Sprint’s 50 Million Customers Have Been Geo-Tracked 8 Million Times–in the Last Year
Chris Soghoian caught a remarkable admission at a surveillance conference in October. Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance revealed that law enforcement has used Sprint’s geotracking function 8 million times in the thirteen months prior to his comment.
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers’ (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. This massive disclosure of sensitive customer information was made possible due to the roll-out by Sprint of a new, special web portal for law enforcement officers.
The evidence documenting this surveillance program comes in the form of an audio recording of Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance, who described it during a panel discussion at a wiretapping and interception industry conference, held in Washington DC in October of 2009.
[snip]
[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that’s just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don’t know how we’ll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in.
Now, as he documents in extensive detail, using cell phone location to get the geolocation of someone is just one of a number of uses of legal surveillance techniques that is eluding public reporting.
But that’s by design. Even assuming many of these uses of Sprint’s geo-tracking capabilities are multiple requests for the same person, there are a whole lot of people whose physical location is being tracked.
Probably a bunch of people who bought acetone and hyrdogen peroxide for home improvement uses.
Anyway, click through for a bunch more numbers and discussion, as well as MP3s of this admission.
“no one could have anticipated” … So, as they dust the powdered sugar from their jelly doughnuts off their fingers, the pair of officers sitting in their patrol car fire up the laptop and see where their wives/girlfriends are. Where that babe who came to the station last week spends her days or nights. And anything else they might find amusing.
And there’s NO requirement for a judicially-approved warrant?? Just go to the “law enforcement enabled” website, click, and snoop?
OK, Pandora; let’s see you get this one back in the box.
Thanks to chimpy and darth along with their scum-bag minions, pandora’s gadget bag can never be closed again…
Isn’t the 8 million figure roughly the size of the “Maincore” database that was under discussion related to continuity of government?
That didn’t identify which law enforcement office. I wonder if any of the hits to this portal site were automated or from the same NSA ip address?
No reason to assume it was all federal, I’d guess.
Aaarghhh! That’s a staggering number. Couple with that the fact that the new GM Chairman is from AT&T, and you can bet they’re doing the same thing with OnStar to track vehicles, too.
Most phones have an option that allows you to choose not to send out location information except for 911 calls. I presume that wouldn’t hold for the type of “law enforcement automated request” we’re discussing here, would it?
My birthday present this year was a wallet made from woven stainless steel thread to block any RFID signals coming from credit cards. These are sold as a prevention against your information being stolen, but I like the idea of blocking any broadcasts in general. If anyone could come up with a way to block the cell phone location info while still retaining calling functions, they’d turn into a real hero…
That makes sense. If Sprint is handing over this kind of information. Why not the rest? My Sprint contract is up. Thinking about changing..but to what.
this is flat out creepy. And folks can not find out if they are on some tracking list. Is that correct?
That would be a national security issue now, wouldn’t it?
Staggering number EW.
It would be interesting for someone to sue and prove they are not a national security risk thus they are entitled to know if they are on a list and why.
bingo…
Shall I volunteer?
If you buy/use a phone without GPS then this is a non-issue. Also, if you remove the battery when you are absolutely not needing to use the phone it cannot be tracked AT ALL.
A really really staggering number…
If Sprint coughed up 8 million locations in about a year, then how many did AT&T cough up? Verizon? T-Mobile? …
We are easily in the realm of 40 million locations in a year for a population of about 300 million.
The 4th amendment is truly dead. Breathing is now sufficient probable cause.
I think there will have to be a law mandating installation of geo-tracking on all guns (I’m conjecturing that they would have to be charged up and activated for the triggers to work) for the 2nd amendment fans to ‘get’ what has been done to the 4th, 5th, 1st etc. amendments.
now that’s a good idea…would certainly hear some howling then
Or geotrack the bullets. Guns don’t kill people. People with loaded guns kill people.
That would be a way to hoist the 2nd Amenders on their own petard. Then again, that info might have told law enforcement whether Deadeye Dick was in the field or a bar when he shotgunned his host in the face. The only guy more resistant to chatting with police about his accidents is Tiger Woods.
No problem. My guns are good for an indefinite period of time. Hell, there are 1911 pistols still perfectly functional. All that would do would be to put a crimp in purchase of guns made that include that sort of crap. It would also drive up the value of my guns and those of others that do not have that spy crap in it tremendously. One could get rich quick selling their pre-illegal-spying guns, just like the “assault weapon” ban increased the value of pre-ban rifles a great deal.
