If you haven’t had the chance to read Sean O’Sullivan’s article in Sunday’s News Journal about the ability of the police in Delaware to track you via your cell phone, you should do so now.
O’Sullivan looks at a few national cases where police overstepped the bounds of law enforcement to get cell phone tracking data and then goes on to look at how police in Delaware are obtaining this data. In the several interviews O’Sullivan did, it seems as though the police are trying to be above-board in getting this data.
Deputy Attorney General Paul Wallace said state prosecutors handle all requests for cellphone data from all Delaware police agencies and seek approval from a Superior Court judge before going to the cellphone providers to get location information. There is an exception for emergency situations in which police agencies are able to obtain information immediately and directly from cell providers.
However that last line is quite ominous and it bears repeating:
There is an exception for emergency situations in which police agencies are able to obtain information immediately and directly from cell providers.
Who decides if it is an emergency? The police do. Have there been instances when a police officer has been disciplined for getting data when it wasn’t an emergency? In reading the article, one has to read between the lines of police department spokesmen.
Officers with several other Delaware police agencies indicated in interviews last week that cellphone location data is an important police tool. New Castle County Police Cpl. John Weglarz Sr. said the county seeks such information in emergency circumstances — such as situations involving a suicidal subject — but it does not seek it “on a routine basis.”
Dewey Beach Police said it is rare for a small agency like theirs to seek such information. “Once or twice a year,” said Sgt. Clifford Dempsey, and then usually for a missing-person investigation.
But the Delaware State Police was a bit more forthcoming and honest saying that “such requests are becoming ‘much more common’.” Rep. Darryl Scott (D-Dover) is working on a bill to better address this issue.