It sounds like a lot - it is a lot - but the second paragraph I quote, below, raises the point that in every crime you'll probably find a perp or a victim who had a cell phone on them. That could make quite useful evidence. It would be nice to see a larger breakdown of just what kind of requests these are, what they're for, etc.
NYT:
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.
“At every crime scene, there’s some type of mobile device,” said Peter Modafferi, chief of detectives for the Rockland County district attorney’s office in New York, who also works on investigative policies and operations with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The need for the police to exploit that technology “has grown tremendously, and it’s absolutely vital,” he said in an interview.
