Supreme Court: Warrant Generally Needed To Track Cell Phone Location Data (cnn.com)

daveschroeder writes: The Supreme Court on Friday said the government generally needs a warrant if it wants to track an individual's location through cell phone records over an extended period of time. The ruling [PDF] is a major victory for advocates of increased privacy rights who argued more protections were needed when it comes to the government obtaining information from a third party such as a cell phone company. The 5-4 opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the four most liberal justices. It is a loss for the Justice Department, which had argued that an individual has diminished privacy rights when it comes to information that has been voluntarily shared with someone else.

Comments

Good news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, what about things like license plate trackers that track where your car goes?

Re:Good news!

[SeattleLawGuy]

Now, what about things like license plate trackers that track where your car goes?

Dude. This is a major victory for people who care about civil liberties and freedom. Take a moment and enjoy it.

Re: Good news!

[Darinbob]

That's the thing about the supreme court, once appointed "for life" the members don't always follow the stereotypical patterns anymore

Also they tend to stick to some core ideals even if the general voting public has swayed their opinions over time and normal politicians are following along. Some a justice who may have been seen solid defender of conservative values a decade or two ago starts to face criticism of being too liberal since the litmus tests keep changing.

In general, protection of privacy from the government has been a solid conservative value for a very long time, it's only more recently that some strong strong law-and-order types are giving increased government power more priority than their stated conservative ideals. After all, you get more votes by promising to do something about crime than you can get by sticking to conservative ideals. If Reagan showed up today he'd be accused of being a RINO.

Re:Good news!

[KingBenny]

Well, in Soviet Europe internet filters will ban piracy and everything the local government doesn't find appropriate ... TFA says literally "generally" ... so "generally" speaking they need one, which is , as far as i know a most vague piece of legalism ... what's "generally" ?

Re: Good news!

[jouassou]

And in the rest of the US. In 2012, 71% of US police departments had licence-plate scanners, now it's probably higher.

Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

The 5-4 opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the four most liberal justices. It is a loss for the Justice Department, which had argued that an individual has diminished privacy rights when it comes to information that has been voluntarily shared with someone else.

So, the liberals on the court voted in favor of your right to privacy and the "conservatives", including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights, the police need to track you without a warrant. Also, the Trump Administration argued that your freedom isn't as important as the right of the government to track you.

Remember that the next time some Republican or Trumpist tells you that they're all about the rights of the individual and smaller government. Republicans will always be the party of authoritarianism and the elite.

Re:Never forget

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the court case that was appealed to the Supreme Court by Obama’s Justice department?

I hope the Russian vodka is worth it popecrapso

Re:Never forget

[schwit1]

Gorsuch didn't like that the Roberts ruling was too vague and incomplete on addressing prior fourth amendment cases.

The Court today says that judges should use Katz’s reasonable expectation of privacy test to decide what Fourth Amendment rights people have in cell-site location information, explaining that “no single rubric definitively resolves which expectations of privacy are entitled to protection.” Ante, at 5. But then it offers a twist. Lower courts should be sure to add two special principles to their Katz calculus: the need to avoid “arbitrary power” and the importance of “plac[ing] obstacles in the way of a too permeating police surveillance.” Ante, at 6 (internal quotation marks omitted). While surely lauda- ble, these principles don’t offer lower courts much guidance. The Court does not tell us, for example, how far to carry either principle or how to weigh them against the legitimate needs of law enforcement. At what point does access to electronic data amount to “arbitrary” authority? When does police surveillance become “too permeating”?

Re:Never forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that the next time some Republican or Trumpist tells you that they're all about the rights of the individual and smaller government. Republicans will always be the party of authoritarianism and the elite.

Came to say exactly this ... they're in favour of small government, except when it comes to the surveillance state, enshrining laws which are pushed by religious people, and protecting the profits of corporations.

They are consistently against privacy, Constitutional rights, and anything which limits government intrusion on your life except for their own special little exemptions to that.

The Republicans serve religion, corporations, and the wealthy -- despite their claims to want to protect individual rights from the government.

And, really, half of them are completely fucking batshit crazy and have given us the "post fact" world where belief and opinion is supposedly just as good as facts and reality.

Re:Never forget

[SmokeyRobot]

If only people like yourself would actually read the material rather than just skim for confirmation bias. We would have never had a President Trump. Alas even in opposition to Trump you and many like you are revealed as the problem rather than the solution.

A simple read of Gorsuch's dissenting opinion shows how you are wrong.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Gorsuch didn't like that the Roberts ruling was too vague and incomplete on addressing prior fourth amendment cases.

Gorsuch voted in favor of the government's right to track your location without a warrant. You can spin that all you want, but it's in the record books now and you can't refute it.

