FBI Seeks Access to Cellphone Locations

NY Times

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI has asked a Senate committee to add language to a Justice Department appropriations bill to require phone companies to provide police with the precise locations of cellular phone users, the New York Times reported Friday.

Quoting civil liberties groups, the newspaper said that FBI Director Louis Freeh met last week with members of the Senate Appropriations Committee about the proposal. The paper said Freeh asked that the locations be provided without a court order in certain "emergencies."

Those would include the suspicion of a felony, the pursuit of a fugitive or cases where human safety is deemed to be in jeopardy.

The paper quoted FBI officials as saying that the agency needed to keep up with rapidly changing technology that was confounding law enforcement agencies.

Attorney General Janet Reno is scheduled to meet Friday with Federal Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard to make the case that such legislation is needed if the agency is to keep up with evolving technology that allows criminals to use mobile phones to avoid detection.

Civil liberties groups and the telecommunications industry have begun marshaling opposition to the proposal, the newspaper reported.

Privacy advocates say it is a dangerous and unconstitutional invasion of privacy, and the telecommunications industry predicts that implementing such a law would cost billions of dollars.