A bipartisan group lead by Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon Democrat) and Senator Mark Kirk (Illinois Republican) appeared at the Capitol Visitors Center for a news conference on Tuesday to pitch the proposed Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act.
In Senator Kirk's remarks at the gathering he stated, “This legislation is absolutely necessary because of the technology and the ability of the state to track you wherever you go regardless of lacking any probable cause.”
Local court cases on privacy issues
In recent months a case before the Delaware Supreme court and New Jersey court ruling has us following privacy issues.
In the Delaware case, a lower court ruled that police could not use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to track people without a court-approved warrant. The case of Delaware v. Michael D. Holden revolves around a drug suspect who was was tracked using a GPS device for more than 20 days by police without a warrant.
A recent New Jersey ruling allowing a wife to use a GPS device track a cheating husband raised a few questions about privacy. While the ruling stirred up a few questions about privacy in the legal sense, it also raised interesting arguments about privacy among family members.
Proposed federal law focuses on privacy
The Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act was introduced in the US Senate earlier this year by senators Wyden and Kirk with the goal of amending the federal criminal code to prohibit intentionally intercepting geolocation information pertaining to another person and disclosing the information another person.
According to Senator Ron Wyden's website, "The bipartisan legislation creates a legal framework designed to give government agencies, commercial entities and private citizens clear guidelines for when and how geolocation information can be accessed and used."
The proposed federal law addresses the issues of current laws being interpreted differently in different jurisdictions and hopes to create a federal law on the matter rather than have agencies spending time and resources figuring out which rules apply at the local level.
Many privacy advocates who were in attendance at the press gathering consider this law long overdue. Simply stated, the proposed bill would require law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant before using an individual’s cellphone, laptop or other electronic device to track their location.
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