All the talk of "rights of the individual" and "The Constitution" are lip service. If he supported liberty over tyranny, he could have voted with the liberal majority and written a concurring opinion to clarify his position.

Bootlickers gonna bootlick.

Re:Never forget

[EvilSS]

Also, the Obama and Trump Administrations argued that your freedom isn't as important as the right of the government to track you.

Fixed that for ya. This case hit the supreme court petition list in 2016, with arguments in 2017. That means it started in the lower courts well before that time, and under the Obama administration, then continued under the Trump administration. Either could have dropped it, but they didn't.

Re:Never forget

[SmokeyRobot]

Then don't comment. His dissenting opinion is surprisingly knowledgeable and relevant to the current Information Age in which we live. Try reading. It is amazing.

Re:Never forget

[KixWooder]

and strongly supported by Trump's justice department. Both sides wanted the opposite of this ruling.

Re:Never forget

[Mashiki]

including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights,

Did you even read his argument as to why he dissented? Obviously not, otherwise you'd know that he did because he felt that the other opinions were too vague in order to be in favor of it. Go on, read it. Dust off that annotated copy of rulings, and you'll figure it out. When you do, you'll also figure out why you look like an idiot to anyone who's studied law.

Re:Never forget

[magzteel]

The 5-4 opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the four most liberal justices. It is a loss for the Justice Department, which had argued that an individual has diminished privacy rights when it comes to information that has been voluntarily shared with someone else.

So, the liberals on the court voted in favor of your right to privacy and the "conservatives", including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights, the police need to track you without a warrant. Also, the Trump Administration argued that your freedom isn't as important as the right of the government to track you.

Remember that the next time some Republican or Trumpist tells you that they're all about the rights of the individual and smaller government. Republicans will always be the party of authoritarianism and the elite.

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

"The Court has twice held that individuals have no
Fourth Amendment interests in business records which
are possessed, owned, and controlled by a third party.
United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435 (1976); Smith v.
Maryland, 442 U. S. 735 (1979). This is true even when
the records contain personal and sensitive information. So
when the Government uses a subpoena to obtain, for
example, bank records, telephone records, and credit card
statements from the businesses that create and keep these
records, the Government does not engage in a search of
the business’s customers within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment.

In this case petitioner challenges the Government’s
right to use compulsory process to obtain a now-common
kind of business record: cell-site records held by cell phone
service providers. The Government acquired the records
through an investigative process enacted by Congress.
Upon approval by a neutral magistrate, and based on the
Government’s duty to show reasonable necessity, it authorizes
the disclosure of records and information that are
under the control and ownership of the cell phone service
provider, not its customer. Petitioner acknowledges that
the Government may obtain a wide variety of business
records using compulsory process, and he does not ask the
Court to revisit its precedents. Yet he argues that, under
those same precedents, the Government searched his
records when it used court-approved compulsory process to
obtain the cell-site information at issue here.

Cell-site records, however, are no different from the
many other kinds of business records the Government has
a lawful right to obtain by compulsory process. Customers
like petitioner do not own, possess, control, or use the
records, and for that reason have no reasonable expectation
that they cannot be disclosed pursuant to lawful
compulsory process.

The Court today disagrees. It holds for the first time
that by using compulsory process to obtain records of a
business entity, the Government has not just engaged in
an impermissible action, but has conducted a search of the
business’s customer. The Court further concludes that the
search in this case was unreasonable and the Government
needed to get a warrant to obtain more than six days of
cell-site records. "

Re:Never forget

[Kernel Kurtz]

Did you even read his argument as to why he dissented? Obviously not, otherwise you'd know that he did because he felt that the other opinions were too vague in order to be in favor of it. Go on, read it. Dust off that annotated copy of rulings, and you'll figure it out. When you do, you'll also figure out why you look like an idiot to anyone who's studied law.

So you are saying that rather than vote for it, even though he thought that it is not precise enough, he decided to vote against it and write that it is not precise enough.

Still pretty obvious whose interests he is siding with then IMHO.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

This is a long-standing American tradition that goes back to the Founding Fathers: Use the flowery language of Liberty, but when it comes right down to it, support Tyranny. That's what the dissenters did today.

Re:Never forget

[magzteel]

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

This is a long-standing American tradition that goes back to the Founding Fathers: Use the flowery language of Liberty, but when it comes right down to it, support Tyranny. That's what the dissenters did today.

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

Re:Never forget

[Your.Master]

Since when do human constructs have no relevance in the real world?

Re:Never forget

[whoever57]

If only people like yourself would actually read the material rather than just skim for confirmation bias. We would have never had a President Trump.

What you are saying is that people who voted for Clinton are responsible for President Trump.

