A stolen car that had a kidnapped baby and a cell phone inside has become the center of a new controversy.
The parents of the kidnapped baby are outraged that the phone that could have been used to find the baby was not.
When the parents called 911 they also realized that the father’s Sprint cell phone with GPS locator technology was also in the car.
NBC4 reported that Sprint wouldn’t provide a location to the parents or to the deputies.
“The deputies were told that Sprint had the location of the vehicle but that they could not disclose it to them because they needed to pay the $25 fee for a subpoena or fill out some forms,” said Stephanie.
First off, Sprint can easily modify their TOS to state that the end_user is responsible for the $25 subpena fee. Or, they could state in teh TOS that the user waives the right to sue if — as was under these circumstances — they are ordered by Law Enforcement to disclose the location. Have a sensible plan involving Sprint calling-back the authorities, etc. and all would be good.
Secondly, however, who in the right mind leaves a kid — a 10 month old, no less — in a car unattended??
I am glad the kid is safe, but I hope these parents have learned a lesson on how NOT to protect their kids.
That is shocking, I just don’t understand their reluctance to disclose the location as soon as they had a request, these people obviously aren’t human beings. In fact they remind me of the alien construction crew in ‘hitchhikers guide to the galaxy’, the ones who “wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.”
Typical large corporate structure. Upper management tends to force isolation to the point that no one dares to bother the people that can make quick decisions. Now they have a PR and legal nightmare. There should have been a contingency in place. Perhaps there was and training wasn’t followed through. There will probably be a VP retiring soon at any rate.
Steve, they were not carjacked. I watched an interview with the father. He said he put his child in the vehicle and went back in the house to get something else and when he came out his vehicle was gone. Either this was a habilt that got noticed by passersby or someone just happen to be driving by seeing an unoccupied vehicle running and took advantage of it. Vehicles left running without occupants are most common to be stolen it happens all the time at your mini-markets, cleaners, etc. Babies left in the vehicle are normally not noticed until after the theft has occurred unless it is a carjacking and the parents are pleading for their child to the carjacker(s).
As far as Sprint. They need a better and faster way to release the gps information to law enforcement officials.
It’s hard to believe that the company hadn’t differentiated between an emergency request and a regular request in its policy.
What was that manager thinking?!? If it was my decision, I would have released the information and justified the decision as 1) avoiding a PR disaster, 2) avoiding possible litigation and 3) simply the right thing to do.
Any company that doesn’t hire managers with good sense and give them the discretion to use it deserve PR disasters like this. I hope the press makes Sprint eat this one.
We have raised (successfully I hope) 3 daughters. I daresay many parents have buckled the baby in the car seat in the back, realized oops, the diaper bag, bottle, whatever, and taken a 30 second run back in the house to grab whatever…I’m guilty.
Leaving baby in the running car for a minute or so buckled in the back seat is not a great idea-agreed.
Stealing cars is also a VERY not great idea-a VERY BAD thing-agreed?
Knowing where that car is with that baby in it and not telling parents and authorities until some jackass goes through some ridiculous corporate red tape and then puts a $25.00 fee on a child’s life is UNSPEAKABLE-a moral crime of the highest order-NO EXCUSE-
As much as possible, we will try to exclude Sprint from our lives and recommend the same to our friends.
Sounds like not only would the GPS/cellphone information lead to the child, but the car jackers as well. As the information was deliberately witheld, a crime has been committed.
1. Obstruction of Justice (location of kidnap victim) 5+ years
2. Obstruction of Justice (location of carjackers) 5+ years
3. Lawsuit arising from criminal negligence Priceless
Ths remids me of an incident that happened here in Maryland.
In 1992 Pamela Basu was murdered trying to get the carjackers to stop so that she could reteive her infant child from the back seat.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/s920915-terror.htm
This and other incidents lead the U. S. Congress to make carjacking a federal offense.
If the parents had a device like Low Jack they would not have needed Sprint or a subpeona
I do not know why devices like “Low Jack” and RFID toll devices like “Easy Pass” are not standard features on all new cars.
But then again mandatory front seat belt usage was mandated in 1974 as a stop gap measure to postpone mandatory front seat air bags. A few years later it was reduced to the annoying light and buzzer after a market in devices and hacks to defeat the seat belt ignition interlock switch sprang up.
