Cell-Driven Cell Phone Requests

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is a nice catch-phrase, but except for the very naïve, folks really should know that really isn’t true. Equal fodder for the terminally naïve is the notion that the “delete” button actually does, and for the most part what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet… and your hard drive. But what may pass for ethereal messages lost in the night air – that seemingly infinite litany of data regarding cell phone movement between and among clearly positioned cell phone towers (which provides sufficient information to track the whereabouts of users whenever they make a call), text messages, etc. – is actually embedded in various carrier’s massive file servers (electronic storage bins), waiting for inquiring minds to track and trace. And with geo-positioning functions in many new smart phones, tracing is that much easier to implement.

Today, that cell phone data has become the backbone of police information in their search for criminal activity. It can also form the basis to track wayward husbands and wives in their infidelities and generally stands “out there” ready to support a vast pool of inquiries that have slammed into the various carriers’ operations. State, local and federal governmental informational requests for data from carriers are pervasive. “AT&T alone now responds to an average of more than 700 requests a day, with about 230 of them regarded as emergencies that do not require the normal court orders and subpoena. That is roughly triple the number it fielded in 2007, the company said. Law enforcement requests of all kinds have been rising among the other carriers as well, with annual increases of between 12 percent and 16 percent in the last five years. Sprint, which did not break down its figures in as much detail as other carriers, led all companies last year in reporting what amounted to at least 1,500 data requests on average a day.” New York Times, July 8^th.

The phone companies compiled this accessing data in response to a Congressional request. The total of such governmental requests – based on emergencies, court orders and subpoenas – totaled 1.3 million just last year. While clearly, some of this information is appropriate, one has to ask the question – in a world where “privacy” appears to be nearing extinction – as to whether or not most of these requests and demands are necessary, reasonable and consistent with our American ideal of protecting the rights and privacy of individual citizens… whether it is time for some more clearly-delineated constitutionally-derived limits and restrictions to narrow the arena for governmental inquiry and standardize the threshold for releasing such information.

When “terrorism” became the government’s justification for all sorts of excessive surveillance of just about everybody, the government just pressed for information well-beyond anything they could remotely justify under the constitution. National security is still an important governmental function, and leeway in this sector is going to continue to remain wider than for more routine inquiries, but even here the abuses have been significant: “Legal conflicts between those competing needs have flared before, but usually on national security matters. In 2006, phone companies that cooperated in the Bush administration’s secret program of eavesdropping on suspicious international communications without court warrants were sued, and ultimately were given immunity by Congress with the backing of the courts. The next year, the F.B.I. was widely criticized for improperly using emergency letters to the phone companies to gather records on thousands of phone numbers in counter-terrorism investigations that did not involve emergencies.

“Under federal law, the carriers said they generally required a search warrant, a court order or a formal subpoena to release information about a subscriber. But in cases that law enforcement officials deem an emergency, a less formal request is often enough. Moreover, rapid technological changes in cellphones have blurred the lines on what is legally required to get data — particularly the use of GPS systems to identify the location of phones.” NY Times. You may not care if someone looks at your text messages, knows where you and your mobile phone are at any time of the day or, perhaps, even tracks the words you utter in your conversations.

Until more recent a Supreme Court decision reversed this notion, the earliest judicial reviews did not equate tapping phones as violative of the Fourth Amendment, because such “searches” were not conducted on the physical premises of the persons searched. Is it time to reign in the excess? I’ll leave you with the actual words of that Fourth Amendment to our Constitution: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we the people do not fight to protect our rights from popular waves of contrary sentiments, who will?