Re:Never forget

[Anonymous Coward]

You all somehow think that departments change with administrations... The Federal government changes VERY little from administration to administration. Sure the heads change, but the workers all know they were there before the head and they will be there after, so changes are slow.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

At the end of the day, it's just rationale. He voted to allow the government to access your location without a warrant. Full stop. Lip service is lip service.

Re:Never forget

[jittles]

including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights,

Did you even read his argument as to why he dissented? Obviously not, otherwise you'd know that he did because he felt that the other opinions were too vague in order to be in favor of it. Go on, read it. Dust off that annotated copy of rulings, and you'll figure it out. When you do, you'll also figure out why you look like an idiot to anyone who's studied law.

He can claim all the reasons he wants but that doesn’t make it any more inappropriate for anyone on the supreme court to dissent from this issue. The only consent I can give in this matter is to A) Not have a cell phone and be completely unable to maintain a job or B) give up my personal location data and be able to continue my career. There is no other way to look at this issue. Cell phones and internet have become mandatory parts of life for MOST people in the industrialized world.

Re:Never forget

[jittles]

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

This is a long-standing American tradition that goes back to the Founding Fathers: Use the flowery language of Liberty, but when it comes right down to it, support Tyranny. That's what the dissenters did today.

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

Except that PAST business records did not track your position 24/7, did they? So how exactly do those previous ruling apply? And how can they claim that I consented to provide my location when I have no choice but to provide my location and I am required to have a cell phone for my job. So what choice do I have in the matter? Find a fast food job where no one cares if I have a cell phone?

Re:Never forget

[magzteel]

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

At the end of the day, it's just rationale. He voted to allow the government to access your location without a warrant. Full stop. Lip service is lip service.

He dissented from the majority ruling because he felt it was inconsistent with the law and with prior court rulings regarding government access to business records.
If the laws are out of step with the times it is the elected congress that is tasked with changing them, not the appointed justices. The alternative means your rights can change at any time based on the makeup and whims of the current court.

If you ever get around to reading it you will note that under certain circumstances they can still get these "business records" without a warrant.

Re:Never forget

[magzteel]

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

This is a long-standing American tradition that goes back to the Founding Fathers: Use the flowery language of Liberty, but when it comes right down to it, support Tyranny. That's what the dissenters did today.

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

Except that PAST business records did not track your position 24/7, did they? So how exactly do those previous ruling apply? And how can they claim that I consented to provide my location when I have no choice but to provide my location and I am required to have a cell phone for my job. So what choice do I have in the matter? Find a fast food job where no one cares if I have a cell phone?

I didn't express support for either the majority or dissent. I think both positions have merit. What happens in these discussions is people are so attached to an outcome that they can't rationally discuss the issues or the appropriate way of achieving the outcome. They just want what they want when they want it.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

The alternative means your rights can change at any time based on the makeup and whims of the current court.

And you apparently believe your rights can change at any time based upon a vote of congress. Historically, the courts can be trusted to protect rights more often than Congress. That's why the Founding Fathers decided to have a co-equal Supreme Court.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

This case is the wireless equivalent of "Can the government search your garbage [wikipedia.org] without a warrant after you've put it on the street corner for pickup?" The issue here wasn't if the government needed a warrant to track you as you're mischaracterizing it. It's if the government needed a warrant to obtain personal information you've already willingly given up to a third party.

That is remarkably stupid. Just because you share something with a third party doesn't mean you give up your rights. Yours is the authoritarian argument:

Unlike possessions inside your home or car or on your person, it is not at all obvious that these things enjoy 4th Amendment protection.

With today's Supreme Court ruling, it is most definitely obvious.

Re:Never forget

[meta-monkey]

So maybe what we should have then is Congress writing a law like the Stored Communications Act but include phone tracking data in it. Dissecting this issue simply isn't a job for the Supreme Court.

This will not happen, of course, because Congress is fucking worthless for anything other than moral grandstanding.

Re:Never forget

[cayenne8]

Cell phones and internet have become mandatory parts of life for MOST people in the industrialized world.

I would have to disagree....

I've worked in IT for decades, and until I did work from home (i.e. went into an office), I have never once had my work depend on me:

1. Have a cell phone

2. Have an internet connection at home.

I've had landlines in the past...that sufficed for calls at home,

So...while it is HANDY and convenient and a great help, I don't think we've reached the tipping point to where internet connectivity and a cell phone are necessities of life that you cannot live without.

Re:Never forget

[orlanz]

No, it isn't. In the garbage case, the government can search your garbage without a warranty. However, they can't do it every single day for a year and aggregate data upon just you to use in a case. That would still require a warrant (Gorsuch actually uses garbage as an example that legally is vague but realistically isn't. An owner would interject if you were to go through his garbage... thus some sort of privacy is expected).

