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?
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.
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.
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.
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.