I think cops (or at least their bosses) care about their arrests resulting in successful prosecutions.
A request ambiguous enough to net hundreds of suspects seems unlikely to net the investigator a successful prosecution. Not without corroborating evidence, which might be the fruit of a thorough investigation.
But if the initial request leads to an investigation that develops enough evidence to prosecute somebody—that is, if the person really did do the bad thing, and this was one of the ways the government figured that out—what is it that’s so abhorrent about this technique that makes it right to overlook the bad deed?
If the status quo is throwing around nonsense like bite marks and sneaker prints to try and associate somebody with a crime scene, geofenced mobile data requests seem like a smaller rather than a bigger net compared to “everybody with teeth who I have a hunch about” or “everybody who owns Sketchers.”
> I think cops (or at least their bosses) care about their arrests resulting in successful prosecutions.
A successful prosecution is measured by a guilty plea or a finding of guilt. It is not the same thing as justice or convicting the right person. There are mountains of cases where it is clear that prosecutors are playing with dirty tricks for a conviction of anyone, rather than seeking to convict the right person.
