Chances You Are Being Watched Rise to About 1 in 50

The New York Times reports today on the spectacular rise of police requests for cell phone surveillance:

In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations.

….Because of incomplete record-keeping, the total number of law enforcement requests last year was almost certainly much higher than the 1.3 million the carriers reported to Mr. Markey. Also, the total number of people whose customer information was turned over could be several times higher than the number of requests because a single request often involves multiple callers.

In other words, it’s likely that police at all levels have made surveillance requests on upwards of three or four million people. That’s 2% of the adult population of the country.

Do law enforcement authorities really need to be tracking 2% of the adult population of the country? Color me pretty skeptical.