It gets worse. Telecoms are not required to keep track of who's requesting your geolocation data, why they're doing it, or what they're using it for. Unlike with wiretaps or orders that allow telecoms to share data about who you talked to (but not what you said), there are no laws requiring federal agencies to disclose this information.

Compared to a couple of thousand legal wiretaps that are approved each year by the courts, the number of requests for telecom data is in the tens of thousands -- and possibly much more, says Soghoian.

And it's not just telecoms. ISPs like Comcast and Cox and your favorite search engines and social networks receive thousands of requests for data from law enforcement -- also without the public's knowledge. Per Soghoian:

The reporting requirements for and only apply to the surveillance of live communications. However, communications or customer records that are in storage by third parties, such as email messages, photos or other files maintained by services like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Facebook and MySpace are routinely disclosed to law enforcement, and there is no legal requirement that statistics on these kinds of requests be compiled or published.

Ask Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft how many times the feds or the flatfoots come round asking for the goods, and . AOL and Facebook are more forthcoming, though -- they get 1,000 requests (AOL) and 300 to 600 (Facebook) a month.