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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."
Any time something like this happens everyone from the first manager with the authority to do something that refuses all the way up the chain gets held responsible for whatever happens as a result of their refusal to act.
Guy dies, they get held responsible for murder because they chose to not assist the police knowing full well that their actions would cause the death of another human being.
Never going to happen.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The cops should have just told Verizon they were the NSA. Verizon would have given them anything.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
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.
Where was this Verizon when the warrantless wiretaps were going on? They are a business, they have no obligation to help with police work. It may have been nice but it is not necessary.
I wish Verizon had grown these balls much earlier.
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.
Whatever happened to the requirement to provide 911 service to any phone, paid up or not?
Back in the old analog days, the network operators were required to connect any calls to 911, whether the phone had a current account or not. Even after letting my Motorola brick's account lapse, I kept it in the glove compartment for just such an emergency, since analog service has much greater range (and coverage area) than digital (until they turned it off). If this requirement is still in effect, an unpaid phone would still check in with the nearest cell when entering its coverage area and could be tracked. Even if it was blocked from placing or receiving calls. That would seem to be a minimum requirement to support the E911 requirement. Unless the networks have managed to weasel out of yet another law, that is.
Have gnu, will travel.
...when we as a species will have to choose between whether we want to allow any and all life on this planet to survive, or whether we want to allow the corporation to survive.
The survival of Man and the corporation are mutually exclusive. In order for one to survive, the other must eventually die.
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."
'I was more concerned for the person's life,' Sheriff Dale Williams said.
Bully for the cops, for a change! The guys who are supposed to protect and serve, who get such a bad rap in recent years, were trying to figure out how to pay a bill for a guy who was trying to off himself. Goddamit but that makes me feel good.
BTW - Verizon was perfectly willing to give up the location in return for $20.
Reminds me of the old punch line: "We've established what you are. We're just haggling over the price."
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm sure the terms of service clearly state that if you haven't paid your bill you can't get phone access even to save your life.
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.
It was actually .002 cents he owed them.
The first time I heard the story, the person was Winston Churchill. But it changes all the time. I've also heard it be George Bernard Shaw. Here goes:
Winston Churchill was at a dinner party, and asked the woman next to him if she would sleep with him for one million pounds. She hemmed and hawed for a while before saying "Yes, I would." Churchill then asked her if she'd sleep with him for 10 pounds. Aghast, she asked him, "What kind of woman do you think I am?" Churchill replied, "We've already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just haggling over the price."
You know, anyone past the first tier support person should have seen this as an opportunity for some good publicity. They could have issued a press release saying that they turned the guy's phone back on so the police could save him. Then they could have advertised how having their service helps keep people safe. Etc. Etc.
But they didn't.
I don't know what's a worse. Not turning the phone on or running your company so poorly that no one ever thinks of alternative solutions or thinks more than five minutes ahead.
Enjoy your bad publicity, Verizon. You've earned it.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
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
Immediate chapter 7 with the government first in line for any payouts (ahead of shareholders, who should be taking part in the risk if they own part of something who commits murder/manslaughter)
Right now many of these companies have been granted a public monopoly on RF spectrum. The public had better be getting something in return for this; as soon as we're not, as soon as it's no longer in the public interest to grant exclusive license to broadcast on a given frequency to Verizon, that license ought to go away.
Remember, a corporation is a "legal person" so you can't punish an employee for obeying the will of the company.
No. The corporation's status as a legal person protects share holders. It does not protect employees of the corporation. If I charter the "Mafia Collection Agency" corporation and hire assassins, they can still be punished for murder.
In this particular case, an employee that receives the request from law enforcement has three possible actions:
1. Help, turn the phone on.
2. Ignore or delay the request.
3. Escalate to a supervisor.
#1 may or may not be possible to a customer support representative. #3 is an acceptable action.
The highest level that got a documented request and ignored it should be criminally liable. After a few mid level managers go to jail, nobody would be willing to ignore this type of request. Managers would make sure the CYA and send this up the chain until it got to somebody with common sense.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
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.
Capitalism at it's best. Verizon has a right to keep the service off until the bill is paid, otherwise it's simply government interference in the free market. This isn't a charity, it's a company. If you didn't want to die, them maybe you should not have gone crazy; it's your own fault and you deserve to die. /sarcasm
Anyone remember the story of an elderly man in the Midwest who died because he could not pay his bill and so the utility company reduced his heat in the middle of winter, causing him to freeze to death?
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."
"BTW - Verizon was perfectly willing to give up the location in return for $20."
Hey officer. I've got the information you need right here. You want it? You pay me for it.
extortion, much?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
An interesting idea - but what about family members who don't want to be found? A man leaving his family, or a domestic abuse victim, perhaps?
Also, how many people would this affect in practice? I can't imagine that the set of people who need to be found in an emergency, who just happen to have not paid their bills, and despite their lost network access they still have their phone with them and turned on, would be that significant anyway. Should laws be based on one-off rare cases? We don't even know if it would've worked in this case - did the guy have his non-working phone with him, when he fled in his craze of insanity? It's also unclear if they would've been able to find and contact any family members in time, too.
They are a cell phone company.
Usually they confine themselves to extorting regular citizens, but it was only a matter of time until they started working their way up.
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.
TFA doesn't state if the police followed proper law enforcment req protocol
for example if they where smart enough to google
verizon wireless law enforcement requests
and read the 800 number that is in the very first result (I won't post the number as it is law enforcement only)
but blah blah blah
(press "1" for general information, press "2" for subpoenas, press "3" for court orders and press "4" for EXIGENT situations)
I assume they want 4 =p or a court order barring success w/ an EXIGENT situation request.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
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.
See e.g. Searches And Seizures FAQ (PDF). The police don't need a warrant if they have a reasonable fear that their safety, or that of the public, is in imminent danger. This case seems to be a cut and dried emergency case. Now, whether the Verizon operator had a legal duty (moral duty is obvious) to comply with the police's emergency request.. I imagine the operator, or Verizon itself, could be charged with Obstruction of Justice.
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
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...
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
I have a question for you. If there is no sim card in the phone, how do they know what phone to track?
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...