Keep in mind your unintended consequences…plus the fact that the market for cheap and easily accessible AK rifles and Czech or Swiss or other foreign weapons would skyrocket while domestics would drop like a rock.
How about we do away with ANY and ALL illegal spying crap in any and all consumer items. How about we pass laws that absolutely requires a valid court order, based on valid evidence, before any government agency OR civilian agency can tap into it? No more government spying on a whim, no more corporate spying on less than a whim.
Um . . . mine at 47 was intended as an illustration of how some people protect the 2nd amendment at the expense of all others, and that only by abusing the 2nd amendment might the loss of the other amendments become clear to those who think sacrificing freedom is worth it in return for a little security. Mine was not a real world exercise.
I was a witness in a Cointelpro case – I certainly don’t wish these administrative/NSA ‘administrative’ warrants upon anyone.
As praedor says @58, start making it a habit to take your cellphone battery out when not in use. You don’t really need to be on call 24/7, do you? Then one can use the cell phone as a kind of quick check-in and/or mobile voicemail device. Of course, once the battery is back in they can trace you (phone off or on).
If you really don’t want to be found, buy and use throw-away cell phones that you can purchase at the drug store or grocery store.
This news is stunning… amazing… and yet not surprising. The eight million is only Sprint. What about Verizon, ATT, etc.?
I like the Bourne Ultimatum-ness of the suggestion. I’ll start doing it, even though I’m in the same damn chair most of the day.
Yes it is Ludman-esque… or to cite a more recent practitioner of such arts, Eisler-esque.
These mobile devices are protocol driven transponders. When one turns on, the device registers itself at the response of an “All Call” signal. The response to the all call is the phones unique identity and location info. Thats all they need and it happens the instant you have signal bars showing. If someone is triggering on that unique id, wham they got you. No delays. If they are asking for where you are in real time and the phone is on and is post 2002 they got ya.
Yep, this seems correct.
With the current state of things in this country, it’s hard to imagine the sufficient level of outrage necessary to make an impact to the practice of providing so much data to “law enforcement”, much less making them explain themselves.
A bit ot but not really. More creep
http://i2.democracynow.org/2009/11/30/amy_goodman_detained_at_canadian_border
Amy Goodman Detained at Canadian Border, Questioned About Speech…and 2010 Olympics
AMY GOODMAN: You need your passport. And we were very surprised. It was almost empty, this whole hangar, so we were clearly singled out.
And I go up to the counter, and the guard says, “I want your notes.”
I said, “My notes?”
He said, “The notes for the talk tonight.”
I was completely taken aback. I went out to the car, and I brought in the copy of Breaking the Sound Barrier. And I came in, and I said, “Well, this is my new book, and it’s a book of columns. So I actually read from the columns.”
He said, “I want the notes.”
I said, “Well, these you can think of as my notes.”
And he said, “What are you talking about?”
And I said, “Well, I actually start with the last column, which is a column”—as I was saying in this report to Kathy Tomlinson—“about Tommy Douglas.”
Now, for people in the United States, he’s not as famous a name. But in Canada, he’s considered the greatest Canadian. Tommy Douglas is the Premier—was the Premier of Saskatchewan who brought, who pioneered the Canadian national health care system. And, interestingly, he’s the grandfather of the actor Kiefer Sutherland, right? Kiefer Sutherland’s mother is Shirley Douglas, the actress; his father, Donald Sutherland. But his grandfather was Tommy Douglas.
And, so I said, “I’ll be talking about Tommy Douglas.” Actually we were at the Douglas border crossing.
And he said, “What else?”
I said, “What else? Well, global warming.”
“What else?” he said.
I said, “The global economic meltdown.”
“What else?” he said.
]
JEEBUS FREAKING CHEESE-ON-A-STICK.
Tracking us is a PROFIT CENTER.
That’s one of the biggies we haven’t talked about which is right there in Soghoian’s work, that some of these players could be relying on money from law enforcement to make their margins.
If you’re a cell phone company hemorrhaging customers — as Sprint has been — you don’t turn away money like that offered for tracking.
Soghoian says about Cox Communications: “… Historical data is much cheaper — 30 days of a customer’s call detail records can be obtained for a mere $40.” That’s for OLD data, not new, and they are making almost as much as a monthly contract.
The cell phone industry isn’t making progress like it should towards new technology because they need to be able to use current technology to track us, in order to turn a profit. They are relying on a failed and likely corrupt business model to stay afloat.
This is when there should be a shareholder revolt.
