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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
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 !
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.
Nope, it IS only binding in the Eleventh Circuit. One of the reasons cases get to the Supreme Court is because there's a circuit split; some circuits go one way, some go the other, and the SC decides which should apply to the whole country.
"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.
Well no, not exactly. I didn't word it very well but when I said "overruled by another Federal Court" I meant that another circuit can decide differently. And sometimes they do; but they need to provide a new decision and explain why their interpretation is more correct than what they are overriding. And overriding previous precedence isn't something other Federal circuits do lightly so unless they are willing to do so this is binding on future cases similar to this one.
It's only once one circuit disagrees that this needs to be appealed upwards, until than all Federal Circuits will look to this decision when making similar decisions.
But, hey, I'm just interested in civics, IANAL, so if I'm just splitting hairs here, my apologies.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
For better or worse, Obama isn't President of the whole world...
Now they just need to get a FISA warrant rubber-stamped or use parallel construction to make sure that the evidence is admissable.
Well IAAL (in the 11th circuit even) so I tend to get a little OCD about legal terms. You're right it has precedential value in other circuits and any court addressing the issue will take this case seriously, though circuits frequently do just explicitly disagree with other circuits so I'd be more comfortable once this gets to the Supreme Court.
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.
To be precise, this ruling established a binding precedent in the 11th circuit and a persuasive precedent elsewhere in the country, correct?
My understanding is that given a binding precedent a circuit judge must explain why the precedent does not apply to the facts in order to rule contrary, and that given a persuasive precedent the judge merely needs to explain (in some detail) why the precedent is in error. Is that right?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I guess law enforcement will just have to keep hiding their own law breaking from defense attorneys.
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.
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!
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.
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
The world has lots of governments. Don't assume all Slashdot readers are American.
You're not splitting hairs; these things matter to the courts. The terms you're looking for here are:
* Precedent -- an older court decision that can be cited for similar logic or analogy (doesn't mean courts have to follow it)
* Binding - a decision the court must follow
* Persuasive - a decision the court can follow
* Distinguish - finding a conceptual difference between the case at hand, and an older precedent. Possibly the judges want to write new law, or possibly they just don't want to follow binding precedent.
The courts, particularly at the federal appeals level always provide a "new decision", even if it's marked as "unpublished". If the courts render a decision they are required to render that decision "on the record". Trust you me, however, if appeals courts see it differently than another circuit they say so and decide differently. There are even frequent ping-pong matches between the supreme court and circuit courts. SCOTUS says Y is wrong, do X. The appeals court says we just found out about J, so we're still doing Y. And the cycle begins anew. Occasionally, circut courts go so far as to say "no thank you" to a supreme court decision.
On the other hand, judges also worry about peer opinion, like the rest of us. Typically, they don't enjoy being overruled. So as points of law become more settled it's unlikely they deviate. Adding to the confusion, sometimes SCOTUS/the circuit courts make decisions and realize they are just unworkable in practice. Then without "overruling" they adjust the standards/factors courts look to when deciding if something is allowed/disallowed.
Truth is, this will take 20-30 years to see where it settles. The judicial perception of time is vastly different than our perception of time.