WASHINGTON (PNN) - December 3, 2012 - AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and other wireless providers would be required to record and store information about Amerikans' private text messages for at least two years, according to a proposal that pig thug cops have submitted to the Fascist Police States of Amerika Congress.
CNET has learned that a constellation of pig thug cop groups has asked the FPSA Senate to require that wireless companies retain that information, warning that the lack of a current federal requirement can make it harder for them to intrude into the freedoms and privacy rights of citizens.
Along with the pig thug cop association, other fascist pig thug cop groups making the request to the Senate include the National District Attorneys' Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, said Chuck DeWitt, a spokesman for the Major Cities Chiefs Police Association.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the pig thug cop proposal is to store the contents of SMS messages or only the metadata such as the sender and receiver phone numbers associated with the messages. Either way, it's a heap of data: Forrester Research reports that more than 2 trillion SMS messages were sent in the FPSA last year; that’s over 6 billion SMS messages a day.
Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he would be skeptical of the need for a law mandating that text messaging data be retained.
"These data retention policies serve one purpose: to require companies to keep databases on their customers so (pig thug cops) can fish for evidence," he said. "This would seem to be done against the wishes of the providers, presumably, since... some of the providers don't keep SMS messages at all."
