‘Alarming Surge’: Law Enforcement Agencies Make 1.3 Million Requests for Cellphone Records in 2011
- Posted on July 10, 2012 at 8:58am by
Liz Klimas
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A new report reveals local law enforcement have requested cellphone data more in 2011 than previous years. (Image: Shutterstock)
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made more than 1.3 million requests for consumers’ cellphone records in 2011, an alarming surge over previous years that reflected the increasingly gray area between privacy and technology.
Cellphone carriers, responding to inquiries from a member of Congress, reported responding to as many as thousands of police requests daily for customers’ locations, text messages and call details, frequently without warrants. Special legal teams operating round-the-clock have been set up to field requests, and some carriers hoping to recoup their costs have created detailed menus of what records can be provided — and for what price.
The reports — the first comprehensive review of the extent of law enforcement requests in the U.S. — shed light on the difficulties cellphone carriers face in balancing consumer privacy and public safety. They also prompted civil libertarians to decry the lack of legal clarity about when and how carriers should hand over information about their customers.
At AT&T, a team of more than 100 workers handles the requests pouring in from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. More than 250,000 such requests came in last year — a more than two-fold increase over five years ago.
Sprint said it received about 500,000 subpoenas in 2011. Verizon and T-Mobile, two other major U.S. carriers, both reported annual increases in requests exceeding 12 percent. Cricket has seen a steady increase every year since 2007, and although the company once had a 10-person team handling inquiries, it has now outsourced that task to a company called Neustar.
Many of the requests cover a number of cellphone subscribers.
The costs have become so large that carriers have started charging law enforcement for the records they turn over. AT&T collected almost $8.3 million in 2011 in fees from police agencies, although the company said it believes that number falls far short of what it costs AT&T to accommodate the requests.
Police requesting data from U.S. Cellular are asked to pay $25 to locate a cellphone using GPS (the first three requests are free), $25 to retrieve a user’s text messages and $50 for a “cell tower dump” — a breakdown of all the cellphones that interacted with a given cellphone tower at a specific time.
“Cell phone records have clearly become central to many, many law enforcement investigations,” said Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. “The danger is that the standard is very unclear.”
The ACLU even created an interactive map to show if local law enforcement in your town could be tracking your cellphone location information. Check it out here.
Screen capture shows the states in blue where the ACLU has filed requests to learn whether local law enforcement have the capability to track cellphone location, how and why. (Image: ACLU)
All the companies who responded to letters from Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said that under normal circumstances, only requests that came with a warrant attached were granted. T-Mobile said it had referred two inappropriate requests from law enforcement to the FBI, and rejected other requests where people had impersonated police officers. Others said they complied with subpoenas, which don’t require sign-off from a judge.
But there’s a major exception for emergencies, or “exigent circumstances.” If a 911 call center believes there is an immediate threat to someone’s life, it can bypass the need for a prosecutor or a judge to sign off on the request. All that’s needed, in most circumstances, is a simple form.
“If a victim goes missing and they had a cell phone with GPS technology, would you, as a loved one, want us to have to wait for a subpoena or court order even though we know someone might be in dire straits?” said Chris Perkins, the police chief in Roanoke, Va.
Federal law, which has yet to fully adapt to today’s high-tech, wireless society, has much to say about wiretaps and home searches but surprisingly little to say about cellphone records. The law is especially vague when it comes to GPS tracking, a relatively new issue triggered by the widespread adoption of smartphones that help users navigate from place to place.
Many states and local courts have been left to come up with their own requirements for when a warrant is required to track someone’s location, leading to an array of conflicting policies that create a headache for those tracking suspects of victims across state lines.
In May, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., asked the Justice Department how many requests for location information it had filed with cellphone carriers, and what legal standard applies when making such requests. The department said it didn‘t keep a running tally and couldn’t offer numbers, but that in regular criminal investigations, a court order is used to compel carriers to provide the information.