The current case is resting on two foundation cases. Very oversimplifying, but one says a general expectation of privacy means a warrant and the other says if you hand it over to a 3rd party, no warrant necessary. The majority basically said that "expectation of privacy goes up the longer you are tracked" and thus get a warrant.

Gorsuch didn't like that these cases were the foundations and that the guidance to the future was left vague such that different judges could come to different conclusions. He felt there were better foundations to base this on. But that the courts are not responsible for these types of "guessing" and it should be done by Congress. He feels that Congress should enact laws that draw clear lines and where none exist, the courts should not be drawing them because each judge could draw differently. He felt that the court should have set precedent to rely on more foundation aspects of privacy & ownership that the founders relied upon to determine that a warrant would be needed here.

But I think Congress can never keep up with the changing world. And until Congress catches up or corrects a ruling, the Courts are all we have to limit the damage to innocent people. The courts should "decide" to lean conservatively toward the defendant's best interest rather than the government's or plaintiff's. They should require a warrant if it will used to judge someone guilty; unless clearly stated in law that it isn't required. And if it is very vague, then an appeal for final decision at the SC is what is needed. TILL Congress gets their act together on the topic.

Re:Never forget

[Dragonslicer]

This case is the wireless equivalent of "Can the government search your garbage without a warrant after you've put it on the street corner for pickup?" The issue here wasn't if the government needed a warrant to track you as you're mischaracterizing it. It's if the government needed a warrant to obtain personal information you've already willingly given up to a third party. Unlike possessions inside your home or car or on your person, it is not at all obvious that these things enjoy 4th Amendment protection.

No, it isn't equivalent. By putting something in the garbage, you take a specific, explicit action that disclaims ownership of that item. Using a cell phone is not explicitly telling the police that they can track you at all times; (almost) nobody buys a cell phone for the specific purpose of being tracked.

Re:Never forget

[desdinova 216]

if there weren't any half baked comments then /. would be dead

Re:Never forget

[Dragonslicer]

including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights,

Did you even read his argument as to why he dissented? Obviously not, otherwise you'd know that he did because he felt that the other opinions were too vague in order to be in favor of it. Go on, read it. Dust off that annotated copy of rulings, and you'll figure it out. When you do, you'll also figure out why you look like an idiot to anyone who's studied law.

If Gorsuch thought that a warrant is needed, he would have voted that way. If he did, but didn't like the reasoning that Roberts et al used, he could have written a concurring opinion. The fact that he voted that a warrant isn't necessary tells you that he thinks a warrant isn't necessary.

Re:Never forget

[cascadingstylesheet]

Did you read the ruling? It's very interesting. This is from the dissent:

This is a long-standing American tradition that goes back to the Founding Fathers: Use the flowery language of Liberty, but when it comes right down to it, support Tyranny. That's what the dissenters did today.

Translation: you didn't read it and you don't care what the legal rationale is.

Yep. And not an emanation or penumbra to be found in the dissent either, just legal reasoning.

Re:Never forget

[Anonymous Coward]

you're weak sauce, no argument, no rebutal

Re:Never forget

[azadrozny]

You are correct. Your rights are established by law. Some of those rights are incorporated into the constitution, a document that can be altered. Other rights and responsibilities are established through the legislative process. The Supreme Court's job is to interpret and de-conflict the laws made by the legislature. The do protect your rights, but only as they are recorded in law. There is some room for degree of interpretation, but they could not take up a case, and rule that you are entitled to a free ice cream cone from the nearest shop on the 1st of every month (maybe I need to write my Congressman about this).

Re:Never forget

[edtice1559]

I have no idea how this got modded up. He could have written a *concurring* opinion as has already been pointed out. But even if the post was factually correct, having the ad hominem (calling the OP an idiot) is enough that -1 is the correct moderation.

Re:Never forget

[Applehu Akbar]

I'm glad the decision went this way, but it was a close call. The dissenting argument was support for the longstanding "third party doctrine" which is that the Fourth doesn't apply because the records are not owned by the defendant, but by his communications carrier. If this really puts an end to third party, the implications are huge. The federosaurus will try for an immediate Congressional "fix" on whatever technical grounds it thinks will keep its investigative machinery going, but it will be highly controversial.

The majority opinion was that in the digital age the Fourth now extends to cover records you have placed in care of third parties. Do we get to see our entire medical records now, as HIPAA was supposed to specify? Can a communications provider refuse to share personal records with the government now, applying Apple-style encryption to them? For companies that did so, this could be a good selling point in a highly competitive market.

