NEGATIVE-PRIVACY-SOLVENCY-GENERAL 116

YOUR PHONE CALLS ARE NOT PRIVATE

CELL & WIRELESS CALLS ARE NOT PRIVATE

RICHARD DES RUISSEAUX, The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.), January 19, 1999, SECTION: FORUM Pg.07A TITLE: A LOOK AHEAD TO THE YEAR 2000 PRIVACY RETREATS AS TECHNOLOGY HURTLES FORWARD Hysteria' // acs-EE2001

You could ask former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Two years ago a couple with an ordianry police scanner eavesdropped on and illegally taped a call he was making on a cell phone. Not that anyone is tapped into your wireless communication devices cordless phones, cell phones, pagers, faxes and like but the airwaves are akin to the telephone party line of yesteryear. Conversations (and data) traveling that way are not necessarily private or secure. What's more, some wireless systems use signaling data that include location information, meaning that your cell phone, even on standby, could serve as a tracking device. There are ways to figure out where you are based on what cell you're in, '' Schwartz said. That technology is being perfected, and that's something the FBI wants to be able to do in the future. Groups such as ourselves are concerned about the effects that could have.''

PHONE COMPANIES SAY THEY OWN CALLING RECORDS

ROBYN E. BLUMNER St. Petersburg Times, November 07, 1999, SECTION: PERSPECTIVE; Pg. 6D TITLE: Phone users' calling records should stay private // acs-EE2001

But that's not what the phone companies say. They say a consumer's personal telephone log, known in the industry as Consumer Proprietary Network Information, CPNI, is their property, not the consumers', and they can do what they want with the information. In fact, the telecommunications carrier U.S. West recently went to court to prevent the government from protecting the privacy of personal calling records. And won.