Both the radio waves his cell phone emits, and the information (voltage change of an ADSL line or photons moving in an optic fiber) used to communicate over the Internet, actually leave his home, and then are registered. So I think in nature it's the same as sending a letter. So let's symmetrically consider that you send a letter, and police/agency asks the post office to attach to each letter information (from, to, weight, stamp...) the phone number from their database. If that happens for all letters going through a given sorting room, I can understand how that's an abuse.