Diagram of law-enforcement surveillance costs ($0.04/hr tracking cell phones)

[AgentGrey]

The article expands on everything in the diagram with more detail, I just took out the piece pertaining to cell phones. Link at the bottom if you want to read it.

Rather than pursue a suspect in the field, law enforcement agents can track subjects by following the signal of their cell phones by obtaining location information from the provider.Cell phone carriers have the ability to provide reliable data on the location of a phone at any minute with a reasonable degree of accuracy, often down to a particular city block.

Data gathered by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) show that cell phone companies will provide location data to law enforcements at varying rates. As of August 2009, “Sprint charges $30 per month per target to use its L-Site program for location tracking. AT&T’s E911 tool costs $100 to activate and then $25 a day. T-Mobile charges a much pricier $100 per day.” We used this data to develop an hourly rate for each company, and we present the minimum and maximum charges as the range of hourly costs law enforcement might expect to pay for this method of surveillance. Our calculations include any fees charged to initialize the process (when applicable) because they are specific to an investigation, but those costs are included in the hourly rate.

Given the downward trajectory of technological costs, the increased automation of these services via self-service web portals, and the fact that reimbursement to carriers is limited to reasonable, directly incurred costs, we might expect that these rates will decline further over time.

http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-y...e:-making-cents-out-of-united-states-v.-jones

 

[AgentGrey]

Oh so this is unimportant and irrelevant huh.

@Say it Wit Ya Chest

 

[JasonSJackson]

fukk sprint, get a beeper and i wonder what verizon charges them

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

So it should be acceptable because it's cheaper?

 

[AgentGrey]

So it should be acceptable because it's cheaper?

No.

Its showing that its more cost-effective for them tap cellphones, something that has become a necessity in our society.
Consider it another "big brother is watching" thread.

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

No.

Its showing that its more cost-effective for them tap cellphones, something that has become a necessity in our society.
Consider it another "big brother is watching" thread.

Well, the government is not a corporation so cost-effectiveness should be the last factor when determining methods to reduce criminality. Tapping cellphones is not a necessity, solely an attempt to justify surveillance on ordinary citizens.

 

[Mr. Pink]

What I don't understand is, who is this going to work on? Any criminal with a halfway functioning brain is going to remove the battery from his phone. What then?

 

[AgentGrey]

Well, the government is not a corporation so cost-effectiveness should be the last factor when determining methods to reduce criminality. Tapping cellphones is not a necessity, solely an attempt to justify surveillance on ordinary citizens.

-You are right about the government having "unlimited" funding.
-I meant that owning a cellphone is a necessity.
-I believe that the bolded is true. If it is cheaper, does that not mean that the government is more likely to use it on ordinary citizens? Seeing as it costs them literally pennies to do so? Sure, they have the capability to do so right now, but it would be a relatively large amount of money wasted to seek out a small population of criminals (drug dealing, terror, fraud, etc)

What I don't understand is, who is this going to work on? Any criminal with a halfway functioning brain is going to remove the battery from his phone. What then?

Well, ideally a criminal would use a phone once and throw it away. Realistically it depends on the nature of crime for you to even consider that. Not all of them are profiting hundreds of thousands to buy phones and toss them after every call.

 

[Mr. Pink]

Well, ideally a criminal would use a phone once and throw it away. Realistically it depends on the nature of crime for you to even consider that. Not all of them are profiting hundreds of thousands to buy phones and toss them after every call.

Well obviously mafia or cartel types, serious criminals, will always have to be tailed physically by agents, so this doesn't even apply here.
But even your average dopeboy would know enough to remove the battery out of his phone when he's doing dirt or conspiring to do dirt.

I just fail to see the usefulness of this. Serious criminals don't trust cell phones, and small fries didn't warrant surveillance anyway. It's not like every guy who has a drug spot has a detective assigned to him. So what's the point in comparing the cost of "covert car pursuit" to this, since "covert car pursuit" was always reserved for the bigger players. It seems disingenuous.
***

To use an example from The Wire, you're never going to keep tabs on a Stringer Bell or a Prop Joe with this. It might do it for a Poot or a Bodie, but you these people didn't have detectives tailing them anyway. There was no point. Regular patrol cops spotted them all the time on the corners. So again, what's the use?
***

Usually I'm not even on that populist conspiracy theories bandwagon, but I really can't look at this from any other perspective: it's just an attempt to 'normalize' further infringement on the average man's privacy.

 

[JasonSJackson]

But even your average dopeboy would know enough to remove the battery out of his phone when he's doing dirt or conspiring to do dirt.

false

 

[AgentGrey]

Well obviously mafia or cartel types, serious criminals, will always have to be tailed physically by agents, so this doesn't even apply here.
But even your average dopeboy would know enough to remove the battery out of his phone when he's doing dirt or conspiring to do dirt.

I just fail to see the usefulness of this. Serious criminals don't trust cell phones, and small fries didn't warrant surveillance anyway. It's not like every guy who has a drug spot has a detective assigned to him. So what's the point in comparing the cost of "covert car pursuit" to this, since "covert car pursuit" was always reserved for the bigger players. It seems disingenuous.
***

To use an example from The Wire, you're never going to keep tabs on a Stringer Bell or a Prop Joe with this. It might do it for a Poot or a Bodie, but you these people didn't have detectives tailing them anyway. There was no point. Regular patrol cops spotted them all the time on the corners. So again, what's the use?
***

Usually I'm not even on that populist conspiracy theories bandwagon, but I really can't look at this from any other perspective: it's just an attempt to 'normalize' further infringement on the average man's privacy.

Seems like we're all on the same page about this