[edit: there’s been a LOT of chatter about Sprint buying Virgin’s prepaid phone business, because Sprint was losing so many customers and revenue; it wasn’t clear how they were going finance the acquisition. Ahem.]
Rayne, right to the heart of the matter, profit.
Follow the $$$.
(Oh, Marcy here’s one for you.)
Thanks for noticing.
I am so grateful for this community: It keeps me sane and in context with what really is happening.
It is instructive that while limited coverage of many aspects of the FDL “coverage” shows up in MSM, it is bending the MSM more and more.
That is why I am so anxious to see more of you insinuate your voices.
I happened to see the notorious “BJ” blurt in real time. It was awesome. I think Shuster & company have not recovered.
Sorry for the OT intrusion: I can hardly wait to see if this post gets a send up tonight on MSNBC.
Please keep blurtin’
Obviously it is one thing to track someone who you think is going to blow something up or kill innocent people. It is quite another thing to track people wanted for not paying traffic ticket fines etc. Why the hell are we unable to find out if we have ever been tracked?
An unpaid traffic ticket is a National Security issue?
Have you thought about the prepaid cell phone business?
That’s where I think the bulk of the tracking has been wrt Sprint’s customer base. It could explain why such a high number, because they do have a pretty sizable installed subscriber base for prepaid phones.
And we know these are the kinds of phones criminals are going to prefer to use because of their disposable nature.
Which is why it makes sense for them to buy Virgin’s prepaid business — perhaps with a little financial help somewhere along the line — it consolidates another bunch of prepaid phone users under the same kind of search methodology and the same business model.
And Virgin may simply not want to deal with this any longer; the argument they’ll offer publicly is that prepaid phones were not profitable, but this is Virgin and they may have a different policy about tracking by law enforcement.
pre paid phone cards are used by lots of poor folks too. Folks who can not afford to sign onto a monthly payment. Have you noticed no pay phones around anymore.
Yup — but then what value is there in tapping a pay phone if you’re law enforcement? It’s a lot more effective to track a prepaid cell phone because you can obtain a lot more information about the caller, where with a pay phone there’s too many variables involved and location is fixed.
My guess is that the money from tracking a cell phone is much more appetizing than paying for maintenance of a phone booth.
not talking about tapping a pay phone. Just pointing out that poor folks do not have any other option to make a phone call if you are out and about…other than these pre-paid phone cards
I understood your point, Leen. But the communications industry isn’t here to service all people who need communications. It’s only here to service paying customers, highest bidder preferred.
Which means poor people don’t get phone booths. Their only choice is to produce a revenue stream via cell phone — and the shadow customer they can’t see is the one whose needs are served the best.
And the best paying customers of prepaid cell phones are drug dealers (one speaker said $500/day)
Yeah, ain’t that the truth? not only are drug dealers paying for their higher consumption of cell phone service, but they represent a second and even bigger income stream from wiretapping.
I’m starting to think about carrier pigeons
Have you looked at CREDO?
Bob in AZ
Hey, we are looking in to this – and proud to be funders of EFF which is leading the fight to ensure that the Bill of Rights applies whether you’re online, on the phone, or otherwise using technology.
Reports we’ve seen so far suggest that standard warrant/subpoena practices were followed.
We’re following up with Sprint to determine a) whether the media reports are accurate, b) if so, were companies like CREDO who use the Sprint network included in the data cited in these reports, and c) whether law enforcement requests were accompanied by valid warrants, court orders or subpoenas.
And FYI, the 8 million seems to be the number of pings to the system, not the number of customers involved.
Becky Bond, CREDO Political Director
thanks, that’s great information.
Bird flew technology…..
Didn’t Mohammed Atta have at least one?
@16: Disappearance of payphones is the only reason I have a cell. And it is prepaid.
@17 (pigeons): For only partly related reasons, consider the merits of ink-on-paper archives. E.g., accessible in 50yrs regardless of technological change/disposal of old equipment.
I’m listening to the panel now. They claim that “compliance” is a cost center, not a profit center. Law enforcement and other legal requests growing 20% a year.
Nice spin, eh? it costs money to report data they already capture, to the tune of $40 to $3500 a pop depending on which firm and how long?
I think introducing the profit motive may obscure what could be involved here by short circuiting investigation and discussion.
There were three great “intelligence” related scandals under way during the Watergate years. MK-Ultra, MH-Chaos and the FBI’s Cointelpro. None of these investigations was brought to any kind of conclusion. Helms is said to have destroyed the MK-Ultra files, Cointelpro was not really investigated. Assassinations and Dirty Tricks tended to be headline hoggers which permitted the dirty details of years to be covered up.
