The officer claimed that Lopez had a broken taillight and had been speeding. A drug-sniffing dog then indicated possible contraband; police searched his truck and found fentanyl, cocaine,heroin, and meth. Lopez subsequently agreed to a plea deal where he would serve 84 months in prison for drug smuggling.
The traffic stop was in 2018. Lopez (and his lawyers) didn’t find out until 2020 that it was neither the traffic offenses nor the dog that led to Lopez’s downfall: It was location data from his phone, which revealed he was passing through the border at a place where there was no monitored crossing. A secret underground tunnel led from Mexico to a property he owned in the Arizona border town of San Luis.
A handful of small-town border cops hadn’t been actively monitoring Lopez’s phone location. They were purchasing the information from third-party brokers, who were collecting GPS data produced by the apps on Lopez’s phone.
Byron Tau, then a Wall Street Journal reporter, reported that year that the federal government, particularly immigration officials, had begun purchasing such data, which had typically been meant for use by advertising companies. (It was Tau who told Lopez’s lawyers about the data purchases, in the course of reporting his story.) In this way, both local and federal police were bypassing Fourth Amendment restrictions to get information that would typically require probable cause and a warrant.
Such stories animate Tau’s Means of Control, a book that documents how, across more than two decades, our government has turned to the private sector to keep tabs on us, all while both the authorities and the companies involved do everything they can to keep Americans in the dark.
Esta historia es de la edición June 2024 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición June 2024 de Reason magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Libertarianism From the Ground Up
ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM typically take two forms. Some libertarians base their creed on natural rights-the idea that each individual has an inborn right to self-ownership, or freedom from aggression, or whatever-and proceed to argue that only a libertarian political regime is compatible with those rights.
Lawlessness and Liberalism
THE UNITED STATES is notorious both for mass incarceration and for militarized police forces.
Politics Without Journalism
THE 2024 CAMPAIGN WAS A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR THE WAY WE PROCESS PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
EVERY BODY HATES PRICES
BUT THEY HELP US DECIDE BETWEEN BOURBON AND BACONATORS.
The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction
AMERICA'S UTOPIAN DREAMS LEAD TO URBAN EXPERIMENTATION.
Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story
\"OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES UPON OUR OWN IGNORANCE AND THE FACT THAT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR RIGHTS ARE.\"
Trade Policy Amnesia
WHILE HE WAS interviewing for the job, President Joe Biden demonstrated an acute awareness of how tariffs work. It's worrisome that he seems to have forgotten that or, worse, chosen to ignore it-since he's been president.
Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID
WHEN JOE BIDEN was sworn in as president in January 2021, he had good reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bye, Joe
AMERICA'S 46th president is headed out the door. After a single term marked by ambitious plans but modest follow-through, Joe Biden is wrapping up his time in office and somewhat reluctantly shuffling off into the sunset.
Q&A Mark Calabria
IF YOU HAVE a mortgage on your home, the odds are that it's backed by one of two congressionally chartered, government-sponsored enterprises (GSES), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.