Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Court Says No Warrant Needed For Cellphone Location Data (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what-happens-to-your-data dept.

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.

24 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. As JC said. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Leave your phone at home son, when you take your guns to town.

  2. Why would this make it less likely that the SC wou by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    Why would this make it less like that the SC would consider the issue? From a google search of stories on Slashdot, I see courts ruling differently on this issue in several jurisdictions. That seems to solidify that the Supreme Court would take this up.
    Slashdot stories on cellphone location data rulings. Here are 3 cases where courts ruled differently than today's ruling. The US 4th district doesn't include Florida, for example, which ruled otherwise.
    https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
    https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
    https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

    Except whoops, the Supreme court is neutered right now and can't make any decisions... :-(

  3. it's a radio signal by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Informative

    open to everyone

  4. Why not get a warrant? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given that they were investigating armed robberies, why on Earth didn't they just get a warrant instead of spending all that taxpayer money fighting court cases to be able to do so without getting a warrant?

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Why not get a warrant? by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 2

      The point of this case is that if the policeman asks for the data, and the app owner hands it over, that's not a violation. They need a warrant to force that handover, but if the app owner is willing to co-operate without a warrant, that's still fair play and they get to use that data in court.

    2. Re:Why not get a warrant? by mADneSs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Setting precedent via an (ostensibly) easy win?

  5. Time to read the 4th by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The fourth amendment says nothing about "third parties." Not one word.

    This is just more judicial activism continuing to bite the citizens in the posterior.

    Reasonable = probable cause, oath or affirmation, description(s) of place to be searched and item(s) to be seized, which allow for a warrant to be issued. Anything else = UNreasonable.

    Anything the justices say to the contrary is in direct violation of their oath of office.

    Not that there's any surprise in that.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Time to read the 4th by MobSwatter · · Score: 2

      Don't pay the cell bill, joke is on them.

    2. Re:Time to read the 4th by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Police: Can you give us your location data for all your users?
      Webmaster: Sure.
      Court: Valid information sharing...

    3. Re:Time to read the 4th by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 2

      This isn't about the carrier, it's about asking for the GPS data that's sent to an app being handed over by a app owner who wants to help police.

    4. Re:Time to read the 4th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The fourth amendment says nothing about "third parties." Not one word.

      The fourth amendment also doesn't say anything about Wednesday being Prince Spaghetti day, but that doesn't mean it isn't.

      Here's what the fourth amendment says, specifically:

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

      So. What you need to do to argue that this policy contradicts the fourth amendment is that this constitutes an unreasonable search. What the government claims is that you have no "reasonable" expectation of privacy, given that the signals are "information" that is transferred to a third party. That is, since you are sending this information to a third party (your cellular provider), then you have no reasonable expectation that that information is private. In much the same way, you couldn't reasonably expect your return address to be "private" information if you wrote it in plain view on the corner of an envelope that you then dropped into a post box. The government is NOT arguing that they should be able to listen to your phone calls without a warrant.

      Now, you can certainly argue that there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy for that data, but simply asserting that "it isn't, because fourth amendment doesn't say anything about it" is insufficient to make that case. The case law surrounding the 4th amendment is extensive, and largely based on establishing the scope of a reasonable "societal expectation" of privacy. If you try to ignore it, you will lose your argument.

    5. Re:Time to read the 4th by knightghost · · Score: 2

      Our digital data are our "effects". Not theirs.

    6. Re:Time to read the 4th by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not when it is supplied to a third party, in this case Sprint.

      You could say the same thing about data shared with your doctor, your bank, or your lawyer. Disclosing information to a 3rd party does not make it "theirs".

      There is a simple test for whether the police need a warrant: Would a normal citizen have legal access to the information? If anyone can go to a cell carrier and get location data on anyone else, then the police should be able to do the same. Otherwise, they should need a warrant.

    7. Re:Time to read the 4th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except the police generally cannot compel 3rd parties to stand on the street, making a note of every non-homeless person on the street, and then DEMAND their notes. That's what happens here. Sprint et al aren't volunteering this data they're being serviced with a non-warrant court order, an NSL, or whatever. It's EXACTLY the sort of police state that the 4th amendment is designed to halt.
      Hell, the cell carriers would not even be storing this data, which is useless to them, if they weren't forced to do so. They need to know location for cell tower purposes, but once you're in a new zone, the old zones aren't useful. Except, of course, for the spying bullshit.

