From the NY Times:
For more than a decade, investigators have been able to match an antenna tower with a cellphone signal to track a phone’s location to within a radius of about 200 yards in urban areas and up to 20 miles in rural areas. Now many more cellphones are equipped with global-positioning technology that makes it possible to pinpoint a user’s position with much greater precision, down to a few dozen yards.
To track suspects in real time, law enforcement officials must ask a phone company to “ping,” or send a signal to, a phone; for the effort to succeed, the phone must be turned on, though it does not have to be in use. The police can then use a vehicle with signal-tracking equipment to narrow down the location.
“Law enforcement has a responsibility to keep pace with the latest advances in technology in order to improve its efficiency in combating crime,” said Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, whose office successfully prosecuted Mr. Mallayev, adding that criminals are “unknowingly Twittering with law enforcement” whenever they use their cellphones.
The data obtained by the civil liberties union provides a rare glimpse into crime-fighting techniques that law enforcement agencies are reluctant to talk about. Since Sept. 12, 2001, federal prosecutors in New Jersey have gained access to cellphone tracking information without warrants in 98 investigations resulting in 83 prosecutions.
Investigators have used cellphone tracking in a variety of ways: in Michigan to trace a fugitive suspected of killing his wife to a wilderness park, and in Florida to seek a suspected serial killer eventually killed in a police shootout.
Why the civil liberties unions are against the police using cell phone GPS data does not make sense to me. The police are using this data to track and convict suspects after a crime has occurred. The police are not making this private information public or mis-using the data. It's also very hard to refute the success rate here: 98 investigations resulting in 83 prosecutions. That's simply amazing – AND, the technology bill was not footed by the taxpayers.
No Comments so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.