Cell Phones, Missing Persons, and Privacy 295
An anonymous reader sends in a Seattle PI story about the use of cell phone records in missing-person cases. Typically, phone companies turn over location information to police without a warrant if one of their customers is reported missing; the police need only to state that the person may be in danger. In any criminal case, a warrant from a judge would be required before the telcos divulged any information. While in some poster-child cases lives have been saved as a result of this practice, it seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen. It is not a crime to go missing.
It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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'You have 20 seconds to comply!'
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the event that I am lost and my cell phone or GPS bracelet or other tracking devices are the only way to find and save me, I agree to just sit there and die. In exchange, I want my privacy back and do not want such records made available to nearly anyone who asks.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is need for phone records to be accessed, we have appropriate channels that law enforcement needs to go through to obtain such information.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I usually find it best to err on the side of privacy rather than safety"
Well, I have friends, we share our lives with each other, and would much prefer we look out for each other than live our lives in fear and have to hide from each other. Maybe we're just unique like that.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. The reason -- and the ONLY reason -- I even own a cellphone is to keep tabs on my 80-year old disabled shut-in mother (for whom I am a full-time caretaker) and enable her to contact me in an emergency if I am out running errands. If it weren't for that need, I wouldn't have the slightest interest in the damn thing. Unlike most people nowadays, I like being alone with my thoughts, my music, or whatever while out and about, and do not have the compulsive need to be constantly talking to anyone about anything at all times. Yes, I have friends (very few -- I look for quality, not quantity), but I chat with them in the privacy and comfort of my own home, maybe once or twice a week for an hour or so. I do not have the need to be yakking with them for hours on end about trivia while riding the bus or shopping at the supermarket or eating lunch out, nor the desire to broadcast those personal conversations to all within earshot.
To me, all these modern devices have made communication too easy and cheapened it, lowering it to the level of a nervous habit akin to chewing gum. We have vastly increased the ability to communicate, yet added nothing of substance or value to that communication. And I believe we are worse off as a society because of it.
Feel free to mod me down as "-1 old fogy."
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Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Funny)
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Oddly enough, I agree with you on everything except gum.
Personally, I chew gum because it helps keeps my mouth clean and my teeth healthy... And yes, some studies have found it lowers stress, but I consider that a side-benefit rather than an actual reason to chew.
But then, I suppose tis reflects a generational thing... Personally, I would much rather talk to someone chewing gum over someone on whose breath you can smell everything they'v
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
You really do sound like a bitter old man. Darn kids.
So mod down -1 old fogie viewing past with rose-colored glasses. Also mod down -1 too much justification about "quantity vs. quality" of friendships. Also mod down -1 would use cellphone for which supposedly has for "ONLY" one reason for many, many other reasons if an emergency arose, or maybe even if wanted a pizza on the way home from work thus proving it's not so bad to use a cellphone sometimes. That is unless, of course, carry-out pizzas have some how cheapened the entire food experience and dining, in which case he wouldn't do so.
In all seriousness, everybody talks about email, texting and cellphone use as "cheapening" communication, but it's merely changed it. Communication isn't like money where the primary basis is quantity, and the more you have, the less you usually appreciate it. I like being able to text my wife or friends with quick updates. I like being able to order food from my favorite places conveniently if I am out and about. Does this cheapen anything? No. It's not like I was pining for a deep, face-to-face conversation with the kid working the phones and the fryer at the takeout joint. And I don't try to have deep conversations with my wife using texts. But I just might have a deep conversation with her using our evil, communication-wrecking cellphones!
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as someone who loves his mobile devices, I think you're missing the point on this bit. It's very annoying because it's LOUDER. When two people are engaged in conversation in person they tend to speak in lower tones, FAR lower than most cellphone talkers. It's rude and annoying and I'm glad some establishments are cracking down on the practice. There's a time and place to have a nice phone chat; while I am crammed into a seat next to you in a movie, eater, bus, or plane are not those times and places. Unless of course you want me to use your phone on you as a suppository
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If you can hear both sides of the conversation, it's much easier to let it fall to the background.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:4, Insightful)
People who tlak loud, talk loud. Cell phone communication has gotten to the point where whispers can be heard. This isn't 1994.
"..eater, bus, or plane "
You have no expectation of silence in those areas.
