Of course their top 3 cellphone providers had no knowledge of this... (our American companies said the same thing). They probably got the cellphone data from the NSA. (For a small fee of course, added to our black budget.)
This is interesting though and something I think we should consider if we Americans ever get the courage to stand up to our government for it's abuses of power. It semi-happened with Occupy but they were barking up the wrong tree. You can only force a private bank/companies hand with the power of government. They can stand out their all day and do whatever, but it would be easier if a law or resolution were passed.
How do you know if someone at a protest is a 'plant' whose job is too incite violence so as to show the protest as negative regardless of their stated goals.
I was thinking of a system maybe, that would definitely be reputation based, but one where you could verify someones identity while still maintaining a certain level of privacy. Maybe something similar to how bitcoin works. Everybody could have a public key that anyone at the protest could scan if needed and say 'ya this person's legit, they have XXX amount of reputation, we are connected by XX people, etc' or 'woah, who are you? you have -XXX reputation and no one here knows you'... but this idea needs to be developed further...
When i put my 'evil' cap on and think how I would use the data if I had all the data in the world and I wanted to stop people protesting me, I would use those kinds of cellphone SMS messages to intimidate people in the area and I would want them to be divided by those who want to achieve revolution nonviolently and those who would easily engage in violence if given the opportunity. Taking it a step further, I would use that system the NSA made that tracks internet browsing history especially for porn, to threaten people that their data might be 'leaked' if they continue to protest. Or perhaps sent messages and calls can be 'rerouted' to different people to cause confusion in their communications. Or perhaps I'd use a few 'if-then' simulations to put the right police officer in front of the right protestor so that violence would be most likely to occur. evil cap off.
The rest of the world seems to be taking the lead in standing up to corruption, but when America catches up, I want us to lead by example of how it should efficiently and safely be done.