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posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 14 2018, @12:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-long-way-around dept.

More and more phone service for the imprisioned population is run through a single company. The ACLU writes that the company which handles prison phone calls, Securus, is also surveilling people who aren't in prison. This last week Senator Wyden (D-Oregon) described Securus' ability to obtain and share the cell phone location information of virtually anyone who uses a phone.

Real-time cell phone location tracking of a suspect requires a search warrant under federal law and, as some courts have held, the Fourth Amendment. Normally, when police want to track a suspect's cell phone in real time, they provide a warrant directly to the phone service provider, which reviews the warrant to confirm that it is valid before complying with the request. The major cellular service providers have law enforcement compliance teams comprised of trained staff who review warrants and other law enforcement requests and regularly reject or narrow requests that are improper or overbroad.

However, major phone carriers appear to have allowed Securus to bypass these procedures. Government investigators contracting with the company upload documentation justifying a request for cell phone location data to Securus' system. Securus, functioning as a middleman, pays other middlemen, who then pay major telecommunications carriers for the location information.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @06:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14 2018, @06:15PM (#679689)

    You seem to be overestimating the importance of a return address. It is not generally required. Here [usps.com] is how the USPS website explains addressing:

    Return Address (602.1.5)
    A return address tells the USPS where the sender wants the mail returned if it is undeliverable.
    A return address is required on certain types of mail. Preferred return address placement is the upper left portion of the mailpiece or the upper left part of the address area—on the side of the piece bearing postage. Mail qualifying for Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail prices must have the name and return address of the authorized nonprofit organization either on the outside of the mailpiece or in a prominent location on the material being mailed (inside the mailpiece) (703.1.5 [usps.com]).