ACLU assails Christie for cell phone invasions

The American Civil Liberties Union released documents Thursday showing federal officials in New Jersey have gotten judges to approve the surveillance without showing evidence that a crime is taking place. ACLU says former U.S. attorney, Chris Christie, now candidate for New Jersey governor, was routinely tracking American citizens on the cell phones without a warrant.

While serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie authorized the tracking of people through their cell phones without first obtaining a warrant, the American Civil Liberties Union said yesterday.

The ACLU released documents provided by the Justice Department showing that the U.S. Attorney's Offices in New Jersey and Florida had been granted permission by court order to "obtain mobile phone location information without making a judicial finding of probable cause."

The practice is not illegal, a point Christie and the U.S. Attorney's Office stressed yesterday. But the ACLU called it a violation of privacy, saying federal officials were flaunting the Constitution and "drunk" with power.

"Big Brother is tucked away in our cell phones, and the man behind the curtain is Chris Christie," said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU in New Jersey.

The documents released by the ACLU say the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey identified 79 such cases starting the day after the 9/11 attacks -- 66 of which resulted in a criminal prosecution. Christie became U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey Jan. 17, 2002, succeeding Robert Cleary four months after the terrorist attacks.

The documents did not specify how many of the applications were made during Christie's tenure, which ended this past November.

The whole story here.
_______________________________________________________________