Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages

[Jazzy]

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Americans' private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that police have submitted to the U.S. Congress.



CNET has learned a constellation of law enforcement groups has asked the U.S. Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement can hinder law enforcement investigations.

Full article



[font=tahoma, geneva, sans-serif]Did you even know your text messages were being stored?

 

[Flurry]

Is this even really considered Legal?

 

[Jazzy]

Is this even really considered Legal?

Apparently it's been going on for a long time:

[font=Georgia, 'Time New Roman', serif]

As the popularity of text messages has exploded in recent years, so has their use in criminal investigations and civil lawsuits. They have been introduced as evidence in

armed robbery, cocaine distribution, and wire fraud[font=Georgia, 'Time New Roman', serif] prosecutions. In one 2009 case in Michigan, wireless provider SkyTel turned over the contents of 626,638 SMS messages, a figure described by a federal judge as staggering.

 

[Cranos]

Yes, I did. They checked mine once when a friend was arrested. That was fun... >_>

 

[Jazzy]

Yes, I did. They checked mine once when a friend was arrested. That was fun... >_>

Oh good grief! Hope there weren't any sex texts they were privy to.

 

[Cranos]

Oh good grief! Hope there weren't any sex texts they were privy to.

It's possible, they started asking questions about texts that I already deleted from my phone. They had logs of at least 2 months, but they were only interested in my male friends. We still don't know why.

 

[Evil Eye]

Did you even know your text messages were being stored?

No, but I'm not surprised... at all.

Everything gets stored...