UPDATED: NLPD Targeted As Part Of ACLU Cellphone Tracking Investigation

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is seeking information from seven Connecticut police departments – including New London - on when, why and how law-enforcement agencies are using cellphone location data to track residents. The request today is part of what the ACLU is calling “a massive coordinated national campaign demanding (this) information.”

The ACLU of Connecticut sent Freedom of Information requests Wednesday to the Connecticut State Police and the police departments in Waterbury, Danbury, Willimantic, New Haven, New London and Berlin.

More than 375 FOI requests are being filed in 31 states by 34 ACLU affiliates, according to a press release issued today.

The release said that Berlin “is included because it was the site of warrant-less cellphone tracking in 2008, one of the few incidents known to the public. Federal investigators obtained information about calls to and from 180 mobile phone numbers from nine carriers, as well as the locations of those phones.”

It was not specified why New London was included, although the release stated that “the goal is to obtain information about this data collection from a geographical cross-section of the state’s police agencies.”

New London City Manager Denise Rose said the city had not received the FOI request as of Wednesday afternoon. She said she was waiting on more information from Chief Margaret Ackley of the New London Police Department, but believed that cell phones are not tracked through the department itself. She said if there is a need for the technology, such as finding a missing child who is carrying a cell phone, the department will contact the Connecticut State Police for the service.

"As far as I know, we really don't utilize cell phone tracking," she said.

Ackley responded to a request for comment shortly before 8 p.m., and said the use of cell phone tracking by police departments is rare.

"Tracking the exact location of a live cell phone is only done for exigent circumstances, such as in an abduction case," she said in an e-mail. "They are referred to as a 'Ping' and are done through the cell phone carrier. They are rather infrequent. New London spends zero dollars tracking live cell phones."

David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, said in the release that the potential remains for improper use of cell phone tracking.

“This is very much the same as the government walking into private homes on a fishing expedition, without a warrant, and searching the premises,” said McGuire. “And technology has made it a whole lot easier.

“The ability to access cellphone location data is an incredibly powerful tool and its use is shrouded in secrecy. The public has a right to know how and under what circumstances their location information is being accessed by the government,” said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the national ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in the release. “A detailed history of someone's movements is extremely personal and is the kind of information the Constitution protects.”

Law enforcement agencies are being asked for information including:

• whether law enforcement agents demonstrate probable cause and obtain a warrant to access cellphone location data;

• statistics on how frequently law enforcement agencies obtain cellphone location data; how much money law enforcement agencies spend tracking cellphones and other policies and procedures used for acquiring location data.

Today’s requests are part of the ACLU’s Demand Your dotRights Campaign, the organization’s campaign to make sure that as technology advances, privacy rights are not left behind. The ACLU of Connecticut is also working on several issues where technology threatens privacy rights, including traffic surveillance cameras, DNA sampling, license plate scanning, Real ID license requirements and facial recognition software.

More information about the requests is available at: acluct.org/celltrack.