Report: Sprint Disclosed 8M+ GPS Locations to LEOs

[RobRich]

An alleged audio clip of Sprint's Electronic Surveillance Manager details how the telecom provider has reportedly assisted law enforcement officials by processing over 8 million cell service GPS location requests, many of which were likely fulfilled under warrantless wiretapping requests.

The fact that federal, state, and local law enforcement can obtain communications "metadata"—URLs of sites visited, e-mail message headers, numbers dialed, GPS locations, etc.—without any real oversight or reporting requirements should be shocking, but it isn't. The courts ruled in 2005 that law enforcement doesn't need to show probable cause to obtain your physical location via the cell phone grid. All of the aforementioned metadata can be accessed with an easy-to-obtain pen register/trap & trace order. But given the volume of requests, it's hard to imagine that the courts are involved in all of these.

Source: Ars Technica

[cunokyle]

You have a cell phone...expect to be tracked if the police need to find you...no big deal.

[RobRich]

Sprint replies:

Sprint Defuses GPS Privacy Media Bomb - By simply talking about it with the press... - dslreports.com

[Taxmancometh]

FCC - Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act

When C-Block hits the market, look out. The mobile device has to query a database using the on board geo location technology to determine if that wonderful mobile device will interfere with wireless mics, etc. The FCC recently sent out a request for companies interested in managing said database. So I wonder if location based ads will spring up?