4th Circuit Holds That Obtaining Extended Cell-Site Records Requires a Warrant

schwit1 writes: In the new opinion, the Fourth Circuit (Judge Davis joined by Judge Thacker, with Judge Motz dissenting) holds that ordering a cell provider to hand over "extended" records is a Fourth Amendment search because "society recognizes an individual's privacy interest in her movements over an extended time period." The Fourth Circuit relies primarily on the "mosaic theory" arguments of the D.C. Circuit's opinion in United States v. Maynard and the concurring opinions when that case reached the Supreme Court under the name of United States v. Jones.

Comments

is the 4th Circuit forgetting the Sunset Clause?

[ihtoit]

Searches under PATRIOT don't require a warrant - until the end of December.

All a Fed has to do is whisper "suspected terrorist" into the air and he can then hold you in a six by eight room with two chairs and one small table with a steel bar across one side, with no warrant or charge, until you grow old and die.

Cell site records shouldn't be allowed at all.

[timrod]

As the now-famous case of Adnan Syed has taught us, cell site records are pointless in criminal cases because they're unreliable as a means of determining where someone is apart from a very basic (ie; telling what state or city a person is in) level. The towers a phone's signal goes through are never the same twice - even someone repeating a call in the same location a mere second later would be routed differently. Syed's case shows just how badly the police abuse this: they used cell data taken months after the fact to build a story that didn't make sense and contradicted other evidence in the case. Despite what the police think, cell site data is not GPS and is not a reliable means of locating a person. Using cell site data this way is junk science on the level of the polygraph test.

The real answer is to keep cell site data out of court entirely.

Re:Cell site records shouldn't be allowed at all.

[AHuxley]

"Black Hat 2013 - OPSEC Failures of Spies"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
6.56 to 9.00 in has the map reconstruction of a cell phone been active.
The "accuracy to 3m" just suggests a road used. Think of a cell log over time and a city map.
"Renditions Case" "October 28, 2009" http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
"Using special software, that had ironically been given to Megale's antiterror unit by the CIA, the police were able to create movement profiles for each mobile phone user."
"accuracy" was never a problem, only the sorting of the many calls in the area.

Re:Cell site records shouldn't be allowed at all.

[gstoddart]

Pure speculation: two towers can triangulate, three more so, combine with the fact that your phone likely has GPS, and that it needs to send a constant beacon, has things like accelerometers, altimeters, and other sensors ...

Oh, and don't forget the link the GP includes is for the UK, which means they could fill in the gaps with video surveillance.

My guess is it is possible to fairly accurately reconstruct your movements by combining all of these things.

None of this stuff is designed to be kept secret from the cell company, and the EULA of all those shiny apps says they can access it, and probably are doing so constantly and reporting it somewhere.

The technology we find so convenient is quite readily used against us. Both because it tells everything about what you do, and is readily obtained by law enforcement, even if they ignore the laws to do it. Because they can always use those Stingray things.

Nobody should be the least bit surprised. Welcome to the creepy distopian future.

There's a chance the GP is bragging and pulling your leg. But I have no reason to disbelieve that modern surveillance can do all he claims ... we've helped build the infrastructure required for this by not being able to live without smartphones.

If you're thinking this is all implausible, then I'm afraid you've really not been paying attention to what's happening lately.

Re:Cell site records shouldn't be allowed at all.

[gstoddart]

You should trust prosecutors as much as you trust law enforcement isn't committing perjury by doing parallel construction: not at all. The truth and the law is entirely malleable.

Unfortunately, once a judge rules it admissible, the onus is on you to provide your own expert to refute the data. Which means if they really want to convict you, they can probably fabricate the data, and the rest is just truthiness.

Or, alternately, they might actually get a conviction by providing actual data and convicting a guilty person.

If it wasn't so damned depressing, this game would be fun ... now there's almost nothing so far fetched as to actually be crazy, and now the most paranoid theories are plausible, and rooted in fact.

Scary shit, isn't it? Turns out the tinfoil doesn't do a fucking thing.

Re:Cell site records shouldn't be allowed at all.

[AHuxley]

Another public news source if you want. Italians Detail Lavish CIA Operation (June 26, 2005 )
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
'...and electronic records that enabled Italian investigators to retrace their movements in detail."
"... who reported that by piecing together records of those phones' electronic signals they were able to trace the route of the van as it headed"
The idea is that movement and time fills in the map at that human or car level per city street.
A person of interest walks in a park and sits down. A journalist spends 10 or 20 mins with them, the whistleblower is identified. Overlapping location, maps, logs and time stamps with the right software.
That mapping software was once nation state only but is now within a city or state or county budget per year.
The "to the second" is from the cell tower and a phone been in contact with the billing, location and availability to make or get a call per user quickly. All logged for a long time (months and months and .. longer).

Re:you want a warrant?

[msauve]

"turkeydance" is a strange name for a FISA court judge.

Awesome! (Some restrictions may apply)

[Iamthecheese]

Now if only getting a warrant were an obstacle...