14 DAY TRIAL // Ed Markey, a US congressman serving the 7th district of Massachusetts, has sent out letters to the country’s mobile carriers to find out how many times they were requested by law enforcement representatives to hand over subscriber details. As it turns out, the number is 1.3 million, and that’s only for last year.
Companies such as AT&T, C Spire, Leap and Cricket, MetroPCS, Sprint, T-Mobile, TracFone, US Cellular and Verizon received letters from Markey, being requested to reveal the number of times they received subpoenas or court orders.
AT&T admits to having received 131,400 subpoenas, 49,700 warrants, and close to 80,000 exigent requests in 2011. The firm also reveals that the amounts of money it collected for such services have grown over the years, reaching over $8 million (6.3 million EUR) in 2011.
C Spire reported getting 12,500 requests over the course of 5 years, Cricket receiving 24,000 in 2007 and 42,500 in 2011. MetroPCS calculated an average of 12,000 requests per month from January 2006 to May 2012.
Sprint also provided detailed information: 52,029 court orders for wiretaps, 77,519 for the installation of a trap and trace device, and 196,434 for location information.
Law enforcement contacted Verizon Wireless 260,000 times in 2011, while US Cellular received only 103,000 warrants, letters, orders or subpoenas in the past 5 years.
T-Mobile didn’t specify any numbers, but it claims that it recorded a steady annual increase of around 12-16% in the last decade.
Some organizations claim to have denied some requests, but many of them don’t keep exact records.
TechDirt highlights one curious thing. The US government’s official reports show that only 24,270 wiretaps were requested in the period between 2007 and 2011.
On the other hand, if Sprint alone admits to have responded to over 50,000 requests in the past five years then the number simply don’t add up.