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Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Phone Records

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 12:25:14 PM EST
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It occurs to me that no one has a greater interest in preventing cell phone records from being obtained by third parties via the internet than drug and FBI agents.

Informants often contact their police sponsors via cell phone. Cops give out their cell phone numbers for all sorts of reasons. Anyone wanting to know if someone has become an informant could order up a cop's cell phone records, and voila.

Also, a suspecting drug dealer could order up the records on an associate he thinks has given him up, and then request the records of the phone numbers listed. When one turns out to belong to an agent, somebody could be in real danger.

I don't think law enforcement should leave it to the phone companies to stop these websites. They ought to go in and bust them right now.

On the other hand, once informants realize their associates can get their cell phone records, maybe they'll think twice about informing on them.

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    Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Phone Records | 5 comments (5 topical)
    Re: Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Ph (none / 0) (#1)
    by BigTex on Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 12:43:29 PM EST
    One other area to be concerned is attoenies working to get TRO's for domestic violence. They too give out cell phone numbers on occasion. And the recepiant of the TRO is often times mighty ornery about getting the TRO. If they can get their accuser's cell phone number, which is not difficult since it is often a spouse or girlfriend filing for the TRO, they can get the phone number of those who are working to get the TRO. Unlike LEO's, those working to get the TRO have no ability to bust those who are following the TRO.

    Re: Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Ph (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 02:18:11 PM EST
    The obvious point is, what would DeLay's & Abramhoff's cel records show?

    Re: Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Ph (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 10:26:43 PM EST
    Remember the movie Six Degrees of Separation? It would take a lot of money, but one could run checks on everyone on (say) Wesley Clark's list, then run checks on all those lists, etc, and collect a gold mine of connected phone numbers... [And if it's a landline, just Google it for the address.] Just think, the Federals do this all the time without having to spend the $85.

    Re: Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Ph (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Jan 14, 2006 at 10:43:16 PM EST
    PS Googling landline phonenumbers no longer appears to behave as once it did: now i can only get business listings via what look like ads. This is a good thing. In the past, Google would return home addresses, too. Looks like some activism has been successful, perhaps.

    Re: Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Ph (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jan 15, 2006 at 12:50:57 PM EST
    Yeah, if I had some money, I would find a 50,000 person town in a small blue state, and buy the cellphone records of everyone post them to google and buy stock in popcorn.

    Law Enforcement Should Fear Release of Cell Phone Records | 5 comments (5 topical)