Digital and Mobile Surveillance, Protection or Big Brother?

The Fourth Amendment reads in part, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."

Throughout the years there have been multiple bills and legislation presented to amend and/or update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986. However, the EPCA remains much the same as when it was penned and is still the main law governing access by government agencies to your personal electronic communications.

In 2011 the federal and state courts approved 2,732 wire taps - which requires a probable cause warrant. Following the Patriot Act of 2001, an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allowed intelligence agencies the ability to listen to communications between Americans and persons overseas without a probable cause warrant.

The wire tap number pales in comparison to the 1.3 million requests submitted to mobile phone companies which do not require a warrant. The information gathered could include stored text messages, mobile device location, and tower dumps which tells what mobile phones 'pinged' a tower in a given time period. It is a given that a tower dump is an effective tool for law enforcement to apprehend criminals and that the use of mobile phone device location is helpful for rescue personnel to locate persons in need of help. Yet, of the 1.3 million requests, it is not clear how many of those requests were made for law enforcement or rescue purposes.