Breaking news: 11th Circuit rules that cell phone location data is protected under the 4th Amendment

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Source and more details here.

The government and police regularly use location data pulled off of cell phone towers to put criminals at the scenes of crimes—often without a warrant. Well, an appeals court ruled today that the practice is unconstitutional, in one of the strongest judicial defenses of technology privacy rights we've seen in a while. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the government illegally obtained and used Quartavious Davis's cell phone location data to help convict him in a string of armed robberies in Miami and unequivocally stated that cell phone location information is protected by the Fourth Amendment.

"In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy," the court ruled in an opinion written by Judge David Sentelle. "The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation." In Davis's case, police used his cell phone's call history against him to put him at the scene of several armed robberies. They obtained a court order—which does not require the government to show probable cause—not a warrant, to do so. From now on, that'll be illegal. The decision applies only in the Eleventh Circuit, but sets a strong precedent for future cases. The American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case, said that the decision is a "resounding defense of the Fourth Amendment's continuing vitality in the digital age.

Comments

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The only reason any of this is an issue is simply because the Legislature let the old laws lapse into obsolescence after the telecoms ditched analog switching. The courts can find and whatever, but they can only judge the laws as they stand. The telecoms warned law enforcement way back when that the system to which they were switching would not allow traditional—and literal—wire taps; the lawmakers did nothing.

And there aren't any laws, not anymore. The old ones got trumped by new tech. That's what needs to be addressed, not which court says what.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

This. The entire idea of a singular wire tap in a distributed packet based system is just quaint and outdated.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I've always viewed the idea of online privacy as a quaint fantasy. Maybe it comes from growing up. While I was sorting fish for my dad, a few of my friends instead got summer jobs at the local ISP, back in the days of dialup. I'd visit them and see the realtime list of connection from IP to DNS. It would take half a second to relate an IP to a phone number or ISP customer login. You could see all activity you wanted, easily. I've never expected things I shoot out to the world to be secret.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Its true. I think I noticed this when an IT person showed me the volume of porn accessed from work and stats about what hours it was popular etc.

Your ISP never clears their history....