Telcos Oppose Bill To Respect 4th Amendment 190
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Unknown Lamer
from the but-judge-due-process-is-too-hard dept.
from the but-judge-due-process-is-too-hard dept.
Fluffeh writes "CTIA (The mobile operators' industry association) is opposing a California law proposing that a court order be required prior to disclosing personal information. The law seems to be in opposition to the federal government's attempts to wash away the last requirements to get at any information about citizens, but CTIA claims (PDF) '... the wireless industry opposes SB 1434 as it could create greater confusion for wireless providers when responding to legitimate law enforcement requests.' The EFF and the ACLU have been arguing strongly for the bill which is to be voted on shortly."
A charming quote from CTIA: "For example, the definition of 'location information' is so sweeping that it could implicate information generally considered basic subscriber information under federal law. Since the implications of this definition are unclear, wireless providers will have difficulty figuring out how to respond to requests for such information. It could place providers in the position of requiring warrants for all law enforcement requests."
Re:Wouldn't that reduce the financial burden? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, just a few weeks ago there was a report on NPR about how much money law enforcement has to pay the telcos in order to get this informstion. There is no financial burden on the telcos and there is no labor burden because they have special offices that are paid specifically to deal with these requests.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Informative)
Not to mention a very real situation: 911 calls. My mother-in-law is a dispatcher, and she routinely has to call telcos to get information, such as when someone dials 911 from a mobile phone but is unable to talk... They can get emergency contact info, gps, triangulation, whatever... and they have a paper quest form that they can file after the fact. One of those time where bureaucracy falls behind the need to act fast.
Dispatchers need to be able to get information FAST.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Informative)
You don't get to say "Well, they barked a name and badge number at me and said it was urgent, so I had to tell them."
Having been tangentially involved in these situations, you DO get to say, I'll call back at your contact number.
As you can imagine we have written procedures for this, one of many steps is calling back the telephone book number of their office/station to get verification.
This actually works ridiculously well, because unlike on TV shows, most real world requests take at least a couple minutes work on the internet/telco side (if not much longer), so while tech #1 calls back doing the security check, tech #2 is doing the actual tech work to at least begin the process. Also it works well because we grill them for every detail we can get before hanging up... if the station says badge number 1337 doesn't exist and there is no such activity going on, then we simply file a report of all the details they were looking for (presumed stalking victim, etc).
I am told by cops this is pretty much the same way it works with the water/gas/electric/cellphone companies (example, in a barricade/hostage situation you shut off the gas so they can't blow the place up, etc). Same protocol at every telco/internet provider I've worked for. Its the multi industry standard comm protocol for cops-utilities cooperation. Its only unusual, or unknown, on TV or maybe in extremely rural service areas.
I've never worked for a telco or ISP or other service provider with only one phone line and only one employee in the network control center, so there probably are occasions where the officer doesn't get hung up on, but rest assured "someone" is calling the station to verify even if the officer on the line doesn't know he's being checked up on.
Usually everyone gets into the act and one guy calls the sup on duty assuming he's not on site and shoulder surfing, another guy does verification, another guy does the tech work, another guy talks to the actual officer, and another guy starts channel surfing for live TV if its a hostage situation or a chase simply because its cool. Its much more exciting than the daily fiber cut, or the weekly thunderstorm, or the monthly maintenance-gone-wrong disaster.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the pertinent part of the law that covers this issue;
(3) Pursuant to a request by a government entity that asserts that
the government entity reasonably believes that an emergency
involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to the
owner or user requires the immediate access to location information
and there is insufficient time to obtain a warrant. The government
entity seeking the location information pursuant to this paragraph
shall file with the appropriate court a written statement setting
forth the facts giving rise to the emergency no later than 48 hours
after seeking disclosure.
In emergency situations the government entity does not need a warrant but must document the emergency in court papers within 48 hours.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the pertinent part of the law that covers this issue;
(c) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a government entity may
obtain location information in any of the following circumstances:
(1) In order to respond to the user's call for emergency services.
If someone calls a 911 operator they can request location information from the telco.
Re:And that is a bad thing because??? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wouldn't that reduce the financial burden? (Score:5, Informative)
"On the financial side, CTIA’s argument is laughable. Just to give one example—Sprint is a $7 billion company, and it charges law enforcement a $30 monthly flat fee to provide location data on an unlimited basis. And, keep in mind: in 2009, Wired reported that during a 13-month period, Sprint disclosed that data 8 million times. So how exactly is this new bill providing a "costly mandate?""