Slashdot Mirror
NYC Police Gathering Cellphone Logs
Dupple writes "When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone's call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect. But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose. The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files."
"Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files."
In other words, guilt by association.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Isn't a subpoena a court order?
if my phone is ever stolen i give the NYPD permission to monitor the calls the scumbags make off MY PROPERTY
and one of these days i need to go down to the police station and have the NYPD engrave my phone like they do with cars
the cops aren't really that smart
good police work has always been about going through mountains of data and finding one or two clues to catch the scumbags. most criminals are morons as well and leave lots of clues that have to be found and identified.
a few years back a doctor was killed near the elementary school i went to. the cops caught the guy in georgia. the scumbag tried to jump a subway turnstile years ago and was caught. the cops got a partial print from the bullet and went through the old arrest records paper finger prints manually to catch the guy. turns out he was related to the doctor's soon to be ex-wife and there were lots of cell phone records and now she's in jail as well
in the 21st century we have computers and the police don't have to do a lot of repetative work anymore
My guess is insurance fraud reasons. So you want a new phone, report the old one stolen, get the official theft report from the cops, but are dumb enough to keep using the old phone to call the same people until you visit the local dealer (phone dealer, just another branch of organized crime) to get a replacement under your theft insurance contract.
In the old days this happened when you'd get a $1000 bill for calling guatemala for 8 hours... Um uh that wasn't me, uh, um stolen yeah thats it ... "so why, after the thief ran up the international bill, did the thief call your mom and talk to her for 15 minutes?" "...."
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Hello, this is MichaelDelving. I think someone called you from my iphone last night at 8:37... Do you remember? Well, I'm going to call these 5 other numbers, and see if any of these other people know... I just want to get my phone back, not get anyone in any trouble...
Start nice, and then go through the list more angry (or resigned to just giving over phone call and text info to police). Eventually, either someone fesses up, or scares the perp into contacting you.
Arrange to meet somewhere nonscary, like the customer service desk of Walmart.
"Monitoring" is an active, ongoing process. Obtaining call records is a one-time request for a static set of data. Not the same.
What happens when the phone is recovered? Do they stop monitoring or continue? What happens to the old data? Is the phone number itself included as part of the cross-referenced net, ergo in the future your phone number could be linked to a murder/drug deal gone sour and you're the only primary suspect because of your phone number?
To clarify, your phone number is in "the net". The phone is used to call a drug store (Walgreens, CVS, etc) while stolen. The phone is recovered. Crime happens somewhere between phone recovery and you calling the same drug store. You are now a primary target with the cops not thinking about this kind of slim situation...