For example, in the final days of the Church Committee, investigators were provided with info about a program called “Operation Shamrock” which went back to World War II. It started in Army communications, didn’t get stopped after the war, got missed by the ’47 Acts, and became a way for the CIA and others to cover financial transactions. It involved working on a daily basis with Western Union and the Phone companies. It evolved as technology evolved.
There is a perhaps credible view that the activities associated the programs identified and probably more stuff still perhaps unknown were preserved as private capacities while George Bush senior was CIA chief and moved off-line.
Those programs, some think, provide a kind of “road map” to what came back with the Bush 2 retread of the Ford administration (in terms of personnel).
MK-Ultra was part of a package of behavior and mind control programs which overlapped with “interrogation” and torture programs. MH-Chaos had to do with penetration of the peace movement, and related stuff. Cointelpro was Hoover’s idea of domestic security.
Something like Shamrock continued through and beyond the Reagan administration by way of global electronic monitoring of financial transactions deemed to have a security interest, and no doubt some do. For example countries under US economic sanctions, of which there are around 90 at the moment, according to the Treasury office which does it, can be subject. History Commons has stuff on this from Reagan NSC staffer Norman Bailey.
So people might make money from it indeed. But there’s probably a good case to be made for these leads being part of a pattern which is at the heart of the “security state” set up with the 1947 acts, including the AAUKUSA Canada stuff. Like how come, no matter what happens in elections, some programs and things just keep rolling on anyway? Like US involvement with Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 70’s, the survivabilty of the Miles Ignotus mid east policy.
It could be, you know, that US Treaty arrangements with other countries provide a framework which defines the purpose of participation in broader institutions, and by so doing, creates global frameworks for activities which control domestic players, but cannot be challenged by them, because that’s just how things work. So no matter how many times people go round the houses on torture and surveillance, there’s always a road block comes up, which is discussed in a language people respect, that of security interests, while being something very different.
I think leads on the scale of what is being done are really useful to developing the framework of discussion.
Introducing the profit motive is what may piss off enough people to do something about being constantly monitored.
These corporations are not acting as true communications providers if they are expecting a modicum of profit from their transactions. They are actually a subset of the security system — just like Blackwater/Xe is a subset of the military and not merely a service provider.
We the people have permitted these so-called communications firms certain kinds of latitude, licensing the use of our publicly-owned spectrum to them, for the purposes of providing communications. We permit them to make a profit doing that.
But we the people have NOT consented to their use of these same publicly funded airwaves for the purposes of a for-profit monitoring business; that’s not what they’re licensed to do.
It’s a fundamental problem with their business model.
The existence of the profit motive might intensify the pushback from the companies if they can simultaneously monopolize data access, per buying up prepaid services as above.
But on the other hand, 1) the size of the exploitable markets would give an idea of how hard the companies will fight (unless they’ve been government captured, in which case they wouldn’t need no stinkin’ profits); 2) there’s the possibility that users of the different phone services could become pressure groups specifically against some of these deals, starting maybe with tracking them as Rayne did with the one up top. At least, poking at them in as many venues as possible might yield some kind of fruit.
I think truth is a good enough reason on its own. Don’t you? Bush and Co didn’t care about truth. Look where it got the country. You really think people who insist on ignoring truth are going to end up somewhere different, somehow?
I just heard a fascinating description of a system one of the carriers (I think sprint, but I’m not keeping track of which speaker is which) has. The carrier put in a “framework” for a “robust case management system” that handles all types of requests. It’s called L-cite (phonetic). They have given the API (Application Programming Interface, the way one computer program talks to another directly) to most of the big LEAs (FBI, NYPD, etc.), CALEA vendors, other carriers, pretty much anybody who asks (maybe I should ask for it… The DEA has integrated it into their own system quite tightly. The DEA officer is able to enter case data into his computer, the subpeona is autogenerated, approved by “the head guy at the [DEA] office, and sent to the carrier for processing. Turn around time is 12-24 hours. Clearly no judge was involved (must be administrative subpeonas/NSL type requests).
By making this so easy, we will inevitably expand the reach of survelliance in our society. Anybody watch “The Prisoner” week before last?
Der Sicherheitsstaat ueber alles.
I wonder how many vegans, Amish and First Amenders were tracked extensively. Lord knows, they pose an existential threat to big ag and government secrecy.
Now one of these guys is whining about how much it cost to be “good citizens” after 9/11.
