Wireless carriers give location to police without a warrant
By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER

The call came in to police just after midnight April 16.

Hours before, a distraught young man had phoned his mother, hinting he wanted to kill himself. When he didn't meet her as planned, she telephoned Seattle police and reported her son missing.

Because of increasing advances in technology, officers were able to find the missing man's cellular phone using his wireless network. Two hours after he was reported missing, the man was found alive but unwell lying on his desk and taken to University Hospital for a psychological evaluation.

The night's incident was one of tens of thousands in which a life may have been saved because of the ability to find someone through a cell phone. But life-or-death missing persons cases remain rare, and locater technologies raise questions about warrantless searches.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/361 ... ing05.html

But I wonder if that's if you have the "GPS location" enabled. There is an option on my sprint phone to turn this off. hmm.. interesting though.

Actually, law enforcement with the right connections can ping just about anyone without having to go through any of the red tape above.

Cathreina wrote:Actually, law enforcement with the right connections can ping just about anyone without having to go through any of the red tape above.

^ ^ VERY TRUE