Re:Never forget

[wyHunter]

What? I do hope you don't live in the USA then.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

The Power of Judicial Review [judicialle.

This case has nothing to do with "judicial review". It's very simple: if you are the government and you want information about a citizen's location over time? Get a fucking warrant.

It makes perfect sense that this would upset the Trumpists, who are comfortable with authoritarianism, and long as their big, wet baby is the authoritarian.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

What? I do hope you don't live in the USA then.

No, I live in California.

Re:Never forget

[BlueStrat]

Do we get to see our entire medical records now, as HIPAA was supposed to specify? Can a communications provider refuse to share personal records with the government now, applying Apple-style encryption to them? For companies that did so, this could be a good selling point in a highly competitive market.

Any business/industry/etc the US government becomes really annoyed with but can't outlaw or ban for various reasons ranging from political/PR to legal/constitutional gets the "Operation Choke-Point" treatment where banks and financial institutions are pressured to refuse to do any business or perform any financial transactions for certain businesses like gun stores or else suffer endless audits and investigations by multiple agencies and departments.

I'd like to see the SCOTUS rule against that practice. Government agencies should not be used as partisan political weapons by anyone.

Strat

Re:Never forget

[sjames]

We finally got my Mom a cellphone because if she ever had car trouble, finding a payphone would be nigh impossible. Many people's landlines will fail within 24 hours of a power failure now. I have seen parking downtown where the old parking meters have been replaced by an app.

And many people DO have their work depend on them having a cellphone. Your exact personal circumstances cannot be reliably extrapolated to the whole population.

Re:Never forget

[Darinbob]

It's somewhat simplistic to label the justices as conservative or liberal. Some of them were appointed before such definitions changed (which happens every year). People are not ones and zeros, and so the justices are not either, and you cannot divide every political opinion into a clear cut conservative vs liberal bucket, especially as such definitions are fluid.

What's happening is that a lot of people assume that wanting strong government actions to prevent crime is a core conservative value when in fact it is not. It may currently be a main campaign issue of some big name Republicans but that doesn't make it a strong conservative value.

Re:Never forget

[Darinbob]

I think Gorsuch wanted a solid legal foundation that lower courts could use, whereas the decision as it stands doesn't clarify exactly how much law enforcement power is too much. So expect a revisiting in the future. There is room in the court for pragmatic decisions that affect just one case, as often the supreme court prefers that the lower courts come up with the precedents.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

I think Gorsuch wanted a solid legal foundation that lower courts could use

More likely he wanted to pay back the Republicans for holding Scalia's seat empty for a year so he could be nominated by an illegitimate president.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

People are not ones and zeros, and so the justices are not either

I disagree. Justices Alito and Thomas are both zeroes.

Re:Never forget

[currently_awake]

I see no evidence the Republicans like small government, nor do they appear to understand prudent fiscal policy. If you run a Trillion dollar a year deficit during "Good Times", what happens when we get a recession?

Re:Never forget

[currently_awake]

I think it would be possible to have cell phones regularly switch their IMEI codes with other phones. It would require them to route their calls through a VPN that keeps track of the details/crypto and hands out IMEI codes. You'd still be able to make and receive phone calls, and nobody else would be able to track you or listen in to your calls (without breaking into the VPN).

Re:Never forget

[Raenex]

The Democrats have become the party of illegal immigrants and transgender bathroom "rights".

Re:Never forget

[cascadingstylesheet]

The dissent has some actual legal reasoning, which you might read.

He voted to allow the government to collect your location data wiithout a warrant. His reasoning is worth fuck-all. His motivations were purely political, in support of an authoritarian president.

Your motives are purely political. Someone actually dared to dissent from the result you wanted, so it must be because "da fascist".

You don't have to agree with his legal reasoning, but he did in fact use some.

It may not even be the outcome he wanted. Honest legal reasoning sometimes has that result, you know.

Re:Never forget

[Mashiki]

You've just argued that his point is correct, and that the proper reasoning would be for congress to write the appropriate law rather then the court legislate from the bench.

Re:Never forget

[Mashiki]

That's because the original post was written by an idiot, that has repeatedly shown that they lack the basic understanding of law, separation of powers, functioning government, and would be much happier taking a hyper-partisan approach to the issue then adding something constructive(failing to read the opinion). That doesn't make it an ad-hom, unless you're lacking in their past comments and hyper-partisan history. If I was actually going to use an ad-hom, I would have started with a low-IQ retard, stacked with self-inflated worth, that mindlessly spews propaganda until it's shown they were lied to, repeatedly.

See how easy that is?

Re:Never forget

[Mashiki]

The fact that he voted that a warrant isn't necessary tells you that he thinks a warrant isn't necessary.

