When crime called, cell phone was silent
Posted: Friday, October 5 2007 at 05:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
Orde Kittrie was mugged in broad daylight on a street in Baltimore. The criminals took the money in his wallet, grabbed his cell phone and walked away.
Within hours, Kittrie was working with law enforcement to track down his robbers using cell phone records. But weeks would pass before even law enforcement officials could get a glimpse of the documents, likely dooming Kittrie’s case to become just another data point in the unsolved crime statistics.
The rate of such muggings has suddenly skyrocketed. Last year, there were 447,000 robberies in the U.S., a striking rise of 7.2 percent from the previous year, according to FBI crime data released last month. Most of them get away scot-free, as Kittrie's muggers apparently have.
While there is no national accounting of stolen cell phones, a handset is taken in most such attacks, law enforcement officials say. Couldn't those phones offer valuable clues, particularly if the criminals are foolish enough to make calls with the hot handset?
The unfortunate answer is "Yes, but ...."
Orde Kittrie
Kittrie, a law professor at the University of Maryland, knows that better than most victims. He had reason to believe the thieves did use his phone, and he called his provider, Sprint, right away to get updated calling records.
He was still waiting a month later.
"The two people who robbed me may well be walking around, free to rob others or worse, because Sprint (couldn't) bring itself to release this key evidence," he said. "I wonder how many other robberies are going unsolved across the country for similar reasons."
Kittrie’s story opens a small window into the problem of using cell phone records to investigate crimes. Carriers must walk a fine line between protecting consumers' privacy -- remember the controversy last year surrounding stolen cell phone records? -- and helping law enforcement.
Some investigations end happily thanks to cell phone records. That’s how police located Tanya Rider, the Seattle-area woman who lay undiscovered in a ditch for eight days after a car accident last month.
But not every crime is a murder, and not every police inquiry is a life or death situation.
Still, Kittrie's story shows the system sometimes doesn't work at all.
When Kittrie went to police the afternoon of Aug. 26, he says they recommended he avoid canceling his cell phone service for 24 hours in case the criminals used the phone to make a call, which could lead them to the thieves.
A risky strategy
That sounds like a solid crime-fighting strategy, but it can be risky for the consumer. Cell phone providers require subscribers to pay for any unauthorized calls made using a stolen phone before the theft is reported. Earlier this year, a California television station reported that several consumers forced to pay bills of thousands of dollars after their phones were stolen.
Kittrie was lucky. A Sprint operator told him that a single nine-minute call, on the morning of Aug. 27, was made with his phone after it was stolen. But he was denied access to any other details about the call. That tantalizing piece of evidence led him on a month-long quest.
Call records can be vital in a robbery investigation. Police can easily find a call recipient, visit the potential witness, and ask who called. If the recipient is a relative or accomplice, tracking down the criminal is often simple. And the evidence for prosecution is strong.
But as time passes, the quality of cell-phone leads diminishes. Asking even a willing witness who called at a particular time a month ago rarely yields a fruitful answer.
Kittrie made his first request for updated calling records just a day after the crime, but was rebuffed by Sprint customer service. The firm told him he couldn't access detailed calling records until an entire monthly billing cycle had passed and an itemized bill was generated. Instead, he was then told to make his request through law enforcement.
The Baltimore detectives told him they'd request the records, but urged Kittrie to try Sprint again, saying he could probably get the records more quickly himself.
He tried repeatedly, but he got nowhere. Meanwhile, the Baltimore State Attorney's Office issued a subpoena for the records on Sept. 5.
Online billing records cut off
Kittrie tied another method, suggested by one Sprint operator. He tried to log on to his Web-based customer service account for the phone. That proved futile, however, as he'd disabled the phone by then and his access to online billing records also was cut off.
One month after the robbery, he still had nothing.
A representative from the Baltimore prosecutor’s office confirmed the basic details of Kittrie's account, but refused to comment on it, saying it is against policy to discuss an open investigation.
But the official said it is customary to wait anywhere from two to six weeks for cell phone companies to respond to such records requests. He called such delays understandable.
"Imagine how many requests they get every day," he said. "They don't make any money generating these records."
But Sprint spokesman Matt Sullivan said the company can turn around law enforcement records requests "within a few hours." A subpoena is not required, he said.
"As long as they have the customer's authorization, they can get customer records within hours," Sullivan said. He said Sprint processes "thousands" of such calls every month.
Consumers, however, can't initiate such requests. They must call the standard customer support phone number, where operators there do not have access to "real-time" billing records, Sullivan said.
There's a good reason to hide those records from operators. Last year, Congress investigated a thriving underground business in stolen cell phone records, obtained by private investigators who lied about their identities to get them. After a scandal involving Hewlett-Packard officials who allegedly paid to spy on journalists' cell phone activity, providers clamped down on availability of the data, said Joe Farren, spokesman for CTIA, and cellular telephone trade association.
Records were 'too easily accessible'
"The debate a year ago was that the call records were too easily accessible," Farren said. "If a subscriber had trouble getting call records, in a sense that's a good thing. ... All reports are the subpoena process works well. Of course, there are 240 million subscribers in the U.S., so there are always going to be a few problems."
All carriers follow a process like Sprint's, Farren said. None publicizes their special law enforcement hot line or the process for getting records quickly to avoid tipping off would-be data thieves.
"But generally, law enforcement officials at major carriers know the number," said Sprint's Sullivan.
Detectives investigating Kittrie's case eventually got the law professor's phone records -- on Oct. 3, about five weeks after his initial request. The records indicate the muggers actually made three calls with his phone, Kittrie said. But it's not clear how much help those records will be at this point.
"I am exceedingly frustrated," Kittrie said. "If this is happening all over the country, and I have no reason to believe it is not, it is a scandal and major contributor to the failure to solve many, many robberies and cell phone thefts."
RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
While there are no reliable estimates of the number of cell phone thefts, anecdotal reports -- and reports from law enforcement officials in other countries -- suggest phone theft is rampant. There are many things consumers should know about it.
Survey: Banks scarier than criminals for many
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