Posted on 05/08/2002 1:31:26 PM PDT by kattracks
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 08, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Mailbox bomb suspect Luke Helder made a crucial mistake while on the run: He turned on his cell phone.
As soon as he activated it, FBI agents quickly triangulated his position between two rural towns and had him in handcuffs within an hour Tuesday, according to Nevada authorities.
The fact that another motorist spotted Helder in passing helped authorities, but the cell phone signal - like a locator beacon - was a dead giveaway.
"We got a call from the FBI at approximately 3:20 p.m. that the cell phone that (Helder) had been known to have had been activated somewhere between Battle Mountain and Golconda," said Maj. Rick Bradley of the Nevada Highway Patrol. "We started hitting Interstate 80."
The Highway Patrol flooded the area with officers and quickly had Helder in custody, Bradley said Wednesday.
Bradley said tracking down Helder without the pinpoint location provided by the FBI would have been tougher, given the sprawling region.
"It's really a rural area. There's not that much police presence," Bradley said.
Helder also placed a call to his parents' Minnesota home, and spoke with an FBI agent they handed the phone to. But the technology trick used by the FBI helped seal Helder's fate.
Gayle Jacobs, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Las Vegas office, refused to go into detail about how the bureau did it, or even to acknowledge what it did.
"As far as investigative technique, we don't disclose that information," Jacobs said.
Cell phone triangulation is a well-known tracking method within the wireless industry, said Michael Barker, an equipment sales manager for Cell-Loc, based in Calgary, Alberta. His company provides tracking services to help people who are incapacitated and unable to dial for help.
"Every time the cell phone is on, it periodically sends a little registration message to the phone company, 'Here I am! Here I am!"' Barker said. That message contains the cell phone's electronic serial number and tells the service provider when the phone has drifted in and out of cell tower range.
Federal agents then easily can get in contact with the cell phone service company and get the location of the nearest cell tower in contact with the activated phone, Barker said.
Law enforcement then can equip agents with devices designed to triangulate the signal and determine its location within about a third of a mile and the direction it was traveling in, Barker said. Handheld equipment for such a search is not sold to the general public, he said.
Robin Gross, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, warned that the technology could be abused. She said cell phone tracking could be used to follow the movements of political dissenters or politicians and other people in power.
"I think it's inappropriate to be tracking people under some kind of assumption that they might do something illegal," Gross said. "I just think it's ripe for abuse by law enforcement and by government."
By RON HARRIS Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved
/john
[smiles] They'll get you when you log in to FR! (Think you'll be able to stay off just because the Feds are after you?!)
Mark W.
And do they need a warrant first, before they do this? Please tell me they at least need that.
I was thinking maybe Mike Tyson, or that basketball player who just shot his limo driver in New Jersey.
On Batman yesterday, when the Penguin escaped from prison and wanted to open an umbrella factory,
he fooled the police by using the fake name of: Mr. K. G. Byrd (Batman, of course, figured it out.)
Mark W.
YIKES!!! I'm doomed...
It's a complicated system. I couldn't really get the hang of it.
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