
Sprint Received 8 MIL Law Enforcement Requests for GPS Location Data this Year - brennannovak
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/surveillance-shocker-sprint-received-8-million-law
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eli
No, it didn't.

It sent 8 million _data points_ in response to an unknown number of
surveillance requests.

I agree with the EFF's larger point that this is a power that is likely being
abused, but this headline is way over the top.

~~~
earle
The point being, this is a clear abuse and absurd level of Orweillian
surveillance on what's supposed to be a free society.

If the government attempted anything remotely close to this relative to the
day a hundred years ago there would be a revolution by morning.

~~~
sorbus
If you opt-in to a service which allows you to be tracked, then you're going
to be tracked. And the service a hundred years ago which did this? Police
trails of suspects. Following people around, as part of an ongoing
investigation, to find out who they interacted with and where they went - sort
of like this, only it's easier to stop a cell phone. Where was the revolution?

~~~
marze
We live in a democratic society in the US where the people have a role in
shaping the laws they live under.

If the people really don't like the idea of Joe Policeman being able to log
onto the Sprint website and download where they've been, with no judicial
permission needed, they'll have to do something about it.

Just because the Sprint agreement may allow it now doesn't mean it always must
be that way.

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tedunangst
More than a million per day? I doubt it.

~~~
jacquesm
You don't have to because 8,000,000 / 365 is approximately 22,000.

Also since they are datapoints the actual number of requests is much much
lower.

~~~
baddox
The joke being that it's now the year 2010.

~~~
jacquesm
Hehe, ah, I see.

Sorry, it's 4:45 am here, I'm hardly as sharp as I am when I'm awake. I should
probably call it quits for today.

Modding up ggp.

tx!

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lief79
Having worked on part of the E911 systems, any 911 call in an area that
supports the 3rd level of E911 would automatically request and receive the GPS
data. 8 Million requests is not hard to believe or surprising, as they have 48
million customers (according to wikipedia, which should be close enough to
accurate).

Also remember that if your cell phone is on, your location can be pinpointed
with a high degree of accuracy without any GPS data. Look up TruePosition, LLC
if you have any doubts.

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InclinedPlane
This is basically a dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971207>

Note that the other article has a useful calculation indicating that the total
number of actual law enforcement requests is in the low hundreds.

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wallflower
The problem of easy web access is it reduces the pain of access by the
authorities and the setup cost by the telco. Physical wiretaps were better
because they could not be provisioned by clicking a mouse.

