“Enemy of the State” now a realiality
August 26, 2010Yes, I mean that movie with Will Smith and Gene Hackman.
Sure, anyone who has lived in the real world this past decade knows that we’ve long since developed the technology to do all the fancy things shown in the film. What you may not know, though, is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has recently enshrined in precedent a decision (also in audio) which asserts that such tracking by government entities is entirely legal.
As Adam Cohen over at Time puts it, the government simply believes that we have evolved past such petty things as privacy in this digital age:
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.
Remember that this is the same court which decided (opening arguments in audio) back in 2008 that it’s a-okay for border agents, which now include just about everyone working at an International Airport, to search your laptop without probable cause, opining that the devices are no different from any other sort of luggage.
Well, much like encryption can be employed to lock your luggage data and block these illegal searches, somebody has come along to protect us from the tracking devices.
From Jason Chen over at io9:
These types of GPS jammers plug into the cigarette lighter in your car, and will “prohibit GPS signal” up to 10 meters. Ten meters isn’t too far, but it isn’t super close either, so cars next to you might get some GPS interference as you drive down the road.
This model is $33. There are handheld and higher-powered versions available for slightly more. Our friends at Brando have one too, for $50.
FYI, as far as I know, these devices are illegal to own and/or operate in the United States under numerous FCC regulations, so I am in no way endorsing these products.
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