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Verizon Tells Cops "Your Money Or Your Life"
Mike writes "A 62-year-old man had a mental breakdown and ran off after grabbing several bottles of pills from his house. The cops asked Verizon to help trace the man using his cellphone, but Verizon refused, saying that they couldn't turn on his phone because he had an unpaid bill for $20. After an 11-hour search (during which time the sheriff's department was trying to figure out how to pay the bill), the man was found, unconscious. 'I was more concerned for the person's life,' Sheriff Dale Williams said. 'It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill.' Score another win for the Verizon Customer Service team."
Don't even contractless cell phones have to support calling 911?
If so, doesn't that mean they are always talking to nearby tower(s) just as much as any other cell phone and thus just as easily trackable?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man. But deputies discovered the man just as Williams was preparing to make arrangements for the payment."
Why did it take the police 11 hours to decide to pay the $20 dollar bill? If someones life was likely at stake, $20 out of my own pocket is a pretty small price to pay to locate him.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Lets see, Verizon decided to not allow law enforcement to TRACK a customer. That is a GOOD THING.
It's a cell phone, not an invasion of privacy device used on a whim by any police officer at will.
Though they did support the guy's privacy, it was inadvertent. If you RTFA, there were two K-9 units, several fire departments and 100 individuals on foot looking for the guy after the police were called by a neighbor. They weren't concerned about the guy's privacy, they were concerned about the guy's unpaid debts.
This was Verizon asking for payment for a late bill, nothing more, nothing less.
But manslaughter.
Thing is, how do you punish a corporation for manslaughter? Remember, a corporation is a "legal person" so you can't punish an employee for obeying the will of the company.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
At which point, there will be a corporate memo to the effect of "If the police call asking for anything, tell them to call back when they have a court order, then hang up. Do not discuss anything else with them."
If any cooperation with the police ends at a level where no one has any authority (ie, at the tier-one helpdesk folks) then the managers asses are covered. Their legal department can probably draft such a memo / corporate policy in such a way that will minimize the company's risk.
Of course, the side effect of such a policy would be that using cell phones to locate lost kids / teens / wives / etc will drop to zero without court orders. Just a little collateral damage, I guess.
Fines. Very large fines. Verizon sounds here like they would have complied with the request had the bill been paid. Hell, if I was a Verizon tech and I knew the request was legitimate, I'd have paid the damn $20 to get the system to activate the phone, if that's what it took.
Verizon should have to forfeit to the government all profit their shareholders would have received in dividends or share increases for 3 months. We'll see if they ever pull this shit again. Someone's fucking life was at stake! Who cares if the guy was crazy, or an asshole, of owed them money - dead men can't pay bills! Help your customer survive to outlive that service contract, if for no better reason such as, you know, saving someone's life! Fucking idiots.
I don't understand this unwritten law that telcos must all act like they have some kind of mental handicap.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
You're kidding, right?
a. Verizon didn't decide not to help the police due to some great respect for civil liberties.
They wanted money. Period. They made it clear, apparently, that as soon as the cops coughed up the $$$, they would get the info. Why are you applauding Verizon?
b. Police have broad powers when a life is threatened. Very broad. They need a search warrant to go into my house. However, if they hear a scream and a gunshot, they don't need anything other than the soles of their feet as they cheerfully kick in my door and swarm in. They are safeguards against abuse of this power. Although it happens, judges frown when officers are caught abusing it and tend to toss any illegally gathered evidence out the window. Several companies have a policy of following emergency requests with paperwork stating what was done and why. It's highly likely that if the cops were making stuff up in an excuse to scam information out of Verizon it would have come back to bite them.
No, sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. Verizon just sucks.
You calling 911 and 911 calling you are two different things. The law probably doesn't cover the latter.
Bad for Verizon.
They didn't do it becasue of your rights, they did it because they guy owed 20 dollars. Had he paid they would ahve given them the information.
While you post is generally correct* that's not the issue here.
*There are instances when law enforcement officers do not need a warrant, valid reasons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most officers of the law are like that.
It's any public job where 99,999 out of 100,000 goes perfectly fines all the time. 1 things goes wrong, and everyone gets all stupid.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here's a classic example of strict and rigid rules laid down without any sensible leeway, and how it backfires. A lot of companies actually have a "bible" with the correct procedure for every standard situation. ISO 9001 and other similar standards actually support this behaviour.
