Slashdot Mirror
US Court Says No Warrant Needed For Cellphone Location Data (reuters.com)
Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: Police do not need a warrant to obtain a person's cellphone location data held by wireless carriers, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday, dealing a setback to privacy advocates. The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, voted 12-3 that the government can get the information under a decades-old legal theory that it had already been disclosed to a third party, in this case a telephone company. The ruling overturns a divided 2015 opinion from the court's three-judge panel and reduces the likelihood that the Supreme Court would consider the issue. The decision arose from several armed robberies in Baltimore and Baltimore County, Maryland, in early 2011, leading to the convictions of Aaron Graham and Eric Jordan. The convictions were based in part on 221 days of cellphone data investigators obtained from wireless provider Sprint, which included about 29,000 location records for the defendants, according to the appeals court opinion.
There are two different legal theories used to justify this. There is the third-party approach, and the business records approach. Around half of Slashdot commenters actively support the business records excuse, whether or not they realize it.
Government passes law saying that carriers must _____ (provide good service in the sticks, hire enough black people, whatever), liberals cheer.
Goverment inspects carrier's call/personnel records to ensure that the _______ (carrier has good service in BFE/hired enough black people, whatever).
Carrier gets tired of monthly audits, goes to court.
Court rules that govt can inspect the carrier's records any time they want to, liberals cheer.
Govt inspects YOUR call records and YOUR personnel file.
Liberals get mad at carrier, demand law that carriers must _____.
Rinse and repeat.
It's actually a tough issue because in some ways you DO want the government to be able to look at Sprint's business records; on the other hand Sprint's records are records about you, their customer.