MSNBC article about Carriers, Cops and Cell Phone records

It does sound kind of "Wild-West" and unregulated. Obviously the carriers do have a cost of installing/maintaining/operating/upgrading these kinds of systems, and do need to be compensated financially for it. However I find it kind of strange that the police pay on a per-use basis, and that different carriers charge different prices. I think it would make more sense for government officials to sit down with the carriers, find out what their costs are to run the system, and then have the police pay for the flat monthly cost. Paying per-use is bad for 2 reasons:

1) It's ripe for abuse
2) if the police don't request any data, or not enough, then how will carriers pay for their systems?

As for the "moral" side of the story, I was also kind of surprised cops could obtain cell phone data without a court order. But on the other hand, I hope the police have some ethics and aren't abusing this service, or at least are being audited at random or checked in some other way. If the police are using this to check up on their neighbors or for other private use, then that's against their ethics and grounds for dismissal.