Former CIA and NSA employee source of intelligence leaks

[The Minsky Moment]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities

Let's be clear - if you turn on your GPS function, you are advertising to your carrier and potentially to anyone who makes an application for your phone or tablet where you are.  That is why (at least on iOS) the switch to turn that on and off can be found under privacy settings.

If you want a reasonable expectation of privacy re your movements, turn off your GPS/location functions.

[Tamas]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

[Iormlund]

Not really. You have no way of ascertaining who I am. You cannot use other activity to build a complete profile of me. .

Sure I could.  Not me personally, but I could hire an investigator.  You'd be surprised how much information they can gather, and while an invetigator may not have access to all the material the government has, in some ways they are less constrained.
True I would have no motivation to spend resources to do that, but then again for 99.9% of the population that is true for the government as well.

Yet the only way to prove who I am would be to access ISP logs to find a matching name for my dynamic IP. Which are kept exactly for the same anti-terror bullshit excuse.

By the way, IIRC Apple still stores GPS data even if you turn that option off.

[Tamas]

[The Brain]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

I have yet to be disappointed by a Languish poster.

[DGuller]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities

Let's be clear - if you turn on your GPS function, you are advertising to your carrier and potentially to anyone who makes an application for your phone or tablet where you are.  That is why (at least on iOS) the switch to turn that on and off can be found under privacy settings.

If you want a reasonable expectation of privacy re your movements, turn off your GPS/location functions.

You don't need to have GPS turned on to be tracked.  Police apparently can retrospectively track your movement just from triangulation from cell towers.

[DGuller]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

It's not to me.

[The Brain]

The US has an excuse: it was founded on the principle of the slave state. Sweden OTOH has a tradition of freedom. It's a bit sad that that tradition is being killed off, but whatchagonnado. It had a... a run.

[Iormlund]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

Perhaps they lack the recent reminder of totalitarianism. Like Zanza I find it really funny how a society can be so vocal about gun rights and totally disregard the government encroaching on their privacy.

[Zanza]

Let's be clear - if you turn on your GPS function, you are advertising to your carrier and potentially to anyone who makes an application for your phone or tablet where you are.  That is why (at least on iOS) the switch to turn that on and off can be found under privacy settings.

If you want a reasonable expectation of privacy re your movements, turn off your GPS/location functions.

If I don't want my carrier to know where I am, turning off GPS won't help. I need to turn off the mobile phone functions too. My reasonable expectation of privacy is that my carrier doesn't store or track my movements beyond what is necessary to allow communication right now. There is zero reason to store the information where I was a minute ago.

As far as apps go, you are right of course.

However, I hold the government to higher standards than private app providers where I can easily opt in or opt out of using their service. I don't think I can do that with regards to whether or not the NSA tracks a profile of my communication. My reasonable expectation of privacy is that the government does not track ANY data on me unless it has a clear purpose for a particular function of government. Just tracking all communication data of everybody because technology makes it feasible does not pass this muster in my humble opinion.

[HVC]

I must say some of the posters here are a big letdown. Sheilbh especially. I have always looked up to him as a very knowledgeable fellow and greatly respected his opinion even if I disagreed. It is a total surprise for me that he would think this is a good idea.

It's not to me.

Sheilbh's a government first kind of guy. His accent just lulls you into thinking he's on your side because no man who sounds so awesome could be evil.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yet the only way to prove who I am would be to access ISP logs to find a matching name for my dynamic IP.

Prove with 100% certainty, perhaps.  But I a decent investigator could probably track you down just searching your profile and posts here.

By the way, IIRC Apple still stores GPS data even if you turn that option off. 

That only reinforces the point. 
This is part of Apple's privacy policy that anyone who uses such a device agrees to:

We also collect non-personal information − data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose

That means the user has exactly zero expectation to privacy in that data, which explicitly includes location data.

[The Minsky Moment]

My reasonable expectation of privacy is that the government does not track ANY data on me unless it has a clear purpose for a particular function of government.

I haven't seen anything yet that indicates that the US government is doing otherwise.

[Iormlund]

GPS location data can definitely be used to establish a link to a specific individual. In fact, for most people a single datapoint will do, since we do tend to spend the night at home.

[crazy canuck]

My reasonable expectation of privacy is that the government does not track ANY data on me unless it has a clear purpose for a particular function of government.

I haven't seen anything yet that indicates that the US government is doing otherwise.

They seem to be ignoring all the posts describing what is actually going on - the facts tend to get in the way of being concerned about big brother and all.