defend the practice and reiterating the fact that no contents of the calls are part of the court order and that both congress and judiciary branch as well as the executive brarge, all three branches of government have a is a soy on this. here is what we also don t know. we don t know that it s only verizon. it s just the verizon court order that leaked. one would assume if it s this broad with verizon, then it wouldn t be a shock if we find out at&t and a whole bunch of other cell phone carriers on this. i think you re going to go bipartisan outrage as you just pointed out, joe, whether from ron wyden or rand paul. people will wake up i have veriz verizon. what are they doing? this is legal, you know, the patriot fact. got the order. the fbi is doing this legally. are you surprised by the scope of what they are doing? it s give us all of your
year. so pressure is mounting for cell phone carriers and the devicemakers to figure out a way to deter theft. san francisco district attorney george gascon wants to see a so-called kill switch on phones. so when they get reported stolen, they could be rendered inoperable. reporter: he accuses the industry of dragging its feet to what he calls a technological solution. every time a phone gets stolen, we go back and replace a phone. so the carrier gets to make another sale, the manufacturer gets to make another sale, and their profit margins continue to build. reporter: the nation s largest carriers are getting more aggressive. now participating in a new nationwide database for stolen phones to prevent them from being activated. critics say it is yet to have a meaningful impact because stolen phones often wind up overseas and fetch more dollars. late model iphone, right down street from here, can bring
not to do with apple orchards but apple products. thefts are on the rise thanks in part to the phone companies themselves. dan simon s got more. reporter: this surveillance video shows a woman getting robbed of her cell phone while in the middle of a conversation. a crime so common that type in cell phone theft on youtube, an you ll find tons of surveillance video of people having their phones ripped off. san francisco s police chief says in many cases, users are asking for trouble. think if you took $300 out of the atm machine, you would not walk down the block for several blocks counting the 20s. reporter: the problem is becoming so rampant, that it is estimated that stolen devices cost consumers $30 billion a year. so pressure is mounting for cell phone carriers and the devicemakers to figure out a way to deter theft. san francisco district attorney george gascon wants to see a
phone. i am certainly not the first, police say not the last, thanks, in part, to the phone company, themselves. dan simon has more. reporter: this under surveillance video shows a woman getting robbed of her cell phone while in the middle of a conversation. a crime so common that type in cell phone theft on youtube and you will find tons of under surveillance video of people having their phones ripped off. san francisco s police chief says in many cases users are asking for trouble. think if you took $300 out of the atm machine, you would not walk down the block for several blocks counting the 20s. reporter: the problem is becoming so rampant that it s estimated that stolen devices cost consumers $30 billion a year. so pressure is mounting for cell phone carriers and the device-makers to figure out a way to deter theft. san francisco district attorney wants to see a so-called kill switch on phones.
market. the problem with spectrum is that there is a limited amount. you can t create more of it. there is a growing concern because there is more and more people using smartphones and tablets, the more the wireless capacity gets clogged and that s when you get things like poor cell phone service over time, and slower data speeds. now the entire world uses less than one exobite. that s expected to increase ten times. smartphone usage is expected to increase by 81% in the next five years. tablet usage by over 110%. so unless something is done, those dropped calls as you mentioned, joe, could become more and more frequent. joe? it is not up to the user on the street to try to increase spectrum, of course, but is there anything we can do to sort of use it more efficiently? reporter: so one option is for cell phone carriers to upgrade their systems to make sure their spectrum is being used to full capacity. now, the problem with upgrading is that it costs tens of billions of dollars. a