{"id":124080,"date":"2014-06-12T17:19:50","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T17:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=124080"},"modified":"2014-06-12T18:45:27","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T18:45:27","slug":"first-time-appeals-court-rules-warrant-required-cell-phone-location-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/first-time-appeals-court-rules-warrant-required-cell-phone-location-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"For First Time, Appeals Court Rules Warrant Is Required for Cell Phone Location Tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that law enforcement must obtain a warrant to get people\u2019s phone location histories from their cell service companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court\u2019s opinion is a resounding defense of the Fourth Amendment\u2019s continuing vitality in the digital age,\u201d said American Civil Liberties Union Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who argued the case before the 11th Circuit Appeals Court as a friend-of-the-court in April. \u201cThis opinion puts police on notice that when they want to enlist people\u2019s cell phones as tracking devices, they must get a warrant from a judge based on probable cause. The court soundly repudiates the government\u2019s argument that by merely using a cell phone, people somehow surrender their privacy rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case, the government obtained four people’s cell phone location records from their wireless carrier over a 67-day period for a robbery investigation. To get the information, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Miami got what is known as a \u201cD-order\u201d from a federal magistrate judge, named for the applicable section of the federal Stored Communications Act. However, the standard for getting a D-order is that it be \u201crelevant and material\u201d to an investigation, which is lower than the probable cause standard required by the Fourth Amendment. Although getting D-orders for location information has been a common law enforcement practice, the appeals court rejected it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a reasonable privacy interest in being near the home of a lover, or a dispensary of medication, or a place of worship, or a house of ill repute,\u201d the three-judge panel wrote in a unanimous opinion. \u201cIn short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber\u2019s reasonable expectation of privacy. The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For one suspect, Quartavious Davis, police got 11,606 location records \u2014 an average of 173 points each day. Davis was convicted based largely on the cell phone location evidence, and he appealed. Despite the court\u2019s ruling that the government should have gotten a warrant, the conviction will stand because the court determined that law enforcement relied in good faith on the decision of a magistrate judge to issue a D-order. However, going forward the warrant requirement will apply in the jurisdiction of the 11th Circuit, which covers Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The ruling is also likely to be used by courts around the country that take up the issue.<\/p>\n

The ACLU, the ACLU of Florida, Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed an amicus brief in the case,\u00a0U.S. v. Davis<\/em>. A similar case,\u00a0U.S. v. Graham<\/a><\/em>, is currently awaiting decision in the Fourth Circuit, and the groups have filed an amicus brief in that case as well.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s ruling is at:
\naclu.org\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/q_davis_opinion_0.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

More information on the case is at:
\naclu.org\/blog\/technology-and-liberty-national-security\/aclu-challenges-67-days-warrantless-cell-phone<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

###<\/div>\n
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) conserves America’s original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time, a federal appeals court has ruled that law enforcement must obtain a warrant to get people\u2019s phone location histories from their cell service companies. \u201cThe court\u2019s opinion is a resounding defense of the Fourth Amendment\u2019s continuing vitality in the digital age,\u201d said American Civil Liberties Union Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-124080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-surveillance-big-brother","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}