If only it were that easy... my brother went missing in February 2009 and as of today it's still an "ongoing" investigation. I was basically blocked at every turn...

In order for to get a cellphone log or trace, the detectives on the case needs to file for a subpoena. A judge will then need to sign off on it which takes 24-48 hours. Following that, they need to submit it to the cellphone company which claims it might take a billing cycle before the data is provided since it's on the "cell towers" and it's not transmitted yet. Even then, the information is useless. It's nothing more than what you receive on your monthly billing statement.

Police has no authority to just do it since it's up to the cellphone provider.

I severely doubt that if it were a drug investigation, or a cop-killer ala Chris Dorner, the cell company would wait a billing cycle to provide location data.

Notice also that nobody needs to file a subpoena. The cell companies can just hand it over, and often do. Because your brother is less important to the police than a drug dealer, they're not willing to blackmail the cell companies.

Perhaps you should edit that to remove the sentence beginning "because your brother..." You're talking about a person's loved one - compassion rules...

That is (unfortunately) not entirely true. If they have reason to suspect there is an immediate risk of injury or death, they can locate the phone (assuming it's on) with a high degree of accuracy (at the very least, cell tower triangulation, if not GPS activation).

We had a situation a few years ago where a couple kids had skipped school and gone joyriding in a quarry. Their parents contacted the police, who contacted the cell phone company, and the cell company gave them a reasonably accurate fix (I assume this was voluntary on the part of the phone company, given how quickly it happened).

in that instance it was likely that the parents were the rightful owner of that information because the account was in their name so therefore there was no need to involve a judge

Ah, that's an excellent differentiating factor I hadn't thought of, thanks.

Damn. I am really sorry for your situation. That fucking sucks and is crazy. Keep your head up homie.

This depends on where you are located, but for the most part the answer is no - unless you are a member of a law enforcement agency you will not be able to get this data from the cell phone company. Depending on the country, cell phone provider and law enforcement agency, they will probably need a warrant or court order as well.

tangentially wrt. "Depending on the country ... need a warrant or court order " - in Ukraine conflict both sides were using cell phone realtime data for tracking opponents. In particular during August incursion at least some Russian paratrooper platoons were tracked and finally hit that way. Young people who grew up having cell phones all around them and they had it with them during the incursion. Gradually both sides have learned at least to turn cell phones off - so far it seems that that is enough, at least no clear indications to the opposite - before entering combat zones.

I'm not sure what can be done in this case, but one option is to install Prey [1] on your devices and give the activation code to your loved ones.

1: https://preyproject.com