-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

I received annoying phone calls for a period of time, and the local phone company (US West) said they'd only get involved once I had an "incident number" (or some such) from the police department, and that information gathered would only be released to the police. I suppose if I actually filed a civil suit against the harassing party (even as a John Doe?) I could then use the discovery process to compel them to release their relevant records - but that's not really the scenario that Brad and 'kitten' seem to imagine.

In the days when telcos used the SXS switching system, there was significant cost in tracing a call - each channel had to be physically seized and held - but now it's just a matter of pulling a tape or punching up the info on a console. Nevertheless, there are legal obligations of confidentiality. Interestingly, the police generally have no problem seizing toll information on a subscriber, once the warrant is obtained, because the subscriber needn't be informed - only the telco, which has a vested interest in keeping the subscriber unaware that his considentiality was violated. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCdAgUBLbVtMRL41rmHzZFFAQGAYwQ7BD+WytKPhNAXXhWRAFeYlSz+TJzGP58T YB56S+ktajebyJEc4GH0n8beevGSjv9Q6JGWkxifLITKy05eL9RXs8bC5ScTjJQL JhDB1DTPAVp5Y5NNGIX1bpMPLdBe2KiRnOzlL/jcUkUFu4dUQ1fPXQ9NC3JFrqC0 ZLeuEcJRKM2hIlYZ0KraUg== =VaUh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----