Police Can Obtain Cellphone Location Records Without a Warrant

mi writes: A new ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals found by a margin of 9-2 that law enforcement does not need to get a warrant to grab your cell phone's location records. The justices ruled that there is no expectation of privacy for your location when you're using a cell phone. This decision (PDF) was based on a case in which a man was convicted of robbery after months of location data was given to authorities by his cell phone carrier, MetroPCS. Police got the information using a court order, rather than a warrant, because there were less stringent requirements involved. One of the judges wrote: "We find no reason to conclude that cellphone users lack facts about the functions of cell towers or about telephone providers' recording cell tower usage."

Comments

Re:This seems batshit crazy.

[AK Marc]

The analogy I come up with is:

Would the government need a warrant to compel your mother to turn over all the letters she's sent to you over the years, so they can retro-actively track your location in an attempt to link you to crimes?

I worked for a telco (still do, but outside the US now), and the official policy was to comply, without question, to all court orders (warrants being a subset of court orders). Without a court order, we would be breaking the law (both state and federal) to even confirm Bob Smith was a customer, whether it's the local police, sherrif, state cops, or US President asking. But a court order to turn over records (if any), releases us from from any and all legal liability. It might not be able to stand up in court, but that's not our problem.

Re:This seems batshit crazy.

[TheGratefulNet]

you're an idiot, then. only an idiot talks to cops unless under arrest.

talking to a cop can ruin your life even if you are fully innocent and have the best intentions. go watch the famous youtube video 'dont talk to cops'. you need to learn a few things.

oh, and btw, they train cops to lie and to weasel info out of you. its formal training. they know the game. shame that you are still ignorant of how its played.

btw, who DO I know that the cop is not trying to seek revenge against someone? lets say you are in a black neighborhood and a cop comes looking for a guy. you going to just give that info out? really?

bad idea all around. this is what warrants are for. get a warrant and we'll talk, but not until then.

Re:Just stupid

[meta-monkey]

I read the decision. Go read the first few pages (linked in TFS). It makes perfect sense to me.

What do you think happened here? The cops didn't just go mining some random guy's cell signal.

They already had tons of evidence against the guy. Eyewitness testimony. Camera footage of the armed robberies (someone matching his description). DNA evidence collected from the getaway car. The government presented this to a federal magistrate who said it constitutes reasonable grounds for the government to seize the phone records that are relevant and material to the case.

And the only data they got was, for the specific two month period the armed robberies were underway, this one person's call records, limited to phone number, data/time/duration, incoming or outgoing, and the cell tower location. No call contents. No text message contents. No keep-alive packets or other location tracking data when the phone was powered but not making or receiving a call. No GPS data. Just enough to say "we know the suspect was in this mile and a half radius making a phone call near the time of the robbery."

So what do you think is the problem?

Were there not reasonable grounds to authorize the order? Not enough evidence? Were the phone records not relevant to the case? Do you think too much information was seized?

I'm genuinely curious as to where you think the government overreach occurred in this case, or if you just think the government should never be able to seize or search anything for any reason.