Monitoring the monitors

How far can law enforcement go when it comes to tapping into wireless communications for investigations?

According to a recent Associated Press story, it appears the boundaries are gray at best, and there has been an alarming surge in local, state and federal requests for consumers’ cellphone records.

Federal law is highly refined when it comes to wiretaps and home searches, but it has yet to adapt to the high-tech wireless world.

There were more than 1.3 million requests for cell phone records in 2011, with law enforcement seeking customer locations, text messages and call details, frequently without warrants. Several major wireless companies are reporting annual increases in requests of more than 12 percent over the last few years.

So we have to ask some serious questions. Is there more crime? Are criminals using wireless technology more? Or is law enforcement expanding its reach into areas where it shouldn’t? Is law enforcement going “fishing” for evidence before it has probable cause to do so and encroaching on consumer privacy?

We have seen legitimate and effective use of wireless technology by local law enforcement. Cellphone records provided key evidence in the trial of Justine Winter, who was convicted of killing a mother and her son in a head-on collision. In another case, after a 12-year-old girl was abducted and taken out-of-state by two men, law enforcement was able to locate them by tracking cellphone signals.

But there also need to be protections and guidelines to prevent abuses, and fortunately Congress is looking into the issue. Bipartisan bills were introduced last year, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., recently released statistical information about how cellphone records are being used by authorities.

“Law enforcement agencies are looking for a needle, but what are they doing with the haystack?” Markey asks. “We need to know how law enforcement differentiates between records of innocent people, and those that are subjects of investigation, as well as how it handles, administers and disposes of this information.”

We certainly do need to know about all those things, and hopefully Congress can bring it about. In this day and age, information is power more than ever, and we need to make sure that government’s access to both information and power are limited, just as the Bill of Rights intended.