Source: CNET News

Two years ago, when the FBI was having trouble catching a band of armed robbers known as the “Scarecrow Bandits” that hit up more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves: track them by their cell phone.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Not long ago, the concept of tracking cell phones would have been the stuff of spy movies. In 1998’s “Enemy of the State,” Gene Hackman warned that the National Security Agency has “been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the ’40s–they’ve infected everything.” After a decade of appearances in “24″ and “Live Free or Die Hard,” location-tracking has become such a trope that it was satirized in a scene with Seth Rogen from “Pineapple Express” (2008).

Once a Hollywood plot, now ‘commonplace’
Whether state and federal police have been paying attention to Hollywood, or whether it was the other way around, cell phone tracking has become a regular feature in criminal investigations. It comes in two forms: police obtaining retrospective data kept by mobile providers for their own billing purposes that may not be very detailed, or prospective data that reveals the minute-by-minute location of a handset or mobile device.

Obtaining location details is now “commonplace,” says Al Gidari, a partner in the Seattle offices of Perkins Coie who represents wireless carriers. “It’s in every pen register order these days.”

Gidari says that the Third Circuit case could have a significant impact on police investigations within the court’s jurisdiction, namely Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; it could be persuasive beyond those states. But, he cautions, “if the privacy groups win, the case won’t be over. It will certainly be appealed.”

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My Take: I’m not sure I agree with cell phone tracking for any reason, given the potential for abuse. Think about it: if we freely give up our right to our privacy when it comes to everyday conversations, everything we attempt to accomplish on a cell phone, whether it’s trying to get an instant car insurance quote, by a used digital copier, or set up airline reservations for a colocation for a business meeting. We shouldn’t have to wonder whether or not we are being tracked every time we pick up our cell hones to do everyday mundane tasks, whether it’s set up a babysitter for a date night with our husbands, buy used copy machines, or talk to a friend about making a CD copy of our favorite band’s new work.

Speaking of call data centers, I’d also be curious to find out whether our 4^th amendment protections extend to our businesses calls via computer-based phone service providers, such as Vonage or Skype or whether we’d be tracked by our attempts to obtain auto insurance quotes, or homeowners’ insurance over the Internet. In short, the long list of things Big Brother can’t doo sees to be shrinking.

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Source: Time

The Academy Award-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire may have made all things Indian popular with moviegoers in the West, but before the movie’s release three U.S. Americans of Indian heritage were putting the final touches on their plan to take Bollywood into the digital age.

Today, three-year-old Saavn (an acronym for South Asian audiovisual network) controls global distribution rights, outside India, to a massive number of Bollywood films, songs, albums and music videos, all downloadable to iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and computers. And if consumers in America are captivated by the song-and-dance extravaganzas of Bollywood — the umbrella name for Mumbai’s film industry — Saavn believes its offerings will be attractive marketing tools for U.S. companies.

Last year Saavn posted revenues in the low seven figures — five times its 2007 numbers — with the largest spurt coming from its music enterprise. The company expects 2009 revenues in the low eight figures, “growth north of 500%,” says Neal Shenoy, one of Saavn’s co-founders, who manages the three other media companies within Saavn’s parent company 212Media. (Saavn is co-owned by Indian company Hungama, a competitor turned partner.) “We had no idea how quickly Bollywood and India would penetrate American culture,” Shenoy says.

Shenoy and Saavn’s two other founding partners — CEO Vinodh Bhat and managing director Paramdeep Singh — had witnessed popular media’s gradual but certain infatuation with Bollywood, whose revenues account for roughly 80% of India’s $2 billion film industry. In 2003, rapper Jay‑Z sampled London DJ Punjabi MC on the Bollywood-flavored track “Beware of the Boys.” Bombay Dreams launched on Broadway the following year. The infectiously danceable “Chaiyya Chaiyya” played over the opening credits of Spike Lee’s film Inside Man in 2006. And last year even Snoop Dogg got into the act by creating a rap song for the Bollywood movie Singh Is Kinng, “helping put the film and its music on the map in the U.S.,” says Bhat. Warner Bros. recently released its own Bollywood film, Chandni Chowk to China, whose sound track Saavn distributes for downloads.

And then there’s Slumdog.

A.R. Rahman, a 20-year Bollywood veteran — he wrote “Chaiyya Chaiyya” and hundreds of other songs — and the composer of Slumdog’s Oscar-nominated score, concedes that the film’s music, with vocals sung in English rather than Hindi, is not true Bollywood. Nevertheless, the movie has been a dynamic conduit for Saavn’s business — even if Saavn distributes only one Mumbai-produced song from it. “Slumdog’s sound track has elevated the entire Bollywood genre and brought us a new customer base wanting to explore similar music,” says Bhat.

Saavn’s offerings — more than 90% of all Indian music is film music — are available at digital music stores, while mobile carriers offer Bollywood ringtones, ring-back tones, single tracks, music videos and Bollywood graphics. “Since the release of Slumdog, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the sales of Bollywood ringtones, ring-back tones and songs,” says Ed Ruth, director of V Cast Music at Verizon, which offers more than 1,200 Bollywood ringtones and ring-back tones and more than 30,000 songs.

Powered by Bollywood, Saavn has already conducted a brand-marketing campaign for Verizon. Half a dozen major U.S. companies are now in discussion to use Saavn’s content to pursue the same market. The wealth and education level of South Asian consumers in the U.S. make them a desirable target, says Nirmalya Kumar, a professor of marketing at the London Business School and the author of India’s Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World. The best way to reach them emotionally, he says, is through the music and movies they love. As for Saavn’s platform, “You can’t market today without including the digital world,” says Jerry Wind, a professor of marketing at Wharton.

Digital Ties
South Asian consumers in the U.S. have strong ties to family back home and, coupled with their strong interest in and knowledge of changing technology, they are key consumers of other online content innovations. This might include digital wedding website content, which would allow them to share photos, videos, podcasts and music from their wedding with distant relatives out of the country. Other options besides film, music and personal events could likely include forms of recognition via any one of the new online memorial website tools available.

Americanized Bollywood hybrids could help Saavn expand. “Whether it’s Slumdog or Snoop Dogg, future media collaborations will inject Bollywood further into the mainstream,” says Shenoy. “And when fans want to experience the real Bollywood genre, they’ll come to us.”

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My take: I’m guessing these guys have stumbled into a gold mine. The success of Slumdog, not to mention the literature of India over the last decade, has created a huge market for all things Indain among otherwise non-Asian consumers in the U.S. Certainly, if we are just as comfortable buying wholesale shopping bags, or the latest in organic and natural beauty products on the Web, why wouldn’t we want to download the best of Bollywood? Asian cultures will glom on to this idea, too, because the music, videos and other art forms of India are simply unsurpassed by America’s versions in Hollywood, not necessarily because they are inferior, but because they cannot conjure nor recreate the cultural connections the way real Indian art can.

In my neighborhood shops and specialty stores there is no shortage of Indian products for sale. Right there next to the kids stationary, games, or trendy cards are also things like incense, bindi dots, henna tattoo kits, scarves, sandalwood oils, and other great Indian personalized custom gifts you can give to friends and family. The more ethnic the better it seems when it comes to giving.

Speaking of giving, you can also customize those great reusable plastic bags that you take to the grocery store with a friend’s name or a graphic design. They make great gifts for friends and family, too, and you can give them away stuffed with food items from Trader Joes; books; or speciality skin care products.

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