What Your Cellphone Tells the Police Behind Your Back

Posted on Jul 9, 2012

Photo by Johan Larsson (BY-CC)

It turns out you’ve been carrying a snitch around in your pocket. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., announced Monday that the nation’s wireless providers complied with 1.3 million requests in 2011 for private data, including location and text messages.

According to the providers, the number of requests grows every year and many don’t come with a warrant attached.

The Hill:

Wireless carriers responded in 2011 to 1.3 million law enforcement requests for people’s cellphone information, including text messages, location data, call logs and “cell tower dumps,” in which the wireless carriers provide police with all of the phone numbers that connected to a particular cell tower in a period of time.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who released the information on Monday, described the volume and scope of the requests as “startling.”

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—Posted by Peter Z. Scheer

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