And that's the correct decision based on the current state of the law. So what does that tell you? Figure it out? It means that the proper solution is to write and amend the existing law to be that, and have it tested.

Re:Never forget

[Mashiki]

Still pretty obvious whose interests he is siding with then IMHO.

Sure is. The interests would be that the law is not up to date with the current technology, and voting against avoids legislating from the bench. This is also the reason why the US is 30 years behind the rest of the world in terms of privacy legislation, but you people seem to be happier legislating from the bench.

Re:Never forget

[Applehu Akbar]

The full text of Gorsuch's dissent is here: https://supreme.justia.com/cas...

To summarize, he wants a case that would allow the court to definitively nuke the third party doctrine. He does not feel that this was the right case. He wanted to concur in the broad, brightline ruling that this decision was not.

Re:Never forget

[Applehu Akbar]

No, he wants to see the third party doctrine totally done away with, and attacks this ruling as being too narrow: https://supreme.justia.com/cas...

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

No, he wants to see the third party doctrine totally done away with, and attacks this ruling as being too narrow.

And to prove how much he wants to do that, he voted to allow the government to access your location information without a warrant.

If Gorsuch was even halfway serious, he would have voted with the majority and written his own opinion. He's just what everyone expected, an authoritarian Trump boot-licker. He will always vote with the Trump justice department. He will only exert his "conservative" bona fides once there's a Democrat in charge. He's just as big a phony as Scalia was. Watch and see.

Re:Never forget

[Agripa]

So, the liberals on the court voted in favor of your right to privacy and the "conservatives", including Trump's boy Gorsuch, voted that fuck your privacy rights, the police need to track you without a warrant.

Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.

So instead, he voted to allow the government to continue collecting location data without a warrant. That makes sense. He cares so much about the Fourth Amendment that he voted against it.

Re:Never forget

[Agripa]

Read Gorsuch's dissent; he did not support the decision because it did not go far enough.

So instead, he voted to allow the government to continue collecting location data without a warrant. That makes sense. He cares so much about the Fourth Amendment that he voted against it.

Read it again. His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.

The majority decision effectively upholds warrantless searches because the government is just going to collect the data in a different court sanctioned way. The court has a long history of explaining exactly how law enforcement can defeat civil rights and they have done it here again.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Read it again. His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.

Except, that's not what he said, at all.

https://thinkprogress.org/gors...

His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.

And he felt so strongly about it that he voted to let warrantless searches continue.

There's just no way to spin this one. Face it, Gorsuch is one of those authoritarian ideologues who likes to dress himself in the rhetoric of liberty, but deep down inside loves his big, wet daddy. And like Scalia, he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Re:Never forget

[edtice1559]

I stand corrected.

Re:Never forget

[wyHunter]

Well, one might argue my previous statement was correct, I suppose.

Re:Never forget

[PopeRatzo]

Well, one might argue my previous statement was correct, I suppose.

Yes, that was my point. California is not part of the USA, and that is why we moved here.

Need a Simple Standard

[crow]

The question of what requires a warrant needs to have a simple answer that is easy to apply.

My solution: If an unaffiliated private individual would be expected to be able, both technically and legally, to conduct the same operation, then no warrant is required. In these cases, there is no expectation of privacy, as anyone could gather the same evidence.

Once you go beyond that standard, there is an expectation of privacy, so the government should require some checks on the power to violate that privacy. The standard check is a court-issued warrant.

Re:Need a Simple Standard

[AHuxley]

Re "standard check is a court-issued warrant"
US citizen? Get a warrant.
Not a US citizen? Release the CIA, GCHQ, NSA...

The part the US police and investigators have a problem with is going to court and telling at the US court system who they want to track.
Why are the US state and federal task forces domestically so in need of having to go around the US court system?
Do the state and federal law enforcement know something about what happens when a court order is approved to log and track?
Is someone giving secure police database information away to other nations, faith groups and criminals in real time about what US telco equipment/network just got a warrant approved?

Re:Need a Simple Standard

[Wycliffe]

So, previously you could wholesale buy the real time tracking information of every single subscriber from the cell phone companies. Should that be made illegal or does the public availability make it OK for the goernment to obtain as well?

This shouldn't be saved in the first place. You should be required to have a warrant on each individual you want to track before storing this information. If cell phone companies weren't allowed to save this information long term then they wouldn't be tempted to sell it. There is no legitimate use for this information beyond knowing their CURRENT tower location and they definitely shouldn't be storing it longer than 24 hours without a warrant or explicit permission from the individual.

Re:Need a Simple Standard

[crow]

Citizenship should make no difference. The Bill of RIghts says "Congress should make no law..." There's nothing limiting those rights to citizens or even to domestic activities. At a higher level, they are a statement of our values--our understanding of human rights.

