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Washington • A new federal legislative proposal seeks to place restrictions on police agencies and companies that access people's whereabouts through GPS sensors in their phones, computers or cars.
The bill, dubbed the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, is co-sponsored by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. They see their proposal as a step toward protecting privacy rights and establishing rules for new technologies.
"The last thing technology companies want is people to be afraid of their phones," Chaffetz said.
The bill, introduced in the House and Senate on Wednesday, would require law enforcement to show probable cause and obtain a search warrant to track suspects using geolocation information. It would also require technology companies to obtain a customer's permission before sharing or selling that information to another company.
Chaffetz and Wyden said they based their legislation on federal wiretapping rules. They expect broad support from the private sector but resistance from police agencies that want to preserve easier access to GPS information.
Courts have split on whether police can track people without a warrant or that person's knowledge. The U.S. Justice Department has argued that electronic surveillance of a person's movements on public thoroughfares should be treated the same as human surveillance.
Chaffetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, disagrees and says law enforcement has abused its access to the information, tracking suspects 24 hours a day without showing probable cause.
"Right now, I think the law enforcement community is going too far," Chaffetz said. "It is imperative, in my view, that law enforcement get a search warrant to track a person."
Chaffetz and Wyden said the bill is the first in a series focused on individual privacy rights that they are developing.
The Salt Lake Tribune's attempts to reach Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank and Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder for reaction were unsuccessful. But at least one law enforcement group said the legislation's premise sets off no alarms.
"I have no problems with the concept," said Aaron Kennard, a former Salt Lake County sheriff who is now the executive director of the National Sheriffs' Association.
"I don't see it handcuffing local law enforcement."
Kennard stressed he had yet to read details of the legislation and called GPS tracking "a very dire need" of law enforcement but had no initial qualms with the requirement to show probable cause.
"It covers my butt when I go to court," he said.
The Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act
Among the proposed legislation's provisions:
Requires the government to show probable cause and get a warrant before acquiring the geolocational information of a person in the U.S., while setting out clear exceptions such as emergency or national-security situations or cases of theft or fraud.
Creates criminal penalties for surreptitiously using an electronic device to track a person's movements, which parallel those for wiretapping. (Currently, if a woman's ex-husband taps her phone, he is breaking the law. This legislation would treat hacking her GPS to track her movements as a similar offense.)
Prohibits commercial service providers from sharing customers' geolocational information with outside entities without customer consent.
Source: Rep. Jason Chaffetz