It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect.
But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose.
So the phone companies are just handing over not only your old phones activaties, but also your activaties on your new phone?
As a result, three detectives said in interviews, the phone companies’ response sometimes includes call records for not only the stolen phone, but also the victim’s new phone, depending on variables like how quickly the victim transfers the old phone number to a new handset and how many days of calls the subpoena seeks.
The end of the story doesn't add up either. If a victim of thieft is to call the phone company after calling the police and learn anything about their stolen phone activaties, then why does the police need this data base? I'm sure it can be useful, but having a networked system that can track and connect phone numbers seems too "Big Brotherish".
In interviews, detectives said that if an arrest occurs, it is often a result of earlier investigative steps. Chief Pulaski’s memos from Sept. 28 instruct detectives to use any tracking or location application on the victim’s phone to track down a suspect. Victims are asked to immediately call the phone carrier and learn the details of any phone calls placed after the theft. In addition, detectives ask the victim not to transfer their phone number to a new phone for about four days. Finally, detectives are then required to prepare a subpoena, the results of which usually take a few weeks.
It's like your picturing "TOP MEN" from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", but I'm looking at the American Policy Institute from the TV show "Rubicon".
Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
You know, the more the NYPD and others try to become their own little versions of the National Security Agency the more I chuckle softly and see them as less a threat than they otherwise may become with intrusive intelligence files.
An agency with a room full of records and files on individual people scare me. An agency with a WAREHOUSE full of that data just gives me amusement at their own belief that they can be effective. There is something to the concept of diminishing returns and NYPD is well on the road to getting there. Like the NSA in terrorism, the problem hasn't been a LACK of information for many years. Even 9/11 showed how clear it was looking back into the late 1990's for what they were doing....in hindsight.
When they collect an ocean of data, one thimble at a time, they need people to get that data back OUT in a useful form....one thimble at a time. ...and so, become a victim of their own overwhelming success. Let them keep collecting. The more the better. The faster they amass that ocean, the faster we can watch them become ineffecrtive by it and drown in the sea of data. ..just like the NSA has.