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But legal experts say the company had other options within state law, and two other large cell-phone companies say they would have handled it differently.
State Rep. Michael Vereb, of Montgomery County, who plans to introduce legislation to prevent a repeat of the incident, said he knew from his experience in law enforcement and the cell-phone industry that Sprint-Nextel had been too compliant.
"There could have been further vetting, further dialogue on the request," Vereb said in an interview. "This was not a life-or-death issue where this decision had to be made immediately."
The Inquirer reported that Sprint had handed over the cell-phone records of Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico, his chief deputy, and two state police investigators to Scranton attorney Sal Cognetti Jr. after he presented a subpoena. The officials were not notified that Sprint had turned over their records to Cognetti.
Prosecutors said that revealing investigators' and prosecutors' phone records could jeopardize criminal investigations and endanger some people.
"We have confidential informants who could be identified," said Francis Chardo, Dauphin County first assistant district attorney. "There are drug dealers, drug users, victims of domestic violence."
Chardo emphasized that he was speaking generally about the issue rather than about the case involving his office.
The controversy grew out of perjury charges against Scranton businessman Louis DeNaples and his friend, the Rev. Joseph Sica. Both are accused of lying about organized-crime ties in hearings on DeNaples' application for a casino license.
Waging an aggressive defense for Sica, Cognetti sought the phone records of prosecutors and investigators, and got them from Sprint with a routine subpoena.
In Pennsylvania, attorneys routinely get blank subpoena forms from courts and use them to get witnesses and evidence in their cases, with no judicial review or notice to prosecutors.
Vereb, a former West Conshohocken police detective, said that when he worked for SBC Communications, he developed their policies for records requests, and that they wouldn't give up cell-phone records without a search warrant or a specific court order.
"That information was not accessible via a routine subpoena," Vereb said.
Temple Law School Dean JoAnne Epps, who specializes in criminal procedure, said a cell-phone company could require a specific court or warrant before releasing information.
"No law prevents them from having that policy," Epps said. "And some other company could have a policy that a subpoena is sufficient."
AT&T spokeswoman Alexa Kauffman said her company would turn over records in response to a subpoena "only after first giving the customer a notice of the request and the opportunity to object."
A Verizon spokesman said that his company would produce the phone records for a subpoena, but would send the records to the court rather than handing them directly to an attorney.
Sprint spokesman Matthew Sullivan said his company handles "hundreds of thousands of subpoenas and other legal requests for records each year."
Sullivan would not talk about the specific case, but said the company's policy follows all state laws and regulations.
Attorney David Rudovsky said the problem is that the state wiretap law essentially permits phone companies to hand a customer's records over to anyone they want.
Rudovsky said he'd like to see the state law changed to protect everyone, not just law-enforcement officials.
"I think for phone records, Internet service records, bank records, there's a privacy right," Rudovsky said, "and I think when there are subpoenas to a company that holds them, they should to at least required to notify you and give you 10 days to respond." *
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