earlier this week, Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass) sent a request (PDF) to the biggest wireless carriers, demanding information about their relationship with law enforcement.

Requiring the police to obtain a search warrant — the traditional method for balancing law enforcement needs with individual privacy — and demanding the wireless industry be transparent about how they deal with law enforcement requests for location information are critical steps in the right direction, towards “fairness” and “justice,” location privacy and transparency.

On Apr. 7, 2011, five days before Microsoft patched a critical zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer that had been publicly disclosed three months earlier on a security mailing list, unknown attackers launched a spear-phishing attack against workers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. More

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

It may not be long before infantrymen on foot can track their buddies’ positions on ruggedized smartphones. The Army’s best bet for achieving this battlefield milestone lies in its new Rifleman Radio. Units from the 75th Ranger Regiment were pleased with the performance of the handheld Joint Tactical Radio System during a recent battlefield evaluation in Afghanistan.

Security vendor: Mobile users more vulnerable to phishing scams
January 10, 2011 — 12:18am ET | By Caron Carlson

It’s not as though we need more reminders of the security risks mobile devices pose to the enterprise, but according to security vendor Trusteer, mobile users are three times more likely to be the victim of phishing scams than desktop users.

According to Trusteer’s research, based on a review of log files of a number of web servers hosting phishing sites, when mobile users access phishing sites, they are three times more likely to hand over their login data. Why are mobile users so gullible? One possibility is that it is more difficult to detect a phishing site on a mobile device, the company suggests.

Part of the vulnerability for mobile users is simply that they are always connected and inclined to read their email as it arrives, writes Trusteer CEO Mickey Boodaei, in a post on his company’s blog. “The first couple of hours in a phishing attack are critical. After that many attacks are blocked by phishing filters or taken down,” he writes. “Hence mobile users are more likely to be hit by Phishing just because they’re ‘always on.’”

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CME IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth’s magnetic field on March 8th around 1100 UT. The impact was weaker than expected, sparking only a mild (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm. However, the storm could intensify in the hours ahead depending on electromagnetic conditions in the wake of the CME. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: text, phone.

Congress is considering legislation that would give companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications, including huge amounts of personal data like your text messages and emails, and share that data with the government and anyone else. All a company has to do is claim its privacy violations were for “cybersecurity purposes.” Tell Congress that they can’t use vaguely-defined “cybersecurity threats” as a shortcut to bypassing the law.

Let’s hope that this tech trickles down to the consumer market.

A chilling demonstration to a small, packed room at the RSA security conference today showed how clicking a single bad Web link while using a phone running Google’s Android operating system could give an attacker full remote control of your phone.

Forcing a criminal suspect to decrypt hard drives so their contents can be used by prosecutors is a breach of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

It was the nation’s first appellate court to issue such a finding. And the outcome comes a day after a different federal appeals court refused to entertain an appeal from another defendant ordered by a lower federal court to decrypt a hard drive by month’s end.

Thursday’s decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that an encrypted hard drive is akin to a combination to a safe, and is off limits, because compelling the unlocking of either of them is the equivalent of forcing testimony.

The Harris radios Marines carry in Afghanistan, hooked up to the military’s Joint Tactical Radio System, have a range of under 100 miles. Not bad for when you’re patrolling Anbar or Helmand provinces.

Enter the Distributed Tactical Communications System, a brainchild of the futurists and contrarians at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. The DTCS, as it’s known, would more than double the reach of the Marines’ connectivity, allowing them to communicate from 250 nautical miles, via satellite. And that’s for starters: The Lab says the system has a 30 percent success rate in tests of 700 miles.