

Our Worst Nightmares About the Government Tracking Us Just Came True - lotusleaf1987
http://gizmodo.com/5622800/our-worst-nightmares-about-the-government-tracking-us-just-came-true
Creepy.
======
markstansbury
This was inevitable. The Supreme Court held a long time ago that the
government can surreptitiously put a transmitter on a car and track it. (Think
1970s cop movie.) GPS is a clear extension of that rule. The 9th Circuit was
just following the precedent it is bound to.

I kinda think the Supreme Court got it wrong years ago and the 9th got it
wrong today. But in the long run that won't matter. The erosion of privacy is
inevitable. Technology is advancing too fast. The solution is not to put the
government in the akward position of self-imposing constraints that regular
people do not observe. (E.g. the government can't track you on Foursquare but
your friends can.)

No, the solution isn't in access, it's in use. The Supreme Court needs to use
the Fourth Amendment to limit the actual, in-court use of "private"
information. It needs to ensure that that use is open to the press and the
public. And most importantly, Congress needs to relax those laws that until
now we have only accepted because they were difficult to track and so
difficult to enforce broadly. (Read: traffic and drug laws.)

~~~
zck
>The solution is not to put the government in the akward position of self-
imposing constraints that regular people do not observe.

You have the right to peaceably assemble, but if you're on my yard, I can ask
you to leave or have you arrested for trespassing; the government can't keep
you off public property altogether.

