I think the police have always been able to listen in to anything but a corded land line.
And that would be incorrect. I'm sure you still think it, but it's not true.
It's a compelling legal argument either way. And they're not talking about tapping the phone- just the location of the phone. Most cell phone companies already provide triangulated location data of cell phones to 911 during an emergency call anyway. A wiretap has never been necessary to get this data for obvious reasons.
Yes, but in the case of 911, you called them. You implicitly agreed to the repercussions of calling 911 by making the call.
I don't think it is a particularly compelling argument form the government side. It just has yet to be taken to court properly.
But lets break it down.
Switching and routing data: The only strangers you expect to know this are the employees of the company you purchase phone service from.
The conversation (not really at issue here): You only expect the people on either end of the phone to be hearing it. Now if they would only keep the discussion of their herpes flare ups to themselves rather than talking at twice conversational volume in public.
Billing information: Once again, only expect the phone company and employees to know about it.
This is very different than say, your car.
Your car you expect anyone out in public can see you driving it. You expect random people to see your origin and destination, and at points along the way. If someone parks next to me, their license plate is in plain view. They whip out a cell phone, their number is not. Conversations had in a car have a diminished expectation of privacy because people COULD hear it without necessarily even wanting to much less being involved.
What they are trying to do to is say that this is like looking for evidence at the scene of a crime rather than trolling private data. The basis for this is anonymization of the data. That has fallen down in court a couple times already.
It's far from cut and dry, but it is actually a pretty poor argument form the governments side if they are arguing that you have no expectation of privacy.
Fox news 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312647,00.html
Yeah, this doesnt sound too old really.. This kinda thing been going on a long time, not that it is right *shrugs*
jammer170
Damn, you beat me to it, Big_T!