Cell carriers see dramatic increase in surveillance requests
(CNET) Wireless carriers say they received 1.3 million requests last year from law enforcement agencies for subscriber text messages, caller locations and other information, reflecting a steady increase during the past five years.
Carriers' responses to a congressional inquiry, as reported by the New York Times, reveal that thousands of records were turned over on a daily basis in response to law enforcement emergencies, subpoenas and other court orders.
Nine carriers supplied reports in response to the inquiry, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. The number of requests addressed by the study - the first time law enforcement's cell surveillance has been studied at a national level - surprised some officials who follow the issue closely.
"I never expected it to be this massive," Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, told the Times. "There's a real danger we've already crossed the line."
Law enforcement requests for information have risen 12 percent to 16 percent for each of the past five years, the Times noted. AT&T said it now responds to more than 700 request a day, about a third of which do not require court orders or subpoenas, while Sprint said it logged the most requests for information than any carrier last year, reporting a daily average of 1,500 data requests.
In order to address all the requests and determine their legality, most carriers reported employing round-the-clock teams of lawyers and technicians, The Times reported.
The inquiry results emerge as
The explosion in official requests for information mirrors an increase in government activity on the Internet. In June,
This article originally appeared on CNET.