I guess you cannot legislate “common sense”
Paul: This may come as a shock to you, but somebody who steals a car with a baby in it does not possess a constitutional right to privacy regarding somebody else’s cell phone records. In fact, even if no crime was committed here, he STILL has no right to privacy because it isn’t his phone.
There would be a legitimate legal question here if they were asking Sprint to reveal the criminal’s cell records, but that isn’t what is going on here. There is no privacy concern here, merely beaurocracy.
I wonder how many people that are outraged about this, Sprint’s refusal to give out personal info without a supoena, are also outraged at the NSA’s wiretapping without a warrant. You can’t have it both ways.
I guess it’s time for Sprint to update the customer service scripts. The poor guy or girl in india or where ever reading the customer service scripts didn’t have a choice of kidnapping I guess…… Just more fine customer servcie provided by Out sourcing and or drone cs reps.
I have to agree with Steve. While the police cannot ask telcos for data on arbitrary people without a warrant, in this case the owner of the phone wanted to release it. The person whose privacy was supposedly at risk was on board with it. There’s no contradiction.
A police officer generally cannot enter your house without a warrant, but you’re certainly free to invite him in. Unless there was some intimidation/coersion going on to force the “invite”, warrant law doesn’t apply.
Unless I’m wrong about the law there. That’s how I think it works, but the law doesn’t always follow common sense.
Paul, it’s definitely an exigent circumstance. And if you look at the article, it says just that: “Supervisors were told Sprint already has an emergency protocol that the employee in this situation did not follow.” No matter how many telcos you worked at, the facts in this case say that Sprint screwed up.
As for “having it both ways” let’s really consider that. If we are equating this with warrantless wiretaps, you are essentially saying that by stealing a car and cell phone, you then own them and are guaranteed all the protections of ownership under the law. Doesn’t sound right to me.
With no other comment:
Sprint Nextel Promotes Wireless AMBER Alert(TM) Awareness
http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=9740
Reston, Va. — 01/13/2006
Today is AMBER Alert Awareness Day, and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) is marking the occasion with a strong appeal to customers to sign up for Wireless AMBER Alerts(TM) Issued in child abduction cases, an AMBER Alert is an urgent bulletin designed to mobilize the entire community immediately to assist in the search and safe return of an abducted child.
So if it’s one kid kidnapped, the government should have access to all sorts of monitoring information on demand, but if it’s potential terrorist attacks, they’d better have their warrants filled out right?
This isn’t a complicated moral dilemma or a brain wrenching legal quagmire. There was a life at risk due to a kidnapping. Bottom line, the most direct solution to save a life trumps legal or hypothetical moral conflicts and rulebooks. Getting pass paranoia and stupidity to the salient issue here seems to have been more than the parties involved could apprehend. Sure lots of after the fact consequences might arise, but all of those would pale in comparison if the child had died as an indirect result of inaction. It’s ironic when people and companies try to cover their ass by hiding behind the first irrelevant rule that pops into their head, they end up in deeper poop than if they had just done the right thing to begin with.
Paul: The same way they verify your identity when you call to cancel service, switch plans, or otherwise make changes to your service. They ask you to verify something associated with the account. It’s not bulletproof, but it’s good enough for an emergency.
AB CD: No. As I mentioned, the person whose privacy is supposedly at risk was on board with the plan. If they wanted this info without their permission and/or knowledge they better have their warrants.
Paul: Like Greg said, the same way they always would. When I make changes to my account, they ask me for some information like the last four digits of my social security number. It sounds like you’re just grasping for straws now so you don’t have to give up your argument.
Plus, like I said before, Sprint has guideslines for what should be done in this case and they weren’t followed. The details weren’t in the article, but you know what I bet their procedure is? Help the police.
How about this scenario. Suppose Sprint gave out the coordinates. Suppose doing so is a well known policy. Suppose the parents are in a custody battle and one — knowing Sprint gives out the info — claims the kid was kidnapped so as to get the other in trouble. Reporting parent claims he/she ‘thought’ it was a kidnapping and who can prove otherwise. Driving parent sues Sprint.
