Also yesterday, a state lawmaker announced legislation that would ban the practice for all phone records.

The phone company announced its policy after days of angry comments from prosecutors and police across the state. Sprint Nextel said records subpoenaed in the future would be sent to a judge.

"Then it would be up to the court to distribute the records," Sprint Nextel spokesman Matt Sullivan said.

Other cell-phone companies said that has been their practice.

In any case, State Rep. Mike Vereb (R., Montgomery) said, the changes proposed under legislation he is drafting would prevent a repeat of the "tragic" handover of subpoenaed Sprint Nextel records as part of a hearing into who leaked information about a grand jury investigation of a casino owner.

"What happened here is a clear perversion of the law, of the intent of the law," said Vereb, flanked by prosecutors and police chiefs at a Norristown news conference.

Vereb said his bill, which has not been fully drafted, will require all requests for phone records to get a judge's approval, thus closing a "loophole."

Under state law, phone-company records can legally be given to anyone requesting them, including criminal defendants, without court approval - except for law enforcement officers, who need a judge to sign off.

In practice, companies say, they turn over records only when they have a court order or subpoena.

Prosecutors said most phone companies had not been providing records directly to the defense without notice.

"The only one that we were aware of that gave the records without notification" was Sprint Nextel, said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

AT&T said its policy is to notify its customers when someone subpoenas their calling records.

"If the records are sought by defense counsel in a criminal case, AT&T notifies its customers that their records were requested in the same manner as if they had been requested in a civil case," said a statement by AT&T Pennsylvania president J. Michael Schweder.

A spokeswoman for Verizon said the company supplies calling records only under subpoena or court order.

"We supply them to courts, not to defense attorneys," said spokesman Sharon B. Shaffer. "It just seems like the right thing to do, to preserve the proprietary nature of our customers' records." She said she could not immediately provide information on Verizon's policies on notifying customers of those record requests.

Sprint Nextel handed over the records for the Dauphin County district attorney, his chief deputy, and two troopers assigned to an organized-crime unit without telling the prosecutors or police.

The situation astonished law enforcement officials, who said they had not previously heard of such an incident.

Authorities instantly worried that criminal defendants could use the mechanism to track down informants, witnesses or domestic-violence victims for intimidation or revenge.

"That is not a loophole," Ferman said. "That is like the Grand Canyon."

The Dauphin County case involves Mount Airy Casino Resort operator Louis A. DeNaples, a prominent businessman from Scranton. DeNaples and a friend, the Rev. Joseph Sica, a Roman Catholic priest, were charged with perjury by a Harrisburg grand jury after allegedly lying about organized-crime associations during hearings on DeNaples' casino license application.

While investigating leaks in the investigation, Sica's attorney, Sal Cognetti Jr., obtained the records from Sprint Nextel, the cell-phone provider for a wide array of Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies.

Several defense attorneys said they were wary of the proposed legislation.

"It gives an unfair advantage to law enforcement, because they work so closely with the courts," said Royce Morris, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "A lot of their requests for records are rubber-stamped, whereas criminal-defense attorneys, if we were to come to court to try to compel getting things such as that, we're going to be met with resistance, because the prosecutor is going to want to weigh in."

Vereb countered that his bill would put both sides on equal footing when it comes to requesting phone records without a court order.

"We are closing the door to both sides," Vereb said. "To law enforcement, it's already closed." He said he had negotiated directly with Sprint Nextel for the company to change its policy and was pleased by its rapid action.

The full text of the bill will not be available until next week, a Vereb spokeswoman said.

The bill has 82 cosponsors in the House, where it needs 102 votes to pass. Similar legislation is expected soon in the Senate, Vereb said.