“DON’T FENCE ME IN” Location Tracking Technologies and the Future of Privacy By Cheryl Meyers Buth, Esq. and Joel L. Daniels, Esq.
Introduction Back in the 1970s (yes, one of us was around then) you were considered a “tech savvy lawyer” as long as you used an IBM Selectric typewriter and always carried a quarter for a payphone call. But to quote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, 500 BC: “Nothing is permanent except change”. Today legislatures and courts cannot keep up with the rate of technological development. Our personal lives are reduced to bits of electronic data. As law enforcement agencies increasingly rely on technology, tech companies see this sector as a growing market. Police use new and undisclosed ways to gather evidence. Gone are the days when a defense lawyer could leave tech’s “bells and whistles” to younger colleagues. If we adopt Heraclitus’s metaphor of life as a constantly flowing river, protecting our clients’ rights today means we all have to step into the water. But when it comes to technology, even Heraclitus could not have predicted the speed of the current.