Re:Need a Simple Standard

[crow]

That's an interesting conundrum. I would have to look at how the information is available for sale. If it's available in a way that it is reasonable for ordinary individuals to purchase it (i.e., not prohibitively expensive or complicated), then the police could obtain it without a warrant in the same manner. If it's only available in bulk at an expensive price that only large businesses would be expected to afford, then police would need a warrant.

For example, if they were selling an individual's location history through a web site where you could enter their phone number and pay $20 with a credit card to get the information, then that's public information. If they were selling bulk location history quietly to partners such that most individuals wouldn't be in a position to obtain it (or even know it was being sold), then there's still an expectation of privacy (even if not fully met).

Of course, this ignores that it should be illegal for the phone company to be selling this information in the first place.

Re:Need a Simple Standard

[AHuxley]

Re "Citizenship should make no difference."
So the FBI can spy globally? They should get the full CIA spying budget?

My Jury Duty Story Regarding Cell Phone Tracking

[TomR teh Pirate]

A few years ago I had been drafted into jury duty for the 9th circuit in California. The case involved some sort of Medicare scam involving bogus sales of medical "devices" such as mobility scooters. During the jury selection process, prosecutors asked the pool whether any prospective jurors took issue with warrantless location tracking via cell phone towers. Apparently I was the only person who took issue with this, because the other 71 people in the room did not raise their hands. My public conversation with the court went something like this:

Prosecutor: Why do you take exception to warrantless location tracking?
Me: I believe the 3rd party doctrine is being abused in a manner that is unconstitutional and therefore illegal

Judge: I will decide what is legal and illegal, and your job is to decide innocence or guilt
Me: Richard Nixon once declared that "if the President does it, it's not illegal". We all know how that turned out. I will decide for myself whether the spirit of the Constitution is being violated

Jurors were then adjourned while the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney negotiated a jury pool. The pool was then welcomed back into the room, and I was thanked for my service, but then dismissed.

It's nice to see the Supreme Court finally came to the same conclusion.

How does this affect the NSA?

[schwit1]

https://www.theverge.com/2013/...

The NSA collects mobile location data under an executive order issued by the Reagan White House in 1981, reports The Hill. The news follows The Washington Post's report revealing how the agency tracks the locations of hundreds of millions of citizens around the world, supported by documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

Re:How does this affect the NSA?

[Solandri]

The NSA collection is under the (tenuous) rationale that the phone conversations they record are of people outside the U.S., and thus persons who do not enjoy 4th Amendment protection. (The fly in the ointment is that the other half of the conversation is with someone in the U.S. who enjoys 4th Amendment protection.)

Re:How does this affect the NSA?

[currently_awake]

The Constitution of the USA doesn't grant rights, it recognizes the pre-existing rights people have. Therefore all people should have them, not just Americans.

Re:My Jury Duty Story Regarding Cell Phone Trackin

[NormalVisual]

I admire your restraint. I think I'd have probably responded to the judge's statement by replying that John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, disagreed with his statement.

I'm a bit surprised that Roberts voted as he did, but it's a happy surprise.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[Wycliffe]

While I agree with this court decision, I also realize that a cell phone is a device that de facto broadcasts your location.

The cell phone provider likely needs to know which tower you are CURRENTLY connected to but there is absolutely no reason that it needs to know your exact location nor does it need to store anything other than the tower you are CURRENTLY connected to. Storing GPS locations and/or previous cell tower locations should be outlawed and stop immediately. It is a ridiculous invasion of privacy that shouldn't be happening. There are certain things like 911 calls where transmitting GPS coordinates or last known location should possibly be allowed to be opted in to but storing multiple previous locations should be completely outlawed without a warrant.

Re: Standing up for America, against traitors and

[c6gunner]

Not only that, but I'm re-purposing Moscow Donald's old campaign chant "lock her up" which he used against a devoted public servant who unlike him was not a criminal or a traitor.

Kek. Poe's law in full effect right there ...

Both party this. Neither passes laws protecting

[raymorris]

You're absolutely right, this case was mostly handled under the Obama administration, and the Trump administration could have chosen not to defend it.

It occurs to me that the legislature is supposed to pass laws saying what people can't do, including cops. The Constitution, as interpreted by SCOTUS, is the BARE MINIMUM protection that Congress and state legislatures MUST respect. Why the heck are we living under the bare minimum respect for our rights? Why has no state, under either party, ever passed a law saying cops must respect our rights by ... (not doing mass surveillance or whatever)? Neither Democrats nor Republicans hardly ever pass laws protecting our Constitutional rights. Instead, they both push the limits of how far they can go toward violating our rights.

