Very often we notice that policemen tend to fail in tracking criminals. Proper research and contacts are required to get hold of the criminal and eliminate crimes.
Federal Officials are in talks with the court to allow mobile phones companies to furnish real-time tracking data that enables the officials to locate the whereabouts of various criminal suspects such as drug traffickers, fugitives etc.
According to judges and industry lawyers, in some cases judges also grant requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is a probable cause of belief that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime.
On the contrary, the Justice Department’s internal recommendation stated that the federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. Moreover, the requests and orders are sealed at the government’s request, making it difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.
However, privacy advocates are scared of such a practice as it may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.
Wireless carriers are in the race to offer sleek services, which enables mobile phone owners to know where their friends or families are with just a touch of a button. Now, the companies are on the verge to make it up for the investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking.
E911 tracking systems read signals sent to satellites from a phone’s Global Positioning System (GPS) chip or triangulated radio signals sent from phones to cell towers.
For instance, Sprint Nextel claims that its “loopt” service even sends an alert when a friend is near, “putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town”. The Verizon Chaperone service allows parents to set up a “geofence” around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the mobile phone, travels outside that area.
Judges and industry lawyers mentioned that some federal prosecutors are applying for orders based on a standard lower than probable cause derived from two statues, namely the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register Statute. These orders are issued by magistrate judges in United States district courts, who often handle applications for search warrants.
“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,” said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA — the Wireless Association, in a July comment to the Federal Communications Commission.
A lack of consistent legal standard for tracking a user’s location has made it difficult for carriers to comply with law enforcement agencies demands, he added.
