Within
the past five years the use of cell phone trackers has grown exponentially by
law enforcement throughout the United States. Almost all phones, especially
phones created in previous years, give the ability for cell phone carriers to
give away information, whether it be text messages, voicemails, or even current
locations. Chances are if your phone has ever asked you if they may “use” your
current location you can be tracked with relative ease. This has become a very
hot topic for debate throughout the United States. Many believe that law
enforcement having the ability to keep tabs on individuals is a huge invasion
of privacy and is illegal. Unfortunately, the people who think this are the
people who are misinformed about the topic or simply just want to believe that
the government does not have their best interest at hand. Hopefully after
reading this blog you will be well informed and will realize that in this
particular situation the pros outweigh the cons immensely.
Nine
times out the ten the first complaint an individual will say, after hearing
that law enforcement has the ability to keep track of cell phones, is “that
sounds like an invasion of personal privacy that cant be legal”. However, what
they do not realize is police officers and F.B.I agents are not sitting at
their desk with coffee and doughnuts watching people in their homes going about
their everyday lives, in fact that would be way too expensive even if an
officer wanted to do that… As Eric Litchblau states, “AT&T, for one, said it
collected $8.3 million last year compared with $2.8 million in 2007, and other
carriers reported similar increases in billings.” In other words law
enforcement is not going to use this resource unless it is deemed necessary
otherwise a huge loss of money could be seen. What is deemed necessary is using
this resource on crime. Peter Modafferi states, in Eric Litchblau’s article “Wireless
Firms are Flooded by Requests to Aid Surveillance”, that at every
crime scene there is some sort of mobile device, and that is exactly what this
tracking system will be used on, crime. It seems irrational to hinder a law
enforcement officer of the tools necessary to properly convict a criminal
especially one of the most efficient ways of doing so.
The bottom line here is that this technology has the ability to save
lives, many lives. In essence if you are a law-abiding citizen you will never
even come into contact with this specific situation. Even if an individual was
to be tapped, just as in if someone’s home was to be searched, a warrant is
still a legal necessity. Furthermore, anyone convicted by the use of this phone
tapping will have a court case where everything will be reviewed. I just want
to close out this blog with a quote from Mayor Betsy Price as she states, “this
is an excellent technology that will help save lives.”