So your compliant actually isn't against cell phones, it's against loud people. Loud being 'more amplitude then a normal conversation.'
Bit of a false dichotomy (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that's a bit of a false dichotomy there. There are about 6 billion shades of grey between 100% social, sharing every single moment with everyone, and 100% paranoid, affraid of everything that moves.
And even for a given person there are nuances in how much you trust them. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, either you broadcast every waking moment and detail of your life to them, or you fear them and hide from them.
E.g., I trust mom, but I wouldn't tell her my passwords. I don't "hide" from her, I don't "fear" her, and I certainly don't have any "delusions of grandeur", but it's just something that she doesn't need to know and accidentally end up telling everyone she knows. (For all her good intentions, she _is_ a terminal chatterbox and sometimes her mouth gets a whole lap ahead of her judgment.)
E.g., I trust grandma, but I wouldn't necessarily tell her each time I took a taxi to the railway station. She's seen a great depression as a child, and then a war, and still has certain... immutable ideas about money management, which would make the stereotypical Scotsman look positively spendthrift. So I'm just avoiding an unnecessary talk about how not only it's an abomination to blow a few euros on the taxi.
And from there it's even more shades of grey when it comes to who is entitled to know what. If you get far enough from there, some people don't need to know anything about me. A few people _are_ to be avoided.
And the implication is starting to somewhat bother me that, basically, if you want any privacy at all, then you're one of those guys that "live our lives in fear and have to hide from each other." It's just called being realistic enough, not being a paranoid hermit.
So let's lay that fallacy to rest already. So you have friends and talk to them. Even on the phone. Big deal. We all do. So you look out for each other. Big deal. Again, we all do. It still doesn't automatically overrule all and every privacy concerns. You don't need to be paranoid and afraid to not broadcast every moment of your life, you just need to be realistic enough.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no fan of nannying government or warrantless searches or secret warrants, but I find your position too fundamentalist for my taste; especially when your solution is so easy.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:4, Interesting)
This only becomes a problem if they start telling the telcos that Mr Xyz is missing when he isnt.
And then the lawsuit would be quite straight forward.
Mr Xyz knows that he wasnt missing and can probably back that up.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
The consequences of finding somebody who doesn't want to be found are much, much less severe than the consequences of not finding somebody who needs help, or who has already been murdered.
And by the way: if you REALLY want to get lost, and don't dump your cellphone, credit cards, etc. then you are a moron, and deserve to be found.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Interesting)
(I mean under normal, nonthreatening conditions, not just battered women's shelters and the like, where the assumption is already that you wish to remain "lost".)
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Informative)
I believe this the approach of the Salvation Army, who, although a God Squad do some good work amongst the down and outs and operate a very good missing persons service. Their approach on finding someone is to tell them they are being looked for and by whom and then to ask if it is ok to pass back the news that the person is in good health and then at the 'missing' person's choice, put them in contact with the person reporting them missing.
The thing is that the Sally Army do a personal visit to check things are ok. A mobile company calling you to find out whether you want to be found is too liable to abuse. That is, you could be kidnapped by a cult and forced to say you were ok and nobody would be the wiser.
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They could leave their cell phone behind, or remove the battery if they want to take the cell phone with them. Net result: a very slight inconvenience on those who want to leave town without telling someone.
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:5, Interesting)
If a person is missing without living a reasonable explanation, it's more likely than not that a crime has been committed. Most people at least leave a note or make a phone call if they run away from their spouse. Running away as a minor, from your own children or from a debt is a crime by itself. Given the massive loss of public resources otherwise, the law should probably require a signed note, without indication of new address needed, if someone just wants to be left alone.
Until then, if an adult with no outstanding obligation is found by police but does not wish to go back to his/her family, their whereabouts should not be revealed to any private citizens and their cell phone records should not be examined without a probable cause for investigating other crimes.
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do not attempt to evade court orders such as wage garnishment
Actually it depends on how you 'evade' them. You aren't breaking the law if you 'evade' a garnishment order by quitting your job. There's no law that says you HAVE to remain gainfully employed.
