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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the let-the-companies-do-the-data-collection dept.

T-Mobile quietly reported a sharp rise in police demands for cell tower data – TechCrunch

T-Mobile has reported a small decline in the number of government data requests it receives, according to its latest transparency report, quietly published this week.

The third-largest cell giant in the U.S. reported 459,989 requests during 2018, down by a little over 1% on the year earlier. That includes an overall drop in subpoenas, court orders and pen registers and trap and trace devices used to record the incoming and outgoing callers; however, the number of search warrants issued went up by 27% and wiretaps increased by almost 3%.

The company rejected 85,201 requests, an increase of 7% on the year prior.

[...] For 2018, the company received 70,224 demands for historical call data, up by more than 9% on the year earlier.

Historical cell site location data allows law enforcement to understand which cell towers carried a call, text message or data, and therefore a subscriber’s historical real-time location at any given particular time. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this data was protected and required a warrant before a company is forced to turn it over. The so-called “Carpenter” decision was expected to result in a fall in the number of requests made because the bar to obtaining the records is far higher.

[...] The cell giant also reported that the number of tower dumps went up from 4,855 requests in 2017 to 6,184 requests in 2018, an increase of 27%.

Tower dumps are particularly controversial because these include information for all subscribers whose calls, messages and data went through a cell tower at any given time. That can include the data of hundreds or thousands of innocent subscribers at any time.


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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:27PM (10 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:27PM (#867598) Journal

    I have little doubt that it works as a good source of corroborating circumstantial evidence. And I believe that appropriate warrants are probably issued. But my faith in US police is at an all time low, and I feel like there has to be an angle where this kind of semi-wide dragnet is ripe for abuse.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:04PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:04PM (#867607)

    The fact that this data is being collected and stored for any significant length of time at all is abusive in and of itself, regardless of what the data is used for. Just like with the NSA's mass surveillance. We need to stop focusing on exactly how they're using the data (almost always difficult to find out), and force them to stop collecting it in the first place.

    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:01PM (1 child)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:01PM (#867661) Journal

      force them to stop collecting it in the first place.

      Good luck with that. How are you ever going to verify they've stopped? Only by accident, or a leak, or if it's used against you. But until then you will never know what they collect. The microphone is always hot.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:19PM (#868094)

        How are you ever going to verify they've stopped?

        You can't, or at least not perfectly. The key is to have severe punishments when they are found to have violated the law, unlike the wrist slaps they get now. But, good luck with that, since the same government that would be enforcing such a law also happens to love mass surveillance...

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:07PM (6 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:07PM (#867609) Journal

    It's definitely being abused and we've seen it abused. You're not likely to put the genie back in it's bottle, though.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:12PM (5 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:12PM (#867613) Journal

      It'd be better if I could cite specifics of those abuses, how it falls outside due process, and how that impacts us regular people. It's hard enough fighting authoritarianism when you have explicit well-defined facts on your side.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:33PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:33PM (#867622)

        Collecting bulk records and then using illegally obtained info to then investigate people. If you like freedom then you can't give it away by pretending like these humans with badges are super-special and will only ever use such information when it is 100% guaranteed to be a guilty person.

        The entire premise of "then they shouldn't have been breaking the law!" only works if you pretend that mistakes don't happen and police are gifted with supernatural powers of insight that can see through evidence that merely looks suspicious.

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:38PM (2 children)

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 16 2019, @05:38PM (#867624) Journal

          It seems like you're probably arguing against a position not only didn't take, but openly oppose.

          • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:02PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:02PM (#867635)

            The AOL keyword you are looking for is "Parallel Construction". It is the use of unacknowledged evidence to guide investigation so that a case can be made solely on legal evidence.

            • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:09PM

              by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:09PM (#867637) Journal

              My supposition would be though, that they'd get a "limited" warrant for only the cell towers in the area of interest of a case, and only during the period of interest. That doesn't necessitate parallel construction, a judge would sign off on that. Even a non-crooked judge.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:09PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:09PM (#867664) Journal

        Counting the abuses does nothing.

        To fight authoritarianism, look into the soul of The People®, not the police they support and the government they elect.

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..