Slightly OT, but in contemplating President Obama’s speech tonight from the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, I can’t help being reminded that the Constitution explicitly put control of the armed forces in civilian hands, to avoid politicians aggrandizing themselves and their followers at a cost paid for by the lives and treasure of others.
The Academy locale is not just to pay homage to our future leaders in battle. It is to cloak the president in a theatrical backdrop that will make it politically harder to refute his policy. Yet, it is the nation, not just West Pointers, who will pay the full price of continued escalation in a war with no strategy, no definition for victory and no practical plan for disengagement.
The president’s new “plan”, as Glennzilla suggests, seems likely to be just like the old one. It is as if caught in flagrante delicto with another man’s wife, the cuckolder turns round and goes at it in double quick time, hoping his offense will be ignored because it will be too much trouble for the cuckold to get him out of bed without himself going to jail in the bargain. It is a high stakes bet.
Yep. I just put up a diary with some similar thoughts.
Yep, Newshour did their part with a total puff piece last night.
Yep,
I just linked to Juan Cole in Jim’s diary. It is worth reading.
Huff Po saying Afghanistan 3 years. yeah right
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
I’m wondering how often the 22 plus Fusion Centers, set up across the nation, make use of these systems ? From what I read at the linked website theses programs seems as if they would be the perfect match for what goes on behind those closed doors.
BTW, for those of us who don’t like being tracked the Cricket cellphone does not have the ability to track via GPS.
; )
That would be unusual. GPS tracking capability has been mandatory in new cell phones for several years. Theoretically for use only in connection with emergency 911 calls, it is being used for a variety of law enforcement purposes. US federal circuits are split on whether that can legally be done without a warrant or other court order.
An interesting wrinkle has popped up with the use of new cell phones that have user-readable GPS software. Since the user “voluntarily” discloses his or her location whenever this function is operable, the DoJ claims such information is freely available without a warrant.
That line of argument, of course, would support tapping all cell phone conversations, as well as all domestic land line communications that use a LAN to carry the signal from a handheld device to a household base station for any governmental use, not just E-911. Ditto with all GPS equipped cars.
We know the government wants to carry this unsupervised location and real-time and historical travel route monitoring to its logical conclusion. Will our moribund Congress or somewhat more questioning judiciary follow suit. The US has no effective privacy legislation, another area, in addition to health care, where the Europeans are well ahead of us.
According to the panelist from Cricket, they only have GPS on 911 calls.
Of course, those phones can located during calls via cell tower triangulation. Another issue for Cricket is that they use NAT (Network Address Translation) for all the web browsing on their phones, hence your browsing is effectively untraceable. In contrast, one of the panelist mentioned that Sprint/Nextel assigns fixed IP addresses and logs all your web traffic. I believe that for anyone using 3G services (except Blackberries in some cases), you web history is more or less instantly available to the carrier and LEAs. 3G is packet-switched while the rest of cell traffic is circuit switched. Packet-switched traffic is very vulnerable to tapping because it can be done from any switch on the network while circuit switced traffic has to be done on the switch your cellphone is connected to.
Useful to know, thanks. Does this mean that Cricket’s gps feature only functions when a 911 call is made? I much appreciate that they use floating IP addresses for phone-based Internet access. I imagine, too, that their apparent lack of cooperation in making all user telecommunications instantly transparent to Big Brother must mean that any time they need an approval from the government, it is slow and grudging.
Spring/Nextel, on the contrary, is remarkable in how quickly it rolls over for whatever Uncle Sam wants. A cost, perhaps, it pays in exchange for how lucratively, quickly and with such little oversight their merger went through.
Just so it’s obvious, the E-911 system’s requirements were only one of several reasons the government mandated gps tracking in new cell phones. Law enforcement, purportedly national security, uses were the primary reason. The government worked with telecoms in devising a variety of marketing tools to get customers to switch old phones for new.
No technical details were given. I’d assume that the issue is the cheap old-style technology that Cricket uses in their phones. The panelist representing Cricket seemed quite apologetic for their limitations. They are a very small carrier.
