In April, 老澳门开奖结果 of Colorado filed public records requests seeking to learn about their local law enforcement agencies鈥 policies, procedures, and practices for tracking cell phones, bringing the total count of 老澳门开奖结果-filed cell phone location tracking public records requests to over 400. (We鈥檝e written about what we鈥檝e learned nationwide here, here, here, here, and here, and our findings were featured in in April). What Colorado learned is particularly interesting because a remarkable number of law enforcement agencies in Colorado are getting before tracking cell phone location information鈥Arvada, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, and El Paso County always get warrants in investigative circumstances鈥攁nd because Denver鈥檚 practices pretty much follow existing legislative proposals, proving these bills totally workable.
Denver鈥檚 rubric closely mirrors the requirements of the proposed federal , as well as various state bills that would govern location tracking. The Denver Police Department requires a warrant for location tracking as a general rule, and provides an exception for missing people or true emergency situations where law enforcement must then go to the court and show probable cause after the fact. The fact that the police in Denver follow privacy-protective principles when tracking cell phone location belies claims by some that such procedures would impose unworkable burdens on law enforcement. They鈥檙e reasonable in Denver, and they would be reasonable nationwide.
And other Colorado police departments have even more privacy-protective practices than Denver. Summit County gets cell phone location information *only* where they 鈥渉ave needed to locate a missing person in a Search and Rescue call, or to locate an individual who is suicidal.鈥 El Paso County obtains a probable cause warrant in every case, and only seeks information identifying which cell tower the phone was closest to at a given time. It appears that they鈥檙e not seeking more precise GPS location information or even to triangulate a phone鈥檚 location based on its proximity to multiple towers.
Another interesting tidbit from the Colorado documents we鈥檝e received: Douglas County sent us their 鈥淐omputer-Assisted Dispatch鈥 (CAD) reports for all incidents where location information was sought by officers citing emergency circumstances between January 2011 and April 2012. Some of the codes the department used were not readily identifiable, but of the 74 requests made, many seemed, in fact, to be bona fide emergencies. Thirty-one fell into the categories of potential suicides, checking on someone鈥檚 welfare, or missing persons. There was one request for location information in the context of a burglary, and (the dispatcher noted) Verizon refused to provide information in that context. The document was short on details, but it's interesting to see that Verizon is not just rubber-stamping every request from law enforcement.
Law enforcement agencies in several cities and counties in Colorado 鈥攁s well as, it seems, Verizon in Colorado鈥攁re setting great examples for their fellow agencies in Colorado and nationwide. Shouldn鈥檛 residents and visitors to Lincoln, Neb.; Wilson County, NC; Des Moines, Iowa; or Brick, NJ (to name a few) have the same level of privacy protection as the people of Denver, Colorado? After all, a person鈥檚 location can reveal a lot of about her. Is she frequenting gay bars? Alcoholics Anonymous meetings? A reproductive health clinic? A mosque? A fundamentalist church? Political protests? We shouldn't have to sacrifice our privacy just to use our cell phones. If you agree, .
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