I can well imagine how this happened. First, there is some flowchart that dictates how and when who may turn what phone on and off under what circumstances. My guess is that some relevant part reads something like "do not turn phone on unless bill is paid". Furthermore the "executing" levels of the company (i.e. the grunts doing the work who are disallowed to think for themselves) most likely got directives to stick to the rules by the letter or face consequences (i.e. start sending out resumes, you have 2 weeks).
I pity only the poor guy who actually had to decline the request. Because he had the choice between shooting himself and finding a beam strong enough to handle his weight plus rope. If he activated the phone, he would have broken the all sacred and holy document telling him how to do his job and be fired. Now, he didn't and sure enough he'll be made the scapegoat for the blunder of a manager who created the rules without thinking of emergencies like this.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So this guy's phone is off right?
I sure as hell don't carry around my disabled phones with me so their request would have been entirely useless.
Also, if the radio was the carrier can still find it. Like others said 911 is still always active on the phone regardless of service. This is why its suggested to leave a phone and a charging cable in your trunk in the event of an emergency.
Seems everyone is making a big deal out of a stupid request. It should be "Moron cops don't understand technology, make idiotic request. Thinks cell phones allow you to track people even if they don't have it on them."
That's nothing! It came out in the '90s that ever since central switching was in place (i.e., no more human "operators" physically switching your call), telephone companies in the United States have kept records of EVERY call made in their telephones system: the originating number, the destination number, when the call began and when it ended. There was a record of every call in the United States. Now, think about that for a moment. Remember, in all the cop shows, how the police had to hold people on the line in order to get a "trace"? Or later, put what they called "diode traps" on suspect phone lines?
Those were never necessary. We (meaning the citizens of this country, the police, and even the Federal Government), were lied to by the telephone companies, which refused to admit that any such record-keeping ever took place. Until a writer for an electronics magazine kind of accidentally wound up with a copy of the repair manual for one of the record-keeping machines. He realized the implications of it, made it public and forced their hand. The telcos even sued him to try to keep it quiet, unsuccessfully.
How many kidnappings, murders, and robberies went unsolved because the phone companies lied to everybody? I have often wondered, and I bet it's a great many.
And you know why? Their "justification" for telling everyone they did not keep records was that it was too expensive for them to send everybody an itemized bill listing every local call!
This makes no sense. Why not pay the 20 bucks for an instant find, instead of what was clearly more than 20 bucks for several police officers to meandor about trying to find him?
Not sure how I feel about Verizon on this one - it's no less reasonable to expect police to pay for an account to turn it on than if the police had come in and requested a phone for themselves. But the police themselves in this case were idiots.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
Or Sheriff Dale Williams got in a huff because the damn civilians didn't lay down and do what they are told. I'm sure the 20 dollar story that the sheriff told is the absolute truth and nothing but the truth..... right.
11 hours and they couldn't find a judge to issue a warrant.
Personally I'm glad Verizon refused to track the phone without a warrant regardless of the expressed reason. I don't think we have all the information, and I doubt the parties involved will ever release the documented facts.
You should not be so blindly anti-corporate. I'm as anti-corporate as anybody, but in this case Verizon did the right thing. The 62 year old, crazy and suicidal as he was, had commited no crime and did not represent a threat to society at large. He had every right to grab a bottle of pills and run off, just like his family had every right to attempt to chase him down and calm him down before he does something foolish.
Enlisting the help of the police to find a missing person is fine, and a good use of public services.
Forcing a phone company to track down a customer (breaching contract or no) just because the police said so? Hell no. You don't want ISPs giving up personal information just because the RIAA subpoena it, well this has even LESS legal standing than that.
Honestly, had Verizon activated his phone and tracked him down, the crazy man would be in the right to sue the pants off Verizon, and he could probably win.
And you people are talking about sanctioning Verizon for protecting the man's privacy? Granted, it was definitely not for altruistic reasons, but frankly I don't want the police to ever have the right to call up the phone company and have them track me down without a warrant for my arrest (not that I should ever be under suspicion, but you never know).
