Supreme Court rules police always need warrant for cell tower location data
In a critical decision for iPhone owners, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police must obtain a warrant if they want to look at location data gleaned from cell towers.
"Given the unique nature of cell phone location records, the fact that the information is held by a third party does not by itself overcome the user's claim to Fourth Amendment protection," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the court's 5-4 majority opinion on Carpenter v. United States. Roberts elaborated that obtaining location in data in general should be treated as a search, requiring police to show probable cause.
The court rejected a government claim that the records being held by carriers like Sprint meant there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. "Seismic shifts" have altered our concepts, the court said.
"Sprint Corporation and its competitors are not your typical witnesses," Roberts wrote. "Unlike the nosy neighbor who keeps an eye on comings and goings, they are ever alert, and their memory is nearly infallible."
In the case of Timothy Carpenter, the robbery convict at the heart of the case, police are said to have obtained 12,898 location points, tracking him over a course of 127 days. The American Civil Liberties Union came to his defense.
In 2017 Apple joined companies like Cisco, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in supporting a warranty requirement. In a shared amicus brief, the companies argued that the court should "refine the application of certain Fourth Amendment doctrines to ensure that the law realistically engages with Internet-based technologies and with people's expectations of privacy in their digital data."
Tech firms like Apple have a vested interested in keeping location data secure, since people may be less likely to pay for their platforms if they feel their privacy is at risk. Friday's decision won't impact "conventional" surveillance methods like seucirty cameras, or any national security efforts like mass surveillance.
Apple has adopted a tough stance on privacy in the U.S., particularly since it narrowly avoided a court battle with the U.S. Department of Justice over whether it could be forced to code a backdoor into iOS. More recently it acknowledged that iOS 12's "USB Restricted Mode" is geared not just toward thwarting criminal hackers, but also police searches in authoritarian countries.
The company has backed down in China however, for instance voluntarily pulling VPN apps from the App Store, and putting local iCloud data within easier reach of the Chinese government by transferring control to a native company. Critics have accused Apple of maintaining a double-standard out of fear of losing the lucrative Chinese market.
"Given the unique nature of cell phone location records, the fact that the information is held by a third party does not by itself overcome the user's claim to Fourth Amendment protection," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the court's 5-4 majority opinion on Carpenter v. United States. Roberts elaborated that obtaining location in data in general should be treated as a search, requiring police to show probable cause.
The court rejected a government claim that the records being held by carriers like Sprint meant there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. "Seismic shifts" have altered our concepts, the court said.
"Sprint Corporation and its competitors are not your typical witnesses," Roberts wrote. "Unlike the nosy neighbor who keeps an eye on comings and goings, they are ever alert, and their memory is nearly infallible."
In the case of Timothy Carpenter, the robbery convict at the heart of the case, police are said to have obtained 12,898 location points, tracking him over a course of 127 days. The American Civil Liberties Union came to his defense.
In 2017 Apple joined companies like Cisco, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in supporting a warranty requirement. In a shared amicus brief, the companies argued that the court should "refine the application of certain Fourth Amendment doctrines to ensure that the law realistically engages with Internet-based technologies and with people's expectations of privacy in their digital data."
Tech firms like Apple have a vested interested in keeping location data secure, since people may be less likely to pay for their platforms if they feel their privacy is at risk. Friday's decision won't impact "conventional" surveillance methods like seucirty cameras, or any national security efforts like mass surveillance.
Apple has adopted a tough stance on privacy in the U.S., particularly since it narrowly avoided a court battle with the U.S. Department of Justice over whether it could be forced to code a backdoor into iOS. More recently it acknowledged that iOS 12's "USB Restricted Mode" is geared not just toward thwarting criminal hackers, but also police searches in authoritarian countries.
The company has backed down in China however, for instance voluntarily pulling VPN apps from the App Store, and putting local iCloud data within easier reach of the Chinese government by transferring control to a native company. Critics have accused Apple of maintaining a double-standard out of fear of losing the lucrative Chinese market.
Comments
Duh!!
The right decision was made, which is a No Brainer
What is Truly Stunning
is that the "conservative" side of the court had no problem disregarding the fourth amendment of the US Constitution,
and
had no problem allowing the "government" to watch its citizens movements, collect their private communications, and intervene in their private financial matters WITHOUT a warrant ?!?!
4th Amendment text:
Party Over Country"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"
While in general a warrant will be required for gathering location records held by cellphone companies going forward it is not going to necessarily be ALWAYS:
“We hold only that a warrant is required in the rare case where the suspect has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party”...
That's an important takeaway, SCOTUS is not saying a warrant is always required for personal data.
Im actually hoping that this indicates that the court will start to extend more protections to businesses. Not just to protect the business but to prevent mining for personal data.
By the way this ruling doesnt really look like the home run the media is portraying here. In fact i would say it is pretty confused.
The above is obviously false. The Founders wanted nothing like this. No one who has read anything they wrote could say otherwise.
Correct. So why hasn’t anyone declared the Patriot Act (et. al.) unconstitutional yet? Since it clearly violates the Constitution? Would you like me to list the other “laws” that are unconstitutional and which will get this thread locked?
Explain in what way “conservatives” are known as NOT being the party of the Constitution, and the way in which liberals ARE known as being the party that gives A SINGLE FLYING FUCK about what the Constitution actually says. Please do this. I’m extremely curious. And since I love flaunting false dichotomies, I’m also curious how anyone who read the Constitution would think that this case could have been ruled in any way other than it was. Of COURSE the government has no power to spy without a warrant. The context is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT, that’s why the Constitution doesn’t LIST any contexts. “Persons, houses, papers, and effects” means… CELL PHONES. All digital stuff. That’s an “effect.”
So what about the NSA’s fake cell towers? No warrant there, right?
http://archive.is/MAfzd
However, the conversation over that phone is protected by the 4th, as there is a reasonable expectation of privacy there, even if one is using third party equipment to make the phone call. So in order for government to tap or bug a phone line, they need a warrant.
It's Smith vs Maryland. This was back in 1979, I'm not sure if there's any new ruling pertaining to the privacy of phone numbers dialed from a cell phones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland
So basically, with this ruling, the SCOTUS has ruled that the location data that telecoms record, (be it by tower triangulation or GPS), with every call made from a cell phone, must now be treated the same as the private conversation over the phone and not part of the phone number. Even if the callers has no reasonable expectation of privacy as to the phone number they dial, the callers do have a reasonable expectation of privacy as to where they are, when they placed a call. So, like with the conservation over a phone, government now needs a search warrant for the telecom to turn over that location data.