Likewise you aren't breaking the law if you leave your job for another company to 'evade' a garnishment order. Your creditors can call you in for a 'debtors examination' to find out where you work or bank and you are required to answer truthfully -- but what's true at 12pm doesn't still have to be true at 5pm -
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Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:4, Funny)
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If you want to worry about being stalked via your mobile phone, be worried about the phone company employees not the police.
I don't trust law enforcement any more than the next guy, but so long as they're logging the requests somewhere and looking for suspicious patterns I don't see a problem.
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By your logic i must inform the local police office about my whereabouts all the time.
Didn't the Gestapo have the same requirement in occupied France?
Re:It is not a crime to go missing. (Score:4, Informative)
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If you don't want to be found, just switch it off. If you want to ensure your privacy, don't carry a cell phone at all.
Yup. And if i don't want a headache, i just cut off my head! No sinus worries, no blocked nose, no headache. Nope.
Sorry, it does not work. Unless there is a specific complaint regarding a missing person, the cops should have zero right to proactively locate a missing person.
After all courts have repeatedly ruled that cops are not liable legally for not stopping a crime. So on same rule, they can't take action without a complaint to search for person they think is missing.
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However, I do think that if a missing person is "found" and declares that they wish to remain lost, the cops should, by law, be required to honour that.
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By enforcing it mwuhahahaaa... I got the cage all ready to go... now just working out where you're likely to be using an IP locator
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Am not talking about these instances, where you are running away from fraud and legal duties.
Iam talking about a person who has no dues legally, is above 18 yrs, and furthermore, just wishes to relocate anonymously. Yes he does file tax returns.
Am talking about getting a new identity because i facing a hard time.
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If you were missing deliberately, and had any kind of a clue, you'd have ditched your phone - so tracing it won't make any difference.
Community Caretaking (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worth noting that 4th Amendment rights almost entirely enforced via evidence suppression motions in criminal trials. If you aren't on trial for a crime, then generally you have no real legal way of challenging a search.
Re:Community Caretaking (Score:4, Interesting)
Further, most 4th Amendment cases are probably brought up in criminal cases because that is where the question arises most often! That doesn't mean that challenging an illegal search is pointless or "not done".
I was personally searched by police, illegally and in public, for a reason that would have still been illegal even it had not turned out to be imaginary. Believe me, when it happens to you, you don't take it so goddamned lightly!
"community caretaking" bedamned. If they searched MY telephone records without a warrant I would sue their asses off, and I think I would have a pretty good chance of making it stick.
Bivens and Section 1983 (Score:2)
Good luck with that.
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The only issue I see here is the potential for abuse. A police officer could lie to get the records and wouldn't be questioned about it. What if that police officer is corrupt? Sounds like a good way to find someone who was trying to dob them in and silence them. I bet other slashdotters can think of p
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He went on to say, and this is despite me being charged with a crime (not that shoul
Really hard to get worked up about this (Score:4, Interesting)
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I agree with the parent poster mostly, though. Personally, if I ever intentionally go missing and do take my phone (unlikely), it'll be without a battery except in the unlikely event I decide to use it.
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I think your perception of the average Slashdot reader, and mine, may vary significantly...
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Here is one of the problems: once people look away when illegal searches are done, next thing you know 1000 innocent people (like me) get their records or personal effects searched for every "missing" person who is saved.
This is clearly demonstrated by hundreds of hears of history. Get out your history books and read all about it.
It's not a crime to go missing... BUT (Score:5, Informative)
Also, since we're reading about this in the "Seattle PI", it's worth mentioning that suicide is illegal in the State of Washington and the phone they were tracking belonged to a suicidal young man.
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and attracts the death penalty.
You forgot the word "ALLEGEDLY" (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the fact that they don't get a warrant... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The police don't use the information. They give, or sell it to someone else.
Think industrial espionage. Your competitor wants to keep tabs on you, see who you are meeting with and when. They know someone on the police force who needs a couple of bucks and can use their credentials to get tracking info. and call data.
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Save the crack for the customers!
Franklin? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Franklin? (Score:5, Insightful)
To everyone else, of course, if I were missing, yeah I'd want my telco to help find me. And yes of course my safety is more important than my privacy and more important than the many many many ways in which this can be abused.
But honestly folks, when was the last time that you went missing? How many times do you risk getting kidnapped? I'm not living out in the middle of nowhere where I accidentally dangle from a cliff. And I'm not in any sort of a dangerous city. And 90% of those dangers don't provide for the time to be rescued.
