More warrantless surveillance

Thanks to Jason for bringing this under the radar news via Electronic Frontier Foundation to my attention. The NSA survelliance is not the only program the administration is utilizing to violate your Fourth Amendment rights.

Yesterday, Magistrate Judge Gorenstein of the federal court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion permitting the government to use cell site data to track a cell phone's physical location, without the government having to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause.

...Unfortunately, this dangerous new opinion falls into a procedural black hole. Because the DOJ is the only party in these surveillance cases, there's no one left to appeal the decision. Meanwhile, the DOJ has refused to appeal all three times it has lost, despite emphatic requests by the Texas and Eastern District magistrates. The result is that other magistrates across the country won't get clear guidance from the appeals courts on this issue.

It does make you wonder what other surveillance policies have been invented, in circumvention of the law, that we just haven't found out about yet.