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The Government Can No Longer Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes The government cannot use cell phone location data as evidence in a criminal proceeding without first obtaining a warrant, an appeals court ruled today, in one of the most important privacy decisions in recent memory. "In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy," the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled. "The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."
Doesn't mean they won't keep doing it anyway.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
because it's a two-way thing - the subscriber's phone has to know what tower it's connected to...and the provider has to know what cell phones are connected to which towers....seems pretty easy to get the info from the provider without bothering with the subscriber since they are technically both allowed.
All that will happen is phone company terms of service to have a cell phone on their network is that you agree to allow them to disclose that information.
That doesn't mean they're going to stop tracking people, they just won't be able to use the data in court.
RN
We'll see what the Supreme Court has to say on the matter once it gets to them.
Just because an appeal court judge rules that the government can not do something it doesn't mean that the government will oblige to that ruling
The Obama administration is no longer bound by any law, nor the Constitution of the United States - they can overstep anything and overrule anything
They can lie to the congress and get away with it
They can set terrorists free without having to consult the congress, or the courts
The Obama administration does not care about any judge / court / law, because to them, they are ABOVE IT ALL !
It should also be illegal for the government to COLLECT the metadata without a warrant, nor should they require providers to store such data for later retrieval.
That ruling only applies in the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Circuit - Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. It does not apply anywhere else in the US.
Allow everybody to access data of this kind.
If the public is not ok with this -> warrant needed.
IANAL by a very long shot, so let me ask a bunch of others who think they are ;)
If someone charged with a crime is eventually convicted on appeal, even when the law was unclear to start out with, that person is treated as though he should have always been able to anticipate the court's eventual decision.
Does that logic not apply here as well? Can't everyone who was once convicted in trials where this kind of evidence was used, appeal their conviction now?
This appears to apply when dealing with the telcos to gather the data. Does it impact the use of Stingrays, which fool phones into connecting to them instead of legitimate cell towers?
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
They may no longer be allowed to, but they can, and they will.
my english is bad but shouldn't the sentence:
"The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."
rather read:
"The disclosure of data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."
because if you like it or not, the data HAS TO BE TECHNICALLY obtained,
else a call cannot be routed to the present location of the mobile phone?
The Government Can No Longer LEGALLY Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant
There, fixed that for you.
Just like the last time they weren't suppose to do that?
"Israel no longer allowed to illegally occupy parts of Palestine". Yep, they'll start rolling out later today, because goverments always abide by the law.
This democracy stuff is great, isn't it? Things are really different now to when rich people did whatever the hell they wanted, weren't above the law etc.
Quartavious Davis, the plaintiff arguing for tracking privacy, was convicted of a first offense for a string of robberies and sentenced to 162 years in prison based largely on testimony from acquaintences. Davis is facing nothing short of biblical retribution for ever having dared to transgress against the law in the peoples republic of florida based 'mandatory minimums' and the court is basically saying "yes, police cannot use your cellphone to track you but we still have enough evidence anyway so fuck off and die in prison kthx"
Good people go to bed earlier.
They actually have a name for it now, "Parallel Construction". Its where they use illegal evidence to locate a suspect/evidence, then they use some excuse (traffic stop, low level crime, etc) to search the suspect, and then lie/"forget" about where the initial information came from. An example is using illegal phone, email or internet taps to find a suspected drug runner, then pulling over that person when they're out driving to search their car for any evidence.
For better or worse, Obama isn't President of the whole world...
This only applies is that appeals court jurisdiction, so only Florida and a couple of other southern states...
until SCROTUS reverses it.
Now they just need to get a FISA warrant rubber-stamped or use parallel construction to make sure that the evidence is admissable.
If the organization doing the monitoring (e.g., NSA) doesn't know if the phone being monitored is being used by a US citzen, then it's all still fair game. The fact that such "device sweeps" would inevitably include many US citzens wouldn't matter. You sweep them all up first, and sort through them later only if there's a reason (warrant or not). Nothing about this ruling stops the *collection* of the data, apparently only looking at it or "tracking" someone with it. Once it's associated with a "subscriber", or if you're about do to that join between "device" and "subscriber" in your database, yeah, you need a warrant. But up until that point I don't see anything stopping mass collection of any and all cell phone or conventional phone data. The government just needs to say "We're not tracking any particular person, up until the point we do ask you for a warrant", and the FISA court will rubber stamp the whole thing.
The key take away is that they can no longer use this information as evidence in court. The government will still use this information to track you; but they will need to get more creative when they do parallel reconstruction.
"The Government Can No Longer Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant"
The headline is slightly inaccurate. It should read:
"The Government Can No Longer Legally Track Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant"
But since history demonstrates conclusively that the government couldn't care less about staying within the law, that makes very little difference. It most certainly can track your cell phone without a warrant, it most probably does so, and you would be most unwise to assume it isn't doing so.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I guess law enforcement will just have to keep hiding their own law breaking from defense attorneys.
