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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
[Read on for Brendan Koerner's left-leaning, anti-corporate opinion piece. It makes some valid points, such as the unclear rules governing wireless companies sharing your GPS location with police. But Koerner fails to recognize that it was Congress that mandated tracking technology and place the blame appropriately, and fails to note that it is the FCC's regulatory apparatus (again, thanks to Congress) that prevents companies from offering more flexible, privacy-sensitive services. He also fails to recognize that wireless competition is alive and well, with half a dozen large providers in the U.S. -- and if one company is too intrusive with GPS-enabled ads, others will be happy to seize that opportunity to offer better alternatives. --Declan] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 10:16:10 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> Subject: Your Cellphone is a Homing Device Your Cellphone is a Homing Device Don't want the government to know where you are? Throw away your cell, stop taking the subway, and pay the toll in cash. By Brendan I. Koerner IF YOU PURCHASED A NEW CELLPHONE over the past 18 months or so, odds are that one of the features listed in small print on the side of the box was "E911 capable." Or, as in the case of my latest Motorola, "Location technology for piece [sic] of mind." Perhaps you asked the salesman to explain the feature, and he replied that it means that cops can home in on your phone in case of an emergency, a potentially important perk should you ever find your hand pinned beneath an immovable boulder in rural Utah, as Aron Ralston did recently. Assuming he could have gotten a signal, an E911-capable phone might have saved the young backpacker the pain of having to amputate his own arm. What your salesman probably failed to tell you-and may not even realize-is that an E911-capable phone can give your wireless carrier continual updates on your location. The phone is embedded with a Global Positioning System chip, which can calculate your coordinates to within a few yards by receiving signals from satellites. GPS technology gave U.S. military commanders a vital edge during Gulf War II, and sailors and pilots depend on it as well. In the E911-capable phone, the GPS chip does not wait until it senses danger, springing to life when catastrophe strikes; it's switched on whenever your handset is powered up and is always ready to transmit your location data back to a wireless carrier's computers. Verizon or T-Mobile can figure out which manicurist you visit just as easily as they can pinpoint a stranded motorist on Highway 59. .... http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2003/feature_koerner_julaug03.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------