So we're talking about a time when I need rescuing, and my government has the time to realize that I'm missing and then to actually find me. Come on. When does that happen?
I'll tell you when it happens. It happens when a friend or family member is expecting me to be somewhere, and I'm a few hours late and unreachable. That's not police asking the telco, it's pretty much my next of kin.
Now I have no problem organize a list of people, to whom I grant the power of grey skull to be given my mobile phone's location. Quite frankly, I think that's a great idea in general. But it won't be my government. It'll be my parents, my children, my wife, a few crazy-close friends, my business partners, and perhaps a really good neighbour. Oh, and my doctor and my lawyer. In other words, people who already have a key to my home, a code to my alarm, power of attorney, or some equivalent level of trust that far over-shadow my location as a point of privacy.
Re:Franklin? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know! Lets ask some commonly-trusted community representative to act on behalf of all these people that could be concerned about your whereabouts. Some group that has a reasonable idea of law and procedure for these kind of things, and could be held accountable to some degree if they try and abuse said trust...... then anyone - anyone, not just those on your list - genuinely concerned for your whereabouts, could contact these representatives for help and make their case for further assistance. The telcos - having dealt with said representatives semi-regularly - would already have a relatively trusting arrangement with them, knowing already that they wouldn't generally ask if it wasn't generally necessary, with the overall setup saving time and hassles when someone has a legitimate concern for your safety.
Note then that this setup doesn't require any action or upkeep from you, in case you forget to keep your list of friends/doctors/lawyers/neighbors/good samaritians in sync with the telcos list.
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Good Idea.
Lets have the representatives dress all the same so we know who they are, maybe in Blue (nice color), and they can do other things while they wait for us to be missing, like hand out parking tickets and eat excess donuts etc.
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I dunno, I can see it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it's theoretically possible to parlay powers granted that way into other, less useful acts, but... look, I'm no apologist; I think that many things they do are thoughtless, wicked, and treasonous, but they do have their uses, and in this instance? I'd need to see a case of it being abused, and I'd need it proven that existing case law wasn't sufficient to redress the abuse, before I got too excited about it.
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(The idea is that with po
Low Standard for "Missing" (Score:2, Informative)
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Going Off The Grid 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you really wanted to go 'missing', maybe try telling someone first, just to let them know that yo
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I certainly hope not anywhere in the "free world".
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A big gray area here (Score:2)
As someone on a Search & Rescue team (Score:5, Interesting)
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That is a DIFFERENT MATTER (Score:4, Insightful)
As I have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I have been the victim of illegal search by overzealous law enforcement. And if I find out that somebody has illegally accessed or searched my phone records (or other private records), then they would get sued. Period. I would use the best lawyer I could manage to retain, and I would go for the throat.
Again, your situation was a 911 call, and you were right to be furious. But the primary matter under discussion here is VERY different.
And I can answer one of your questions above quite easily: the cell phone company is prohibited by law from disclosing those phone records. You would not get anywhere suing them for complying with the law. But you could most likely sue them for violating it by giving up your records without a warrant.
And no, in the vast majority of cases it is nothing at all like not yielding to a fire engine that is responding, because they are very seldom "911" situations. And if they are, the police CAN typically get an "emergency" warrant in under an hour. So the illegal search is STILL not justified.
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Re:As someone on a Search & Rescue team (Score:5, Insightful)
A person calling 911 and asking for help is explicitly asking to be found. If AT&T really did that, they should be sued for reckless endangerment. There's simply no excuse for that.
In cases of a third-party report of the person being missing, that's a little different. That said, it is still better to err on the side of caution and send someone to find the person. Upon finding the missing person, the police should be obligated to reveal who is looking for him/her, and if the missing person says "I don't want to be found by him/her," the police should be obligated by law to report that and only that to the person looking for him/her. There should also be protections in place to prevent a corrupt police officer from falsely claiming that someone reported a person missing in order to stalk that person. That's a reasonable balance between safety and privacy for most sane people.
Simple Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
If the telco is required to inform the customer each time their location is provided to law enforcement (or anyone else), that will stop abuse. If I'm stuck in a ditch, a text message to the effect that my location has just been provided to assist in my rescue isn't going to upset me.