And while you're attacking the phone company for not budging on the phone deactivation for a mear $20, bear in mind that neither the police nor the family was apparently willing to cough up the $20 to have the account unlocked.
Seems to me that the worst you can say about Verizon here is that they suck as much as everybody else involved. Maybe if this guy's family wasn't harassing him he wouldn't have lost it, you never know.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
If turning this guy's cell phone on was worth $20, doing it effectively means somebody is going to be out $20. Why should Verizon be the one to foot that bill? The police required this man's phone service to be on, so they should have paid to turn his phone service on. Why the hell not?
How on earth would the Verizon employee know that its really a cop calling? How would the Verizon employee know that the guy is really in trouble? Verizon is a "business" that has to protect itself from all sorts of predators, government employees/agents included. How did the Verizon employee know that the cop wasnt just asking to turn on the cell phone to track someone for other than "emergency" purposes? That could make Verizon liable as an accomplice for an illegal search and siezure. Let me guess, what if the cop called, said it was an emergency (life and death) and they turned the phone on, only to find out that the cop was just using Verizon to aide in some sort of surviellance operation? I'm sure there would be all sorts of whiney little socialists pounding at the keyboards saying, "there they go again, spying on us! Tin foil hats! Tin foil hats! Evil corpratations!" I know, how about we FINE every retard on slashdot who "demands" "social justice" for "evil corporation" that doesnt jump at every knee jerk populist sounding situation.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
Bankruptcy is a legitimate tool used to emerge from a position of financial ruin and recover in an attempt to continue to be able to do business. It is not a tool used for punishment, and what you suggest is not only wrong, it's illegal and unconstitutional. If the government tried that bullshit, I would hope that Verizon would sue the shit out of them, and I'm sure they would win.
Neither you nor the power company, for instance, are required to give free power to oldsters who will freeze to death in the winter or die of heatstroke in the summer absent heating and air conditioning. You and they aren't even required to give free power to somebody in an iron lung. As a public utility the power company IS required to give them power, even reduced rate power, WHEN arrangements are made to pay appropriately for it. This stuff has come up over and over again.
Similarly with the phone company.
Cops said: "Turn the phone on so we can find him."
Phone company said "Sure. We'll do it for $20 - much less than his outstanding balance - as soon as you tell where to send the bill."
Cops said: "We won't pay."
Family said: "We won't pay."
Phone company said: "Call us when you figure out where to send the bill. We're all set to push the button."
Fifth amendment: "... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The cops were trying to steal service. The phone company knew damn well that if they turned on the phone without the necessary promise to pay they'd never see the money.
Now the media are dumping on the phone company - in an obvious attempt to let such attempts to steal service succeed in the future. IMHO the blame should be placed where it belongs: On the police department and/or the family (to the extent that they should have paid up as part of THEIR obligations). Not on the phone company (which would then be drafted into funding a never-ending set of demands for free service whenever someone decided the situation was some sort of emergency).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Right now many of these companies have been granted a public monopoly on RF spectrum
Umm, they weren't "granted" it, they paid billions of dollars for it......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I have a question for you. If there is no sim card in the phone, how do they know what phone to track?
They are regulated by the FCC and clearly their lack of cooperation in finding this guy was not in the public interest. The fine print in the Code of Federal regulations does require licensees to cooperate in a legitimate emergency.
It sounds like their customer service people were more concerned about the little red box on a computer screen than in helping the sheriff. The article does not go into enough detail on if an escalation procedure was requested for or offered. No matter what time of the day it is, there is always someone available with enough authority to turn the service on temporarily. It is not as if the sheriff was asking for a service restoration so the guy could make a five hour cell call to Bangladesh.
Verizon should be burned for how they handled this. Maybe someone needs to make a stink with their elected officials or to file a formal complaint with the FCC.
Tisha Hayes
Afraid that is not the case in real life and real law. If you are aware of someone in distress, can help but don't, then you are legally liable. Be very wary of living by your advice, not only would any religion in the world condemn you to hell, you could easily find yourself in a courtroom with a jury who would never dare rule in your favor since that would be admitting they themselves would not help their fellow man.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I suppose I don't understand why no one is bitching about the fact that the sheriffs department wasn't willing to foot the $20 to save the man's life either...