Cops Want To Know What You’re Texting

By Rob Boggan

Well……. This is sure to get all those privacy advocates in all kinds of a tizzy. Law enforcement officials have asked Congress to make your wireless carrier keep your text logs for as long as 2 years. Now before we get  our torches and pitch forks ready, they say that they would only use these logs in case a criminal investigation is on-going, but I can definitely see this being abused like so many other things. Since the explosion in usage of text messages, they have been involved in just about everything ranging from the root causes of divorce, to elaborate April Fool’s jokes, all the way to being used as evidence in drug trafficking cases.

Chuck DeWitt, a spokesperson for the MCCPA(Major Cities Chiefs Police Association) led the charge by saying “All such records should be retained for two years.” As of right now, AT&T and T-Mobile don’t keep records of your messages at all, while Verizon and Sprint keeps records for three to five days. Now,you may ask yourself. just what are we talking about when we say “content”? This is the actual messages you send, what was sent, and to what number it was sent to. Essentially, if these officials and certain congressmen/women get their way, a number of people will have free reign to your Text/SMS conversations WITHOUT your knowledge and even WITHOUT your consent.

Even with that being said, the carriers will essentially get the shaft if this mandate were to be allowed, which in the long run means customers will get double shafted. We’ve all heard the story before from wireless providers “Dear Mr/Mrs customer, due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to spend more money because of a new mandate so we wish to pass along some of this cost to you in the form of new fees and surcharges. Enjoy.” Never seems right to read that does it?

While this mandate is still early in it’s proposal stage, with enough backing and push, I could totally see something like this getting passed. What do you guys think? Is it OK for carriers to keep logs of your text conversations for the sake of assisting criminal investigations? Sound off in the comments below!

{via CNET}