Are the police tracking your calls?

Lisa Simeone · May 23, 2012

CNN: Are the police tracking your calls?

(CNN) -- Do you know how long your cell phone company keeps records of whom you text, who calls you or what places you have traveled? Do you know how often cell phone companies turn over this information to the police and whether they first ask the police to get a warrant based on probable cause?

No, you don't. Not unless you work for a cell phone company or a law enforcement agency with a specialty in electronic surveillance. You aren't alone: Congress and the courts have no idea either.

The little we do know is worrisome. The companies are not legally required to turn over your information simply because a police officer is curious about you. Yet wireless carriers sell this information to police all the time.

As far as the cell phone companies are concerned, the less Americans know about it the better.
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. . . Why aren't these policies available on the companies' websites? With such information, consumers could vote with their wallets and punish those companies that don't protect privacy. Keeping their customers in the dark about surveillance is better for business, it seems.

We pay the cell phone companies to provide us with a service, not keep tabs on us for the government. And yet the companies that now have access to some of our most private information refuse to reveal even the most basic facts about their policies? We deserve better.
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Are the police tracking your calls?

Lisa Simeone Original Member

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Are the police tracking your calls?

Lisa Simeone Original Member

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