On the surface, it seems like giving out GPS info is innocuous in a kidnapping, given what goes on in custody battles (and this would be mild compared to some I’ve read about) it could happen. Such is the stuff of which muli-million dollar lawsuits are made. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
So, as unusual as it seems, I agree with Paul on something.
Having said all the above, charging for the info is ridiculous. Perhaps there will one day be a way to determine fact from fiction and allow a really kidnapped child to be found easily. Oh, yeah. There’s that idea of RFIDs being implanted in kids at birth…
Paul…..you must not call to change, adjust, or manage any of your accounts….because you’d find out that just to talk about your bill…you must answer all kinds of innane questions: mailing address, social security number, the amount and date of the last payment. On “secured” accounts they may ask for mothers maiden name or place of birth. Not that any of these answers really ASSURE anyone of one’s identiy, but it’s much more than what was needed a few years ago. Basically: “Hello, I’m Ms. Smith”. At least companies make an attempt to ID someone.
As for Sprint, they’re idiots. I’m shocked that the parents and the police could even get far enough to speak with a person, much less a supervisor!!! (Don’t their customer service clerks get a demerit each time they transfer a customer to a supervisor? That’s what many of the CS/help desks do, to motivate them to NOT transfer angry customers.)
Welcome to the corporate world. They’ll do a few PR stunts to erase any bad thoughts about them, or promote some cheap deal. The American consumer can always be soothed.
The first few posts missed something. The parents did not commit a crime. The put the child in the car. The car was on their property. The child was in no danger. Someone trespassed onto their property and stole their car. Blame the thief, not the parents.
The last few posts argue something entirely different. They insist that Sprint could / should have released the information or they should NOT have. With modern tracking and calling display, Sprint should have known the call was coming from the POLICE. It was not a question of a parent abducting a child or illegally chasing a vehicle full of drugs. Sprint can have no excuse for not knowing the origin of the call. (unless they shipped the answering desk overseas and the operator couldn’t see the call display)
This was a crime in progress, not a surveillance operation. In an emergency or exigent situation, especially where a life in endangered, the Police have the right and duty to act. For an investigation there is almost always the time and in such cases a warrant would be required.
The NSA and FISA has been decried as illegal by nearly every expert EXCEPT those very ones appointed by Bush himself. Even the NSA and CIA lawyers have said it was illegal
Paul: Where does it say the account was deactivated? Source please.
Further developments: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-01-11T003819Z_01_YUE102207_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-SPRINT.xml&archived=False
Bullet points:
– Sprint “regrets” the action and vows to do better next time
– Sprint is reviewing its procedures
– Proper procedure was not followed. The Sprint operator refused the police request rather than telling them about their special line and the form they need to fill out. In other words Sprint DID mess up so there’s really no point arguing they didn’t any more.
Yo to the first post. It was 40 damn degrees. He rushed his baby to the car to turn the heat on. He wasn’t going to drag the kid out of the blanket back into the cold while retrieving his 3 year old.
Second as everyone else has already told you, he didn’t commit the crime the theif did.
But heck you’re excused because you’ve obviously never made a mistake.
I just love people that throw their 2 cents in without having a clue to the facts. I am the CSR that took this call, and first of all, the $25 that everyone seems to know so much about? That is NOT charged to law enforcement, check our policy! Secondly, the PERP that took the vehicle already had the car keys so it hardly matters if the car was running or not. He had stolen their OTHER vehicle a few months prior and obtained the keys for the SUV at that time as well. (probably on the same keychain) When we receive an emergency call such as this, it is almost without exception a police officer on the other end of the line. Not with this call, it was the mother…our procedure is to contact 911, and that would have initiated the process for the GPS tracking, which the mother refused because the police were already there. An officer should have handled the call and then there wouldn’t have been any dispute on what a lousy CSR I am or whatever. There are other issues that may or may not come out about this issue but really you should check your facts before you jump to any conclusions.
I’ve taken in interest in this case and found that the officer did not follow protocol as he asked the parents to call general customer care for this information. As it turns out, general customer does not have access to this information as it is a breach of privacy/security for each and every cell phone user. Law enforcement have numbers available to them that allows the cell phone employee acces to identify the officer and provide him with the emergency information. As it turns out, the law failed here and not the minimum wage call center employee.