Although it's not directly related to consumers as such, readers might be interested (as I was) in the progress of H.R. 2168, the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, a bill to require law enforcement agents to secure a warrant based upon probable cause before obtaining geolocational information -- in other words, to put a judge between you and the cops sticking a tracking device on your car whenever they like.
Today a House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on the bill, which has some bipartisan support. For an excellent analysis of the issue, including details about the chilling tracking capacity of modern technology, see the testimony of the ACLU's Catherine Crump, available here. The Supreme Court began to examine the issue this Term in United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012), which held that round-the-clock GPS monitoring via tracking device placed on a person's car is a "search" for constitutional purposes, but did not address the question whether the Constitution required that it be supported by a warrant and probable cause.
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