“This information is critical to such investigations into a wide variety of offenses, including murder, bank robbery, gang activity, fraud, sexual exploitation of children and kidnapping,” wrote Acting Assistant Attorney General Judith Appelbaum.
Franken said he was troubled by magnitude of the requests revealed Monday in Markey’s reports, which were first reported by The New York Times. He said it‘s unacceptable that the Justice Department isn’t tracking its own requests.
“The department has a lot of questions to answer, and it’s clear we must do more to strike the right balance between the needs of law enforcement and privacy,” Franken.
Those seeking clarification for what is in or out of bounds looked hopefully in January to the U.S. Supreme Court, which took up the GPS issue when it ruled that law enforcement cannot attach GPS tracking devices to someone’s vehicle without a warrant. But the ruling was narrow and didn‘t deal specifically with cellphones already in someone’s possession that happen to have GPS capabilities.
Bipartisan bills to address the issue were introduced in the House and Senate a year ago but never moved out of committees. The Digital Due Process Coalition, an assortment of groups including cellphone carriers and civil liberties advocates, wants the Electronic Communications Privacy Act amended to deal with it. That law was enacted in 1986, long before cellphones became a basic accessory.
(Related: Does 25-year-old legislation adequately protect internet privacy?)
“We don’t know the standard that is used for the gathering, handling or disposal of information about innocent Americans,” Markey said in an interview. “We need a Fourth Amendment for the 21st century. Technologies change.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which believes the Fourth Amendment protects cellphone information, wrote on the recent report stating that it hopes this information will encourage the Obama administration to “stand up for privacy and drop their objections” to a law that would require a warrant to obtain cellphone location information.
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Sultan007
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 5:38amUse your enemy as a postman!
Give him a message you want to spread & give him so many, you will do his head in!
Americans don’t THINK, because they don’t READ!
They are BRAIN DEAD from watching TV & Hollywood CRAP.
SWITCH OFF to SWITCH ON!
Report Post »Larry E
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 5:40pmAnd people look at me like I‘m an ignorant dinosaur because I don’t have a cell phone, don’t want a cell phone, and don’t need a cell phone. There’s nobody I need to talk to from wherever I am, not even my dear wife.
Report Post »lisa2994
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 4:58pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/10/closure-border-patrol-stations-across-four-states-triggers-alarm/
Report Post »Servant Of YHVH
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 2:53pmI don’t really care if they get my records because there is nothing for them to hear or read but if I do find out that my phone records are given to ANYONE (even the police) without a legal warrant. I will sue the cr*p out of the phone company as well as whoever it was that received the records!!!
Report Post »midnightgolfer
Posted on July 16, 2012 at 4:11amYou won’t ever know, because the Feds tell the carriers they can’t let you know.
Report Post »Owt_Raged
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 2:13pmHow is it that these huge companies don’t understand that a warrant or subpoena is needed to access records?
Report Post »lisa2994
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 2:00pmYep! When I start to feel things are going down the cell is gone!!!! Need to find an old vehicle with no chip in it too.
Report Post »omgfolks
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 11:19amMORE FOR THE PARA-MILITARY UNITS WHILE THE NATION DROWNS IN DEBT. They should be paid minimum wage along with every politician and civil employee until the coffers are balance and we can afford them.
Report Post »VISITORNUMBER3
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 11:07amYeah, but you have to realize that the majority of those requests were not for “spying” but for victims’ cellphone records in cases pertaining to kidnappings, endangered runaways, murders, robberies. Not to mention thefts of expenisve smart phones whose not-so-smart-owners usually had stolen from them because they left it in an unlocked car overnight or in a public parking lot, etc…and then they DEMAND that the cops track their phone to get it back. Same goes for iPads, laptops, etc…lock your stuff up, people !!
Report Post »Deputy
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 12:05pmPlease don’t confuse the issue with common sense.