Wow, given how Verizon has been deluging us with the dueling maps to show how much wider their 3G network is than AT&T’s, I’m surprised AT&T is so far behind the curve in enabling cell phone tapping…
It’s only because they had a large installed base of older technology. I don’t think any company has ever been more accomodating to the feds than AT&T.
are you sure Smiley ? our family uses Cricket as well –
I recall that tracking ‘signatures’ emanate from the battery
p.s. what happens when Cricket (or any other carrier) use Sprint’s network ?
prostratdedragon (36) — been stewing on this since I read it, more than a couple of hours. The money has to be a part of this story. Let’s say you’re a legitimate communications firm with monitoring systems in place primarily intended for the purposes of quality assurance. Those systems should have been paid for as COGS or expense, with plan rates designed to cover these and leave some after-tax profits. So why charge as much as $3500 for a month’s data? (For that much money you can hire warm bodies to run around behind people surreptitiously with directional mics…)
SmileySam (37) — how do you know for certain? ;-)
Blackberry is the safest mobile device (end to end encryption and RIM doesn’t have the keys).
Curious then that Obama was at first told he had to give up his Blackberry due to security reasons. Or was it geolcation and not communication leakage that was the problem with him carrying a Blackberry?
I’m pretty sure it was both issues. If one does a security assessment for an executive/celebrity, they’d have to consider all risks posed by a specific device.
If a Blackberry is a standard commercial issue manufactured overseas, what’s really in the case?
Have been in reading/lurking mode lately. Great posts all November.
Maybe apropos to this topic: I heard on NPR today that not every corporate sponsor of Tiger Woods has issued a statement of support. Most notably AT&T has been silent. If AT&T obtains information about Woods’ whereabouts that others don’t could they be waiting for an explanation from him?
I had my cellphone battery replaced this weekend at a wireless (Verizon Wireless) store. The clerk told me my firmware was outdated and that he’d need 45 minutes to update it. I politely declined for “some other time, maybe.”
Firmware update is for my benefit? or Verizon’s? My phone is barely a year old, and I seem to send and receive phone calls just fine.
Seems like a long time to log in, download and verify routine phone s/w. Had you done it, you would have voluntarily allowed Verizon to do whatever it claimed to do, even if it were beyond what it had tried not to explicitly disclose in your use contract.
I agree. Forty-five minutes seemed like a long time to update “little fixes” to the code. Maybe he was estimating the time to get through a backlog of phones in a similar state as mine in the back room.
I’ll keep my flawed firmware. I like to think the flaws are in my privacy benefit, but by 2008 I’m sure Verizon and BushCo had a neat deal worked out so who knows.
It’s only $99.99 for the Simply Everything but the Fourth Amendment Plan on Sprint.
A huge part of the problem is the fact that our current privacy laws are completely outdated. Law enforcement agencies can request geolocation data and other private information from companies with little or no court oversight, and the customer is unlikely to ever even know that their information was disclosed.
You can read more about the issue at our Location Information page here: http://tr.im/GkQT.
ACLU of Northern California – dotRights Campaign
well, on general principle, I find this alarming. However, the sheer volume alone makes me feel lost in a haystack. If they want to throw away their valuable eye time on gps crap, go ahead, waste my tax dollars. It reminds me of the US citizen from San Jose who was stopped on his way home from Europe and told to “check in” occasionally once it was determined he was not a terrorist.
So he deluged them with the details of daily living including every meal of every day. So, everyone reading this now, stand up and wave to Big Brother with your cell phone!
Well, with the GE Comcast deal looking like it will go through,MAYBE there will be a NEW phone provider on the horizon..
Maybe a little quid pro quo for the gubmint allowing the deal to go down? Jus’ sayin’.
I don’t know. I did the math. Check me.
8 million requests divided by 13 months is 615,385 requests/month. Divided by 50 states is 12,308. Divided by 30 days per month is about 410 requests per day.
410 requests per state per day, and I will assume further that some of these requests are repeats for tracking of serious bad ass dudes, that doesn’t seem like a whole lot to me once I break it down.
What do you all think? Am I totally missing the point?
Did it help in tracking the cop killer up in Oregon,or pedophiles,do you know?
Um?
there’s nothing wrong with tracking people when they have cause and get a warrant
I should have attached a snark tag,perris.
Upon what basis were the requests made and the info granted? Was there probable cause involved? Was there a judge involved anywhere in the process? How many girlfriends (and boyfriends) were tracked? How does the evil corporation itself make use of that information? How about stalkers and related asshole individuals working for the company?
Well, this is what I want to know too. 8 million sounds like an impossible number of warrants to get, but if you break it down nationwide, it sounds more possible.
Of course, I know that doesn’t mean those warrants happened…
They don’t need warrants for GPS info. I believe that falls under the category of ‘business records’.
Unclear whether they’re using business records or NSL. Since they can just log into the telecomm’s system, it might be NSL (no court). Or, they might be getting collection approvals for whole categories of geolocations. I know Chris was working the geolocation angle when we were talking abotu 215.
