Our cellphones are collecting a heck of a lot more information than we expect them to be collecting about us. They are collecting where we are, not just at one particular moment in the day but at virtually every moment of the day - where we move to, how long we stay there. This is location information that they collect and that the cellphone carriers collect and most importantly retain for sometimes quite long periods of time. They are also taking note of what we are buying, how we’re purchasing it, how often we’re purchasing it - that’s just the starting point for very important sensitive things phones take note of, including our text messages.

— ProPublica investigative reporter Peter Maass on what information cell phone companies collect about us

Young people in particular often self-reveal before they self-reflect. There is no eraser button today for youthful indiscretion.

— On today’s Fresh Air, how the digital age is changing kids, teens and parents.

We know that Facebook has the ability and does target you on their website in an enormous number of ways. They don’t give your name to any of the advertisers — it’s all done anonymously. I’m not a fan of the distinction between anonymity and non-anonymity. … If you’re Joe Schmoe online or they know your real name or they give you an identification number — and so much of our lives is done online — in the end it doesn’t matter. You’re treated like a person who they know with all of the possible discriminatory activities we’ve talked about.

— Joseph Turow on online privacy.

The relevant constitutional text is the Fourth Amendment which says, ‘The right of the people to be secure in their houses, persons, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. But that doesn’t answer the question: Is it an unreasonable search of our persons or effects to be monitored in public spaces?

— On today’s Fresh Air, law professor Jeffrey Rosen talks about United States v. Jones, a case the Supreme Court is currently considering. At issue is whether police need to have a warrant from a judge before attaching a secret GPS monitor to a car to track a suspect around the clock.

At the moment, lawyers at Facebook and Google and Microsoft have more power over the future of privacy and free expression than any king or president or Supreme Court justice. And we can’t rely simply on judges enforcing the existing Constitution to protect the values that the Framers took for granted.

— On today’s Fresh Air, legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen talks about technologies that are challenging our notions of things like personal vs. private space, freedom of speech and our own individual autonomy.

Tomorrow: how new technology is challenging our notion of Constitutional values like privacy and freedom of speech. We’ll be talking with law professor Jeffrey Rosen about technology, the future of democracy, free speech, privacy, surveillance cameras, data mining and the effect of neuroscience on the law.

Constitution of the United States of America (by The U.S. National Archives)

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on Twitter’s privacy policies: [complete interview here] “When we’re asked to give over private information about users — and in many cases, it’s the law — our policy is, we give the user time to react to this request. If we’ve given 10 days to turn over this information, we immediately notify the user and we tell them, ‘We’ve been asked by the law to hand over this information. We would like to give you this time to fight it on your own behalf and deny giving up this information.’ That allows us to comply with the law and gives the user the ability to hold onto their privacy if they need to.”