There are still murders despite the laws that stringly forbid them. And it's quite simple to know when someone gets murdered.
Why shouldn't there be any more warrantless tracks when it's so hard that one is tracked?
Ah!
So the secret courts will issue broad secret warrants with attached gag orders saying that for National Security purposes all cell phones will be tracked and the tracking information made available to certain government agencies. Achievement Unlocked! Problem Solved!
They can still virtually follow you, build a case, use the information to connect you to others, use it to indicate where to look for other evidence, etc. The location data just can't be admitted as "evidence", doesn't mean they can't and won't continue to use the information otherwise. Small incremental progress, but definitely not a full block on use of the data.
You didn't turn the location tracking off in your phone, what did you think was going to happen?
The 'government agencies' that we're concerned about the most don't give a flying fuck about what 'courts' or 'judges' have to say, they're going to do whatever the hell they want to do, regardless; that's the nature of organizations who deal in 'secret' things, and it's the nature of the cancer that plagues our current government.
Now, the question is: What should we use as chemo to cure this cancer?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
This ruling only applies int he 11th circuit - at least until appeal is denied by the SCOUS. Also the title is misleading - the government can track you all they want without a warrant - they just can't use the evidence against you. Sadly nothing is preventing Verizon ATT and Walgreens (yes Walgreens) from tracking you without a warrant and giving location based ads or selling that information to advertisers.
"They" can't use FISA warrants unless it is a national security matter.
The fourth amendment, and the whole Constitution, specifies what the GOVERNMENT may and may not do. It doesn't say anything about whether or not you carry a tracking device that discloses your location to AT&T, or what AT&T may do. Other laws cover those topics. Since the fourth is a restriction on the government, the relevant fact is that the government obtained the information.
Well, that's too bad, because I for one am not in the possession of fourth amendment protections. So as much as I think this is a wise and important verdict - irrespective of all the poisonous trees and parallel constructions - the US to me represents a clear and present danger to my privacy and my liberty.
That guy is doomed
The court declared that it's a violation of your fourth amendment rights if they present warrentless cellphone location data in court. Apparently the fourth amendment is just fine with them collecting that data so long as they don't use it in court, because using information in court is what a search is all about.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
All they have to do is make a free app available that requires every permission. It would fit right in with most of the games out there, and the user would have consented to be tracked, in that case, making all evidence submissible without the need for a warrant.
The world has lots of governments. Don't assume all Slashdot readers are American.
Clone the phone of a senators son
makes some crazy calls,
then toss it for fun
agents will ask why
then sparks will fly
they don't give a fuck
they just want their conviction
Rinse and repeat
all the kings horses and all the kings men
are now just stupid dupes and pawns in your new game
thats what happens
when immorality causes your actions to be the
SAME SAME SAME:
competitors adapt and overcome and you become their donkey slave
I guess the OP means the USA Government .. but the fact that some actually think the US *IS* the world, is ironically, exactly the problem to begin with..
so nothing new there then.. move along..
As far as they're concerned, they're above the law, and until we start locking some of these corrupt pieces of shit nothing will change.
This only applies to the 11th circuit, and the NSA will continue to ignore the Constitution anyway.
Please, you think you serfs have rights?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The US government can no longer use the surveillance from tracking your phone in court without a warrant.
Their still going to track you.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Well, great, but the arguments that "the government" made are so wildly, flagrantly, unconscionably in opposition to the clear intent of the constitution that the lawyers who presented them and the officials which supported them should be tried for treason and executed.
The government violates the constitution when the obtain the information, but that's of little to no value to you in court unless the exclusionary rule is applied. And there are so many ways to make an end run around the exclusionary rule, that effectively this decision means that the police and DA in states in the 11th circuit are on notice to find an exclusion. One popular end run is arguing that the evidence was going to turn up anyway under some other line of evidence.
Police will abuse your rights, beating you, spying on you, doing whatever it takes to be a nazi.
No matter what you've ever been told in life about Police Officers, they are only there to play god, because to become a police officer, you must fit the profile of a sociopath.
Literally, police departments will not hire you as a Police Officer unless you fit the profile of a sociopath.
Never ever count on the police to uphold or even recognize your rights. They are there to play dictator and abuse the system as much as possible for their own personal and sick minded benefit.
It's overrun with ACs high-fiving each other. The character of this website is gone now. I don't know what happened or exactly when it happened, but this isn't the same place anymore. I've been a poster for going on 15 years and I found myself leaving for a bit a few weeks ago. I think I might be done for good now. Really sad to see what happened here. I just wish I knew where everyone else went...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
So, when do we put the dirty cops that have been violating the 4th amendment for years behind bars?
...Operation Parallel Construction
That word ("can" not)... I don't think it means what you think it means.
The word you are probably looking for is "may" not.
So I guess someone has a secret. Mmmmm I personality WANT. The government to track emails and cell phones. I do not have anything to hide do you????