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<div class="timestamp">March 31, 2012</div>
<h1>Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool</h1>
<span><h6 class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/eric_lichtblau/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Eric Lichtblau" class="meta-per">ERIC LICHTBLAU</a></h6>
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<p>
WASHINGTON — Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province
mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used
surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of
departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or
no court oversight, documents show. </p>
<p>
The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a
handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to
police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls
and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of
traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations. </p>
<p>
With cellphones ubiquitous, the police call phone tracing a valuable
weapon in emergencies like child abductions and suicide calls and
investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training manual
describes cellphones as “the virtual biographer of our daily
activities,” providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and
travels. </p>
<p>
But civil liberties advocates say the wider use of cell tracking raises
legal and constitutional questions, particularly when the police act
without judicial orders. While many departments require warrants to use
phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad discretion to get
the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages of internal records
obtained by the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/american_civil_liberties_union/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)" class="meta-org">American Civil Liberties Union</a> from 205 police departments nationwide. </p>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.aclu.org/locationtracking">internal documents</a>,
which were provided to The New York Times, open a window into a
cloak-and-dagger practice that police officials are wary about
discussing publicly. While cell tracking by local police departments has
received some limited public attention in the last few years, the
A.C.L.U. documents show that the practice is in much wider use — with
far looser safeguards — than officials have previously acknowledged.
</p>
<p>
The issue has taken on new legal urgency in light of a Supreme Court
ruling in January finding that a Global Positioning System tracking
device placed on a drug suspect’s car violated his Fourth Amendment
rights against unreasonable searches. While the ruling did not directly
involve cellphones — many of which also include GPS locators — it raised
questions about the standards for cellphone tracking, lawyers say.
</p>
<p>
The police records show many departments struggling to understand and
abide by the legal complexities of cellphone tracking, even as they work
to exploit the technology. </p>
<p>
In cities in Nevada, North Carolina and other states, police departments
have gotten wireless carriers to track cellphone signals back to cell
towers as part of nonemergency investigations to identify all the
callers using a particular tower, records show. </p>
<p>
In California, state prosecutors advised local police departments on
ways to get carriers to “clone” a phone and download text messages while
it is turned off. </p>
<p>
In Ogden, Utah, when the Sheriff’s Department wants information on a
cellphone, it leaves it up to the carrier to determine what the sheriff
must provide. “Some companies ask that when we have time to do so, we
obtain court approval for the tracking request,” the Sheriff’s
Department said in a written response to the A.C.L.U. </p>
<p>
And in Arizona, even small police departments found cell surveillance so
valuable that they acquired their own tracking equipment to avoid the
time and expense of having the phone companies carry out the operations
for them. The police in the town of Gilbert, for one, spent $244,000 on
such equipment. </p>
<p>
Cell carriers, staffed with special law enforcement liaison teams,
charge police departments from a few hundred dollars for locating a
phone to more than $2,200 for a full-scale wiretap of a suspect, records
show. </p>
<p>
Most of the police departments cited in the records did not return calls
seeking comment. But other law enforcement officials said the legal
questions were outweighed by real-life benefits. </p>
<p>
The police in Grand Rapids, Mich., for instance, used a cell locator in
February to find a stabbing victim who was in a basement hiding from his
attacker. </p>
<p>
“It’s pretty valuable, simply because there are so many people who have
cellphones,” said Roxann Ryan, a criminal analyst with Iowa’s state
intelligence branch. “We find people,” she said, “and it saves lives.”
</p>
<p>
Many departments try to keep cell tracking secret, the documents show,
because of possible backlash from the public and legal problems.
Although there is no evidence that the police have listened to phone
calls without warrants, some defense lawyers have challenged other kinds
of evidence gained through warrantless cell tracking. </p>
<p>
“Do not mention to the public or the media the use of cellphone
technology or equipment used to locate the targeted subject,” the Iowa
City Police Department warned officers in one training manual. It should
also be kept out of police reports, it advised. </p>
<p>
In Nevada, a training manual warned officers that using cell tracing to
locate someone without a warrant “IS ONLY AUTHORIZED FOR
LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCIES!!” The practice, it said, had been
“misused” in some standard investigations to collect information the
police did not have the authority to collect. </p>
<p>
“Some cell carriers have been complying with such requests, but they
cannot be expected to continue to do so as it is outside the scope of
the law,” the advisory said. “Continued misuse by law enforcement
agencies will undoubtedly backfire.” </p>
<p>
Another training manual prepared by California prosecutors in 2010
advises police officials on “how to get the good stuff” using cell
technology. </p>
<p>
The presentation said that since the Supreme Court first ruled on
wiretapping law in 1928 in a Prohibition-era case involving a
bootlegger, “subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy
have become available to the government.” </p>
<p>
Technological breakthroughs, it continued, have made it possible for the
government “to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the
closet.” </p>
<p>
In interviews, lawyers and law enforcement officials agreed that there
was uncertainty over what information the police are entitled to get
legally from cell companies, what standards of evidence they must meet
and when courts must get involved. </p>
<p>
A number of judges have come to conflicting decisions in balancing
cellphone users’ constitutional privacy rights with law enforcement’s
need for information. </p>
<p>
In a 2010 ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit, in Philadelphia, said a judge could require the authorities to
obtain a warrant based on probable cause before demanding cellphone
records or location information from a provider. (A similar case from
Texas is pending in the Fifth Circuit.) </p>
<p>
“It’s terribly confusing, and it’s understandable, when even the federal
courts can’t agree,” said Michael Sussman, a Washington lawyer who
represents cell carriers. The carriers “push back a lot” when the police
urgently seek out cell locations or other information in what are
purported to be life-or-death situations, he said. “Not every emergency
is really an emergency.” </p>
<p>
Congress and about a dozen states are considering legislative proposals
to tighten restrictions on the use of cell tracking. </p>
<p>
While cell tracing allows the police to get records and locations of
users, the A.C.L.U. documents give no indication that departments have
conducted actual wiretapping operations — listening to phone calls —
without court warrants required under federal law. </p>
<p>
Much of the debate over phone surveillance in recent years has focused
on the federal government and counterterrorism operations, particularly a
once-secret program authorized by President George W. Bush after the
Sept. 11 attacks. It allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop
on phone calls of terrorism suspects and monitor huge amounts of phone
and e-mail traffic without court-approved intelligence warrants. </p>
<p>
Clashes over the program’s legality led Congress to broaden the
government’s eavesdropping powers in 2008. As part of the law, the Bush
administration insisted that phone companies helping in the program be
given immunity against lawsuits. </p>
<p>
Since then, the wide use of cell surveillance has seeped down to even
small, rural police departments in investigations unrelated to national
security. </p>
<p>
“It’s become run of the mill,” said Catherine Crump, an A.C.L.U. lawyer
who coordinated the group’s gathering of police records. “And the
advances in technology are rapidly outpacing the state of the law.”
</p>
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<div id="upNextWrapper"><div style id="upNext"><div class="wrapper opposingFloatControl">_____<br>.<br style="clear:both"></div></div></div>The same is true of Emails and IMs. I hope a Supreme Court case addresses this in my opinion intrusion soon.<br clear="all">
<br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>