Cops are using cell-phone tracking as a routine tool...

 Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.

The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.

 With cellphones ubiquitous, the police call phone tracing a valuable weapon in emergencies like child abductions and suicide calls and investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training manual describes cellphones as “the virtual biographer of our daily activities,” providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and travels. Full story...

Related posts:

1. Police in Michigan downloading motorists' smart phone information illegally...
2. Email and web use 'to be monitored' under new laws in Big Brother Britain...
3. Cell-phones are the new bat signals...
4. Your iPhone may not be your friend, could betray you...
5. Big Brother cell phones and the Carrier IQ conspiracy...
6. You're smartphone isn't smart, it's a sneak...
7. Microsoft 'intentionally designed software for phones to track customers...
8. Yahoo condemned over plans to snoop on emails on behalf of advertisers...
9. Like the iPhone, Android phones record user-locations too...
10. Researchers display evidence that iPhone 4 records all your travels...