The controversy over mobile phone tracking is far from being a settled issue, as two civil rights organizations have decided to take the matter to court.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a suit against The U.S. Department of Justice over the government’s practices to track people’s mobile phones.

The initiative started as the Department of Justice refused to release records and tracking policies, following a request by ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act in November 2007, after reports of using cell phones to pinpoint someone’s location without a warrant or court oversight started to emerge.

The Freedom of Information Act allows the full or partial disclosure of information and documents controlled by the United States Government.

As Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU, explained, it is critical to shed light on the matter of unconstitutional government surveillance techniques: “signing up for cell phone services should not be synonymous with signing up to be spied on and tracked by the government.”

The request for documents, memos, guides of policies and procedures for tracking individuals, as well as the number of times the government made use of such practices, encountered a wall of silence and refusal from the Justice Department.

Dean Boyd, spokesperson for the Justice Department, said according to the Washington Post that law enforcement has absolutely no interest in tracking the locations of law-abiding citizens; instead, the law enforcement goes through the courts in order to obtain data to help locate criminals and suspects.

However, as David L. Sobel, EFF Senior Counsel and co-counsel on the case, said, the public wants to know about this information, which concerns them directly, at a personal level. According to Sobel, further delay in shedding light on the matter will allow privacy policies to be developed behind closed doors.