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[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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November 26, 2012
City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs By JOSEPH
GOLDSTEIN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/joseph_goldstein/index.html>

When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department
routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft
onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming
and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect.

But in the process, the Police
Department<http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/home/home.shtml>has
quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a
court
order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose.

The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database
known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police
Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is
hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone
numbers in other files.

The subpoenas not only cover the records of the thief’s calls, but also
encompass calls to and from the victim on the day of the theft. In some
cases the records can include calls made to and from a victim’s new
cellphone, if the stolen phone’s number has been transferred, three
detectives said in interviews.

Police officials declined to say how many phone records are contained in
the database, or how often they might have led to arrests. But police
documents suggest that thousands of subpoenas have been issued each year,
with each encompassing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of phone calls.

For example, T-Mobile, which has a smaller market share than some of its
competitors, like Verizon, fulfilled 297 police subpoenas issued in January
2012, according to a police document.

To date, phone companies have appeared willing to accede to the Police
Department’s requests for large swaths of call records. Memos issued Sept.
28 by the chief of detectives, Phil T. Pulaski, instruct detectives to
prepare subpoenas for stolen phones assigned to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or
Metro-PCS. With these carriers, the police do not generally seek the
victims’ consent; in fact, the subpoenas are executed without the victims’
knowledge. (It does not appear that subpoenas are issued when the stolen
phone is served by Sprint Nextel. In those cases, detectives are instructed
to ask the victim to fill out consent forms that authorize Sprint Nextel to
release call records and location information to the police.)

“If large amounts of victim phone records are being collected and added to
a searchable database, it’s very troubling,” said Michael Sussmann, a
lawyer who represents wireless carriers, in a phone interview.

“We’re all used to the concept of growing databases of criminal
information,” Mr. Sussmann, of the firm Perkins
Coie<http://www.perkinscoie.com/>,
said, “but now you’re crossing over that line and drawing in victim
information.”

Police officials would not say if detectives had used the call records of
any cellphone theft victims in the course of investigating other crimes.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not reply to
more than half a dozen requests for comments.

The practice of accumulating the phone numbers in a searchable database is
“eye-opening and alarming,” a civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, said when
told of the protocol for subpoenaing phone records. “There is absolutely no
legitimate purpose for doing this. If I’m an innocent New Yorker, why
should any of my information be in a police database?”

Mr. Siegel also said the Police Department should not be permitted to hold
on to phone records indefinitely if the records were not relevant to active
criminal investigations.

Nationwide, cellphone carriers reported receiving about 1.5 million
requests from law enforcement for various types of subscriber information
in 2011.

Representative Edward J. Markey <http://markey.house.gov/>, a Massachusetts
Democrat who is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus,
began seeking information this year about how cellular carriers handle law
enforcement’s requests for subscriber information. And on Thursday, a
Senate committee will consider changes to the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act.

Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas
to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending
as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone.

According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the police subpoenas
seek call records associated with the telephone number of the stolen phone.

As a result, three detectives said in interviews, the phone companies’
response sometimes includes call records for not only the stolen phone, but
also the victim’s new phone, depending on variables like how quickly the
victim transfers the old phone number to a new handset and how many days of
calls the subpoena seeks.

One detective said the subpoenas from recent cases typically requested
about four days of phone records, but documents reviewed by The Times
indicate that the subpoenas can cover longer periods, sometimes as much as
two weeks or more.

In interviews, detectives said that if an arrest occurs, it is often a
result of earlier investigative steps. Chief Pulaski’s memos from Sept. 28
instruct detectives to use any tracking or location application on the
victim’s phone to track down a suspect. Victims are asked to immediately
call the phone carrier and learn the details of any phone calls placed
after the theft. In addition, detectives ask the victim not to transfer
their phone number to a new phone for about four days. Finally, detectives
are then required to prepare a subpoena, the results of which usually take
a few weeks.

By then, most of the unsolved phone cases have been put on the back burner,
and the subpoenaed records seldom lead to an arrest, four current and
retired detectives said in interviews.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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