The only major bills protecting rights which come to mind are the Civil Rights Acts, which barred racial discrimination. Of course, those were pushed by Republicans, with Democrats fighting against them, including a filibuster by Grand Dragon Robert Byrd, the only person Democrats elected to Congress for 55 years straight.

The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were quite a while ago now. Why hasn't Congress done anything significant to protect Constitutional rights since then?

Re:Both party this. Neither passes laws protecting

[virtig01]

Why has no state, under either party, ever passed a law saying cops must respect our rights by ... (not doing mass surveillance or whatever)?

Utah: https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/utah-enacts-significant-location-and-communications-privacy-bill

Re:Both party this. Neither passes laws protecting

[Prien715]

The only major bills protecting rights which come to mind are the Civil Rights Acts, which barred racial discrimination. Of course, those were pushed by Republicans, with Democrats fighting against them, including a filibuster by Grand Dragon Robert Byrd, the only person Democrats elected to Congress for 55 years straight.

You're missing the part about it being Democrats introducing it, a Democratic president signing it, and how most (somehow Byrd stayed on) of the racists fled the Democrats into the waiting arms of the Republicans. The result was the openly racist Southern Strategy which persists as part of the GOP electoral map and campaign strategy to this day.

I did like the part about Byrd though -- didn't know that

Re:Both party this. Neither passes laws protecting

[Raenex]

"The Myth of the 'Southern Strategy'"

It's an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book "The End of Southern Exceptionalism," Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth. In the postwar era, they note, the South transformed itself from a backward region to an engine of the national economy, giving rise to a sizable new wealthy suburban class. This class, not surprisingly, began to vote for the party that best represented its economic interests: the G.O.P. Working-class whites, however -- and here's the surprise -- even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)

The two scholars support their claim with an extensive survey of election returns and voter surveys. To give just one example: in the 50s, among Southerners in the low-income tercile, 43 percent voted for Republican Presidential candidates, while in the high-income tercile, 53 percent voted Republican; by the 80s, those figures were 51 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Wealthy Southerners shifted rightward in droves but poorer ones didn't.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[MaryannG]

If there were a compelling business case for this setup (say a customer demand for such) then any cell carrier that doesn't have a solid business reason for keeping a record of cell tower use would bow to that demand as a competitive measure to separate themselves from their competition (or offer it as an added privacy fee).

You can't legislate every single thing. Keep in mind, people that sign up for cell service do so with no built in expectation that their use of that service comes with either anonymity or location privacy. Indeed, "roaming" is a term because there are places that are not covered by your carrier but are by others...which means the carriers have a rough idea where you are.

If you don't want the government knowing where you are via this method, your solutions are simple: forego cellphone use altogether or buy burner phones and discard them after their included usage minutes expire. Sometimes you have to DO something to safeguard things you find valuable.

Re:Standing up for America, against traitors and s

[desdinova 216]

no it's people who vote strictly for team red or team blue are the problem.

Re:Standing up for America, against traitors and s

[Tulsa_Time]

For things done before and nothing to do with the campaign... get a life.

Who cares? Chevron Deference is going to be tossed

[modmans2ndcoming]

This court is on the verge of tossing Chevron Deference and replace it with judicial fiat. That is a greater threat to operating in the modern world than this stupid crap.

Re:My Jury Duty Story Regarding Cell Phone Trackin

[TomR teh Pirate]

As an afterthought to my own post, I wonder how many convictions might be thrown out because any evidence gathered subsequent to an unconstitutional tracking effort by law enforcement becomes inadmissable. Defense attorneys could have a field day with this.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[pr0fessor]

That's not true, it's understood that in the course of providing service and billing me they will need to know what tower I'm connected to and if I was roaming (if I had a service that charged roaming). I trust that the companies I do business with will keep that and any other data confidential and not sell or disclose it to advertisers or law enforcement unless they have a warrant.

Sadly this is no longer case companies use any all data they can get their hands on to advertise to you and/or sell to advertiser and fail to properly protect the data of their customers.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[MaryannG]

I trust that the companies I do business with will keep that and any other data confidential and not sell or disclose it to advertisers or law enforcement unless they have a warrant.

And that's where your argument leaves the rails and moves from the province of how things are to the province of how some people wish they'd be. What did they ever do to give you the impression that usage statistics that every other service industry collects and uses to maintain, monitor, improve and expand their products isn't in play in telecom?

You can indeed trust them...it's just that that trust is naive and ill-placed. There has never been a promise, suggestion or even hint that the condition you'd like to place your trust in exists or has ever existed.

Your "this is no longer the case"...never was. That information was always collected and was never yours to begin with.

Re:My Jury Duty Story Regarding Cell Phone Trