The Most Dangerous Game

I had a conversation with a friend recently about the information various companies and government entities have about our activities, and whether that's a good or bad thing.  We weren't even talking about sales data or behavioral data or medical data, which are all tracked closely and often, we were talking about our cell phones.
   If you don't already know about your phone's GPS capabilities you should, but even if you have one of those bare-bones pay-by-minute phones, the phone companies - and by extension law enforcement agencies - can track your position simply by triangulating your phone's ID by cell towers.  It's not even particularly complicated math, it's how TV traffic reporters know how fast traffic is moving in the morning.  If your phone is on, it's a beacon.
  My friend was not bothered by this invasion of privacy.  As we discussed it, his position boiled down to three points:
   1. Scientists track animals all the time and that's okay, why not track people for the same reasons?
   2.  Nothing is secret or private anyway, so what's the big deal?
   3.  He doesn't do anything wrong, so if I object to being tracked I must be the bad guy.

I must admit I was astonished.  There's just so much wrong with taking these kinds of positions. Let's examine them one by one.

1.  People are not animals, and vice versa, no matter what PETA says.  Tracking animals is useful precisely because people are screwing up their nesting habits and migrations and their feeding grounds; tracking animals helps people fix what they've screwed up for the animals.  When animals are tracked it's science, when people are tracked it's surveillance.  You wouldn't want some middle-aged, wheezing IT guy following you on the street in a panel van, why would you think it's okay when that same middle-aged, wheezing IT guy works for the FBI and sits in an office all day following you by your cell phone records?

2.  This question gets to the heart of the data ownership debate.  Who owns the record of your coming and going?  You do.  And that information is yours to do with as you please, not someone else's to take without asking.  Saying that no one has an expectation of privacy is not only dead fucking wrong, it automatically gives ownership of your personal data to someone or something else.  It's no one's business what time I walk down the street to check my mail.  But if I carry my cell phone along the way my location is logged.  The only reason the phone company needs to know the location of my phone is so they can provide me a service I've paid for, they're not entitled to use that data for any other reason, because it's MY DATA.  The record is not about the phone company equipment, it's about where I am at a certain point in time.  It's about me.
   This is so important I'm going to repeat it:  you own your data.  You own your name, your SSN, your address, your age, your bank account information, your marital status, even your hair color or the fact that you've got a scar over your left eye.  You also own any positional data collected by the phone company, because it's information about you, not information about the phone company.

3.  This is the age-old argument along the lines of: if you don't have anything to hide from the cops, then why won't you let them search your car?  To which I answer: because the cops don't get to do whatever they want just because they're cops.  Same with the FBI or CIA or anyone else who wants to look at your phone records, including GPS data.  Law enforcement agencies can request access to your personal information - everything I listed above - but they have to have a very good reason to do so.  That's why courts issue warrants, as a check on the authority of law enforcement.  Claiming to be okay with violations of civil rights simply because you yourself 'don't do anything wrong' is abdicating your responsibilities as a citizen.  You're part of the same system I am, like it or not, and if you don't exercise your rights to hold the system accountable you're dismantling the check-and-balance structure brick by metaphorical brick.
  Also, nut up and be a man, you great-big pansy.  Tell the cops no.  Tell The Man no.  Stand up and be counted for once, stick to your principles, don't fold like a cheap hotel sheet when someone flashes a badge.

People will tell you that technology is moving too fast, that there are all sorts of questions about what is allowable and what is not, because we now carry computers in our pockets instead of resting them on office desks.  But those people are full of crap.
   There are guiding principles to all behavior, and those principles don't change just because you've got a new gadget.  Just remember what those simple principles are - e.g. you own any data about you - and you can answer any questions very easily.