Report Post »VISITORNUMBER3
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 1:30pmI know, right? :o)
Report Post »buubbytraps
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:46amthe powers that be can monitor you on your computers, tv’s,new appliances,smart meter…etc
be informed, be ready…
Report Post »Al J Zira
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:35amThe Electronic Frontier Foundation, which believes the Fourth Amendment protects cellphone information, wrote on the recent report stating that it hopes this information will encourage the Obama administration to “stand up for privacy and drop their objections” to a law that would require a warrant to obtain cellphone location information.
Seriously?! You expect a man that has his eyes on controlling the every day basic functions of people to give up the power and ability to track everything we do on a daily basis? This president has shown he is all about intruding and restricting our freedoms. Don’t expect him to led the way on privacy rights.
Report Post »De minimus
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:28amConstitution, Smonstitution. We’ll tell you when you have any rights and if you can use them on that particular day.
Just what the founders had in mind I’m sure.
Report Post »Green is a Lie
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 1:09pmAccurately stated. Incomprehensible that our conservative party has allowed the US to become communist. We would be far better off today with the unedited, concentrated version of the constitution. All of the time and money wasted on freedom stripping legislation has protected none and simply diluted all of our freedoms under the guise of safety and equality. America is consumed with fraud and it starts in both houses of congress. Ask yourself, if America repealed all laws currently diluting the constitutional rights of Americans and returned to the original constitution; who is damaged? Compare that damage to today’s destruction of rights!
Report Post »jonathanfarrar
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:28amhttp://libertarianreview.us/2012/07/09/obamas-latest-preparedeness-executive-order-gives-him-control-of-all-private-communication/ This probly won’t help either……
Report Post »Kerri g
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:13amWhen I talk on the phone I do not invite others to listen in. So why do I not have a right to privacy? Law enforcment, by the Constitution, is to obtain a warrent by a judge having good cause to request it. Now tell me it is legal. If a thing goes against the Constitution it can not be legal. You must change the Constitution to make a thing legal.
Report Post »justangry
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:34amYou nailed it! To make it legal by any other means is progressive.
Report Post »kickagrandma
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:55amThis request includes the wh and all employees, right? RIGHT????
Report Post »JustJerry
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:48amR‘s and D’s…neither side will stand for our rights. Gotta love em.
Report Post »AIDANMAN
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:34amwhy not make it legal to request ANYONE’s records.. including congressman,senators, presidents, … ALL cell phone users.
now that would be interesting?
Report Post »watersRpeople
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:21amYep, give them an inch and they will take a mile.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:09amAnd so the repression of liberty of the people under Obama continues.
Report Post »justangry
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:17amand will continue until we purge the GOP of all the idiots who also support the police state.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 9:23amThe one party system will be destroyed,that’s the only way to save the republic.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:38am@Progressive:
Indeed, I am reading a series of books entitled “Institutes of the American Democracy,“ and the one on the Executive Branch has an interesting quote on the part of the ”Progressive Presidents” with that of W. Wilson…
“…The government will not be able to fully control the population and enforce its will on the collective until all parties are one in body and mind; the progressive path must dominate…”
Mind you, it turns out that Wilson also favored a British style Parliment system in which in our own system, the majority party leader would not be House Speaker, but President of the nation as well.
Report Post »cykonas
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:42amIt’s too late for the GOP to be purged. Better that the dozen or so that are worth anything either defect to another existing party, or they form their own and start from scratch. The bulk of the GOP have been onboard with every piece of legislation that allows this type of nonsense. I say it’s time for voters to walk away from both established parties. They are corrupt, subversive, and they don’t care a whit about the Constitution or the citizens of the U.S. Their focus is on consolidation of their power and electability. Peace.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 10:56amSnow. That Wilson was one evil man and goes to show how gullible people were even back then.
Report Post »It’s taken progressives about a century to destroy our republic.and we’re witnessing the death of our republic now.
Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 10, 2012 at 1:06pm@Progressive:
Yes it is the end of the Republic as we know it; yet there is hope that it will be the dawning of a new, restored Republic as well instead of a dictatorship as most of us fear and expect.
Report Post »