Tell Congress: No GPS Spying!

Right now, police have the ability to tap into your cell phone, smart phone, laptop and navigation device in order track your every move, and they can do this without obtaining a warrant.

Although Americans enjoy the technological advances that make life easier, many fail to realize that they come at a price – the loss of personal privacy. Such technology makes it easier for law enforcement to track and log citizens’ locations, and is opening doors to government overreach and infringement on Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.

This is why Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), have co-sponsored the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act (GPS Act) that will require law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant from a judge before they can access citizens’ location information that is obtained from cell phones and GPS tracking devices.

“I take the Fourth Amendment very seriously,” Rep. Chaffetz said. “The law enforcement community is going too far [and] I happen to think that’s wrong.”

Ways the GPS Act will protect Americans:

• Prohibit commercial service providers from sharing customers’ geolocational information with outside entities without customer consent.
• Provides clarity for government agencies, commercial service providers, and the public regarding the legal procedures and protections that apply to electronic devices that can be used to track citizens’ movements.
• Requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant before acquiring a citizen’s geolocational information.
• Applies to all law enforcement acquisitions of the geolocational information of individual Americans without their knowledge, including acquisition from commercial service providers as well as from tracking devices covertly installed by the government.
• Applies to real-time tracking of a person’s movements, as well as the acquisition of records of past movements.
• Closely tracks existing wiretapping laws with regard to court procedures for getting a warrant.
• Creates criminal penalties for surreptitiously using an electronic device to track a person’s movements that parallel those for wiretapping.

Protecting the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans must be the ultimate goal of every member of Congress.

Please join Conservative Action Alerts in alerting lawmakers -- tell them to support HR 2168 and S 1212 & protect our Fourth Amendment.

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