A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the government does not need a probable-cause warrant to access mobile-phone subscribers’ cell-site information, a decision that reversed lower court decisions, decisions that said the Fourth Amendment protected the location data. The decision, 2-1 by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is the third federal appeals court to decide regarding this privacy issue. Adding to the very real possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court might take up this topic, New Jersey’s high court two weeks ago ruled that warrants were in fact required for the location data. Two different federal appellate courts have now taken the government’s position that court warrants are not required while a third federal appellate court said judges had the option to demand warrants. All of this means some suspects are convicted based on locational data of what towers their cellphones are pinging, while others are not, because some courts are requiring warrants while other do not. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. Although last month the justices rejected an appeal from a drug courier after being arrested with 1,100 pounds of marijuana in a motor home camper the authorities tracked using his mobile phone location. In that case, the Supreme Court let stand the Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the appeals court ruled that probable-cause warrants were not necessary to obtain cell-site data. Meanwhile, Tuesday’s 5th Circuit ruling comes as authorities there have widely adopted using warrantless cell-tower locational tracking of suspects. The 5th Circuit, which sets law in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, decided Tuesday that the locational history of a mobile phone does not get constitutional protections because the government has not performed the tracking. The Circuit Court states that the data is simply a business record owned by carriers. “… cell site information is clearly a business record. The cell service provider collects and stores historical cell site data for its own business purposes, perhaps to monitor or optimize service on its network or to accurately bill its customers for the segments of its network that they use. The Government does not require service providers to record this information or store it. The providers control what they record and how long these records are retained.” “This ruling fails to recognize that Americans do in fact have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location information. Where you go can reveal a great deal about your life, and people don’t think that carrying a cell phone around means that someone can get a detailed record of their movement for days or even months on end,” said Catherine Crump. Crump, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, also said, “The government should not be able to access this personal, sensitive information without getting a warrant based on probable cause. Unfortunately, the Fifth Circuit’s decision allows exactly that.”
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 18:42:55 +0000
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