Uh... (Score:2)
Okay, okay, I guess you meant get a text message later. I can buy that.
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A well-publicized rescue based on cell signals (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.news.com/2100-1028_3-6140118.html [news.com]
James Kim's family was rescued because of a *single* ping received from a dying cell phone at a remote tower in Oregon.
Don't call me. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not rocket science (Score:3, Insightful)
If any info used for a criminal case is obtained 'illegally' (such as without a warrant) it is declared 'tainted' and is unusable. No one gets shagged, no one's a hero, some DA ripps some one a new ass and whatever nasties were discovered are now protected.
What's the big deal? It's not a perfect system - but parts of it generally do work, now and then.
Isn't it a crime? (Score:3, Interesting)
Causing cops extra work for no reward is universally punishable by law, by some strange coincidence.
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Mandatory implanting people with tracking units... (Score:4, Interesting)
Cell phones with GPS (mandated for our benefit) could also be used to help find missing people, like those terrorists. Terrorists that speak out against the government, or a political party, or anyone claiming to be law enforcement.
But "It's for the children!" (Score:2)
Re:But "It's for the children!" (Score:5, Funny)
Or at least where their skull is.
Judge's signature necessary? FALLACY. (Score:3, Interesting)
Any Telco/ISP that receives a DA-signed warrant will either 1. comply or 2. get owners/officers dragged into court, and into jail if they refuse to comply.
I know this because I brought such a case to the Oregon ACLU, who was very interested. So intersted that within 12 hours of my detailed e-mail, they asked their lawyers to look at it. The lawyers pointed out the Oregon and federal laws to me, and explained that other states had equivalent statutes. Game over.
The basic case was this: Somebody with a laptop lojack-type tracking software installed had their laptop stolen. The company who managed the tracking software had pinpointed it to an IP address on my network. A Portland, OR police detective then sent an affidavit signed by a Portland DA to get the identity of the user behind this IP address. I refused to give him the information, thinking that there was legal protection for my network user. The detective threatened to drag me into court and so I contacted the ACLU. The ACLU's contact page said I should wait up to 36 days to get a reply. This was around 8 PM. At 8:30 AM the next morning, the office of the director called me back with a keen interest in the case. Cool, eh?
hen, their lawyers got involved. They informed me of the multitude of laws which make this perfectly legitimate activity. This was not the answer I expected (and apparently not the answer that the Oregon ACLU director's office expected, either, because they completely lost interest.) They also told me that the threats to force us to appear in court over the matter were no joking matter.
In the end, we never heard from the customer that we outed, or at least they still pay their bill. So, it may have worked out ok for everyone. Anyways, the guys who are out there selling anyone's phone records for the asking are doing the same thing with the carriers - pretending to be district attorneys, not judges.
WRONG (Score:2)
So maybe Oregon has such state laws, but in my state that would never fly.
There are a number of federal laws, also, that make it
But maybe not... (Score:2)
Was the information requested as part of the discovery process in an ongoing trial? If so, then a subpoena is all that is necessary, not a warrant.
Did the owner of the equipment give consent to have his property tracked? (Probably, if it was LoJacked.) If so, then the IP that it was sending from might NOT be considered private information at all, and a warrant would not be necessary! After all, it is the owner's equipment.
TOS (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to disappear without your family being able to find you, just get yourself a new cell phone. It seems kind of stupid to keep running around with the old one anyway.
ah damn it.. that is how they found me... (Score:2)
I'd have thought it was obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Sign a place on your cell contract that either permits or denies permission to use your records in the event you go missing. Seems easy enough.
Ok, just ask first... (Score:2)
Dear Police: (Score:4, Funny)
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People might complain about breaches of privacy, but they'll complain even more if that privacy leads to an otherwise avoidable death.
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Won't somebody thing of the children...!
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You gave out your number. You wanted to be connected. If you change your mind, and want to sneak around on your wife, leave the phone at home or turn it off.
What is so hard about that? Turn it OFF.
Re:Police had reason to believe it was an emergenc (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think this forum is appropriate to debate whether or not a person does have such a right, but it would probably help to understand the other posts if you realize that many people consider suicide to be an inalienable right.