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01/12/2006 Archived Entry: "Your cell phone records are available for purchase"

Thanks to Lee for a heads-up on this item. Your cellphone records are available to anyone, online, for a fee! AmericaBlog has a current post entitled "AMERICAblog just bought General Wesley Clark's cell phone records for $89.95." One company LocateCell.com advertises a basic service: for "$110 - Up to 100 outgoing calls with dates within the most recent billing cycle. Incoming calls on request if available with carrier. (Will not be indicated as incoming on results, if incoming must be indicated the charge is double the order) No guarantee incoming calls will be included in report as they are not available with all carriers." Special requests are extra. The Chicago Sun-Times ran an article on Jan. 5th entitled "Your phone records are for sale" and, so, with the practice receiving greater exposure, the government may soon be cracking down on it. Which is the only thing worse than it being available for sale.

As a ham radio operator, I learned long ago to speak with discretion while broadcasting because many ears may be listening to my apparently "one-on-one" conversation. If I ever have something personal to communicate with another ham, I pick up a landline phone and use it. Indeed, I may be the last person in North America not to own a cell phone because I am too jealous of my privacy to throw personal conversations out into the ether. Correction, my husband and I may be the last two people....