    8. Re:Time to read the 4th by Kjella · · Score: 2

      The fourth amendment says nothing about "third parties." Not one word.

      Nor does it really say anything about surveillance or privacy, only searches and seizures. What third parties record is not your private information, if the cops want to see a store's surveillance tapes that's up to the store owner not the people on the tape. When you dial a phone number you're volunteering the information to the phone company, nobody's accessing it by force. A search means accessing what's behind closed doors and sealed containers, if a cop wanders by your yard and you grow pot in plain sight that's not a search under the law.

      That doesn't mean the phone company have to make a list over phone numbers you call nor do they have to hand it over, but it's not an unconstitutional search nor seizure if they did. It's information you've given them that they may or may not pass on, just like a person you wrote a letter to might take it to the police. And that's the basis of the third party doctrine, essentially.

      The problem is that the law doesn't recognize that sharing it with a third party does not mean it's generally available. Who I call is a private matter between me and the phone company, just like the contents are a private matter between me and the person at the other end. That who I call may not be disclosed to third parties except for lawful warrants should be part of the terms of service and there's no good reason why the phone company should be permitted or compelled to disclose it otherwise.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    9. Re:Time to read the 4th by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Except you're wrong, there IS a law against disclosure of this VERY information, see here https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/222.

      Now, it would be up to you to find a law that authorizes law enforcement to get this information without a warrant, which I doubt there is because then we wouldn't have conflicting rulings in various courts nor would this court have to rely on '3rd party data sharing precedent'.

      In fact the I referenced is so directly on point that I find it incredible that any court could rule the way they have...thus the point one poster made about 'judicial activism'. Judges have no right to 'make law', only interpret it and there's a law that says telecommunications companies can NOT even share location data unless authorized by the customer or for the purposes of 'emergency services' (e.g. 911 calls).

  6. SCOTUS size by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Informative

    They aren't neutered. They simply are able to deadlock. Doesn't mean they will, or have to.

    There's no set size for the court. It's been larger, and it's been smaller. It's been even numbered and it's been odd numbered.

    Doesn't much matter anyway. They do whatever they want. We're long past them actually paying any attention to the oaths they swore.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:SCOTUS size by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, it's worth noting that they made it the law that your phone HAD to give out location information. 911 and all that.

      So:

      step 1: force phones to give up location
      step 2: claim that because phone location is given up, it's not subject to the 4th

      ...and yet, congress keeps getting re-elected at a 90%+ rate, and there are still lots of people who respect our supreme court. Sigh.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  7. Ummmm... by DigitAl56K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    ... with whom I have a contract that ought to contain privacy terms and a disclaimer than certain information may be provided to law enforcement only under due legal process, i.e. a warrant.

  8. What part of "Tracfone" do you not understand? by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    TracFone is the company behind many of the cell phone carriers: TracFone, NET10 Wireless, Total Wireless, Straight Talk, SafeLink Wireless, Telcel América, Simple Mobile, and Page Plus Cellular. As has been said, a cellphone is a tracking device that also makes phone calls.

    Why do you think Apple bought the electronic device rights to Liquid Metal Technology then never built a phone out of it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Clearly, they saw how google had become a tracking company and they needed to keep this out of the hands of hands before they made the Android model T-1000 human tracker.

    I only use a Commander Adama phone, or none at all just like Sarah Conner taught me.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  9. It's NOT a "third party" by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The telephone company really is the "first" or "second". This isn't "released data", it's a requirement for the service they sell to work at all. It's technically impossible to "opt out" of, or restrict, and still have the device function at all. In this court's fantasy world, who is the "first" and "second" party, if the teleco is the "third"?

    1. Re:It's NOT a "third party" by Ostrich25 · · Score: 2

      Agreed, seems to me that the government/law enforcement would be the third party in all this.

  10. Fascism Alive and Well by lawnboy5-O · · Score: 2

    Benito noted it was the regimentation of corporate and government interests in the effort to "govern" the people. Welcome to American Fascism. I never disclosed my information to a third party willingly.... And I fail to see how my contract for a secure network with an American Public Company (or Private) constitute my divulgence of such information to a third party.

  11. knowingly and willingly surrender information ... by schwit1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The decision is predicated on the suggestion that cell phone users willingly surrendering information. How is this willingly when a cell phone has become a necessity and there's no way to disable it and keep the phone on.