Privacy advocates gained access to a powerful tool bought by U.S. law enforcement agencies that can track smartphone locations around the world. Abortion clinics, places of worship, and individual people can all be monitored without a warrant.

Privacy advocates got access to Locate X, a phone tracking tool which multiple U.S. agencies have bought access to, and showed me and other journalists exactly what it was capable of. Tracking a phone from one state to another to an abortion clinic. Multiple places of worship. A school. Following a likely juror to a residence. And all of this tracking is possible without a warrant, and instead just a few clicks of a mouse.

      • saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        13 days ago

        I’d be surprised if it lasted longer than any other socially progressive trend. A few weeks, tops, with largest proportions falling off in the first week.

        This is the reality of social momentum these days. Resistance is no threat because it has extremely brief lifespan before moving onto the next thing to be a part of.

        • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          I agree but not because it’s “trends” but because this system forces us to have short attention spans by presenting us with a massive deluge of information about horrible things happening everywhere (many of which are caused either directly or indirectly by that very system) so we have basically no choice but to keep shifting our focus and updating our threat assessments or risk becoming totally overwhelmed and falling behind or burning out.

          • Szyler@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            12 days ago

            I instinctively closed your comment after reading “short attention span” because I knew what you were going to say. Had to go back to comment because I realise the irony.

    • Optional@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      13 days ago

      Or - OR, right, everyone can turn off location and WiFi on their phones.

      It’s true the cell ping is always going, but that’s a different thing and definitely not what this tool is using to track people. Odds are good it’s using facebook or some other cancer to perform this evil.

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        0·
        13 days ago

        That won’t work. But if you install the ROM without gapps or closed source software, you don’t have to worry about these issues.