My guess is that it wasn’t tied to warrants. Most of these were tracking “items” (like cars set up to trap car thieves, drugs, weapons shipments, undercover agents, police vehicles, etc.), or parollees with anklets, or those with terms to a sentence to home release. Stolen cars. None of those would require a warrant. But would be looked at at least daily, if not repeatedly during the day.
Verizon, AT&T, Nextel and others are certainly providing data.
And even more ominous is that all of these firms are partnered up with the manufacturers of “personal” GPS tracking devices…the largest growing part of the telecomm. industry. These are being marketted as devices to “track you kids without their knowing”, monitor your fleet drivers behavior, “is your college student going out to bars and parties on weeknights…in the car?”, etc. Some are even being pushed as “spy on your adulterous husband”, “is your daughter having sex with THAT boy again?”
We can see where this is going!
I do think you missed something there.
You’re using numbers from Sprint. ONLY Sprint.
That’s not the number of total requests for tracking across ALL cell phone and other communications carriers.
We also don’t know definitively whether that 8 million is separate individuals, or if they are multiple requests on same users; if the number represents individuals, that’s more than 16 percent of one carrier’s subscriber base being tracked.
You’re using numbers from Sprint. ONLY Sprint.
Yes.
That’s not the number of total requests for tracking across ALL cell phone and other communications carriers.
OK. I knew that. good point.
We also don’t know definitively whether that 8 million is separate individuals, or if they are multiple requests on same users; if the number represents individuals, that’s more than 16 percent of one carrier’s subscriber base being tracked.
I knew that, too, but since the term used was “requests” I am guessing that it is how many times the service was accessed, not individuals. But I also know what ass-u-me means.
I don’t want to defend telecoms, but just trying to get hold of the number.
Citizen dosido:
Yes you are missin’ the point…and the point is that these are warrantless activities that extend nationwide right down to the fuckin’ neighborhood watchforce. For Christ’s sake, what’s in the KoolAid you been drinkin’?
Hey Norske,
well slap my face and call me trouble! It’s called eggnog and damn, you should try some! If LGF can break with the “right”, what’s next? cats and dogs sleeping together?
Speaking of unwarranted, accusing dosido of drinking KoolAid?
I have no problem with your passion but the derogatory tone towards your fellow firepups does nothing to enhance your argument.
((RF)) It’s OK, we’re all friends here.
I put out a “devil’s advocate” type comment and I suppose on the eve of escalating the FUBAR mess in Afghanistan, patience is in short supply.
FUBAR appears to have become the number one U.S. export. Too bad it never puts so much as a dent in the supply here at home.
Citizen ratfood:
Take a pill and a big glass of Johnny Walker Black Label…Jesus, I will call a spade a shovel whenever there is shit to get off the sidewalk!
My fault, not as if you selected ReasonedResponse as your handle.
I agree…but I also would think it’s important to know precisely what percentages of these requests are going for things like:
a) GPS tracking of individuals with anklets such as sex-crime parolees, individuals with restraining orders, and folks on home detention. These tracing requests are likely consensual as part of a sentence reduction.
b) requests to track stolen cars using a GPS system
c) tracking a person who is voluntarily submitting to tracking- such as an undercover agent meeting dangerous individuals.
d) tracking an inanimate object…such as drugs, weapons, or other contraband in order to locate the ultimate destination.
I wonder if Sprint, AT&T and other cell-phone companies are being used to track transmitters using cell-phone frequencies or cell-phones themselves in such situations. Is a “request” issued for each data point…or a whole series for the same unit. Once we sort out the legitimate applications we are left with more ambiguous cases.
So is there anything to report on any of the other cell carriers? I’m not prepared to accept that Sprint is the only culpable party. They’re all in the same business and they all want a piece of whatever money action is out there. I’m just waiting for the next shoe to drop…
http://www.themobiletracker.com/english/index38.html
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
Put on yer tinfoil hats and follow along with me: My wife and I have had Credo Mobile for several months (we dumped Verison) and have had Working Assets for ourlandline and long distance service for years. Credo is a Sprint reseller and of course is located out of the country and, of course, Credo-Working Assests markets to “progressives” and tries to plug into the information tree for earth and people friendly investments and activities. Now let’s think for a moment that maybe a large percentage of these Sprint customers who have been eavsdropped upon are Cedo customers…aye, the plot thickens a bit, no?
I am convinced that in the 2 years following 9/11 and in the year after the Iraq invasion, most of the data mining and illegal surveilance of US citizens was for domestic political purposes and for building a data base and information structure to track groups and individuals involved in anti-war activities. Now, how hard would it be to figure out that most Credo-Working Assets customers would also be have anti-war politics?
OK, end of tinfoil hat plot development…but the fuckin’ nightmare drama goes on and on and…
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN AMMUNITION, WE’RE GUNNA HAFTA END THIS WAR THING OURSELVES NOW!!
Yeah, they probably use it to track reporters too.
I do believe I have been looking for a reason to dump sprint, this might be it, which providers do we know do not data mine without a warrant?
Citizen perris:
Be careful, the 8 million cases are just Sprint, what makes ya think that all the others aren’t also up to their genitalia in this stuff?
Wanna bet 4 million of those tracks were on lovers and spouses?
This is just another ugly.
Scalia and Thomas and most of the right wing judiciary hold that there is no federal guarantee of privacy.
Hmmm, I work in the inddustry and I’m going to have to post a diary at The Seminal about this. There’s a lot of mis-conceptions, including about reselling/MVNOs and technology. Too much for one or two comments.
We’ll be waiting for that post or two, Kelly. ;-)
8 million requests, right? Not necessarily 8 million accessions — in fact, the claim is that Sprint couldn’t have handled that many. Still, the number, if accurate, is remarkable. I suppose the temptation to use any new technology (like tasers) is tough to overcome — even when the justification just isn’t there.
OT – Anybody got a copy of the referenced Ghailani motion to dismiss?
Terrorism Suspect Asks Judge to Dismiss Case
I hate it when insufferable MSM outlets like the NYT post articles like this without posting a link to the underlying source document.
I suspect only the gov’t has the copies – secret clearance and all that .
Link. Supposedly there were 32 pages in the ruling.
That NYT link seems outdated (and perhaps even incorrect) based on the latest NYT article:
(My Bold)
IANAL – IMO it looks like today Mr. Ghailani’s lawyers made a 73 page motion (to dismiss) of which almost nothing could be made public.
Kaplan made a ruling which may or may not have been published today, but which was 32 pages long saying that his lawyers are going to be reassigned (I think).
More OT – Never let it be said that our Generals and CEOs would pass up a war to test out their latest weaponry:
As a number of commenters have noted, the Taliban have no radar, so why the need for stealth?
And the simplest explanation is that the Pakistanis do have radar.
With recent news reports that the some parts of Pakistan’s intelligence services are suspected by the US of informing Taliban targets in Pakistan ahead of any US strike, it may be the case that the US wishes to keep the Pakistanis themselves in the dark.
I was just reading about that
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/12/kandahars-loch-ness-mystery-pl.html
If I was a Sprint shareholder, I’d be pissed. The company has lost almost $2.6 billion over the last 4 quarters and the stock is in the toilet (closed today at $3.78). If Sprint had simply charged the police $325 for each GPS fix, the company would actually be profitable.
Ha, about time you all woke up to this…I brought up the GPS in cells over a year ago here. ;)
I remember when they were first working on cell phone technology (while my dad was still at the FCC). The Government was warning that they wouldn’t license it’s use unless law enforcement was given a back door to listen into. Law enforcement was very upset that they might loose their ability to “wire tap”. (kinda’ like when the movie industry thought that the VCR would put them out of business).
Did anyone catch that the gov is now going to require that wireless modems and servers (WiFi) keep a record of the MACs of all the computers that use them? That includes the little home units that you pick up at Wally World.
Same thing.
beowulf (113) — actually, Sprint’s performance would be even worse without whatever “assistance” they are receiving from the feds. Have not had time to look at their 10-K, but I’m wondering what they’ve attributed the loss of business to in public statements.
JohnJ (114) — how convenient that the local cableco has been doing rolling firmware upgrades on wired devices. Most users may only notice this has happened when they lose their network and have to reboot their modems…wonder if this is a secondary measure since I can’t recall ever having a forced firmware upgrade in the last 4 years with this cableco.
Anybody else have recent firmware upgrades on their modems?
Funny you should mention it … Yesterday I lost the connection, but the cableco said there were no outages reported in the area. The tech and I hemmed and hawed, rebooted, and got nothing. Then service came back all on its own, and I got a call from some distant area code saying that service would be out briefly; I told the young lady that it had already been restored, but I thought it odd that (1) the service department(s?) should be so out of phase with reality and (2) I should get a call from who knows where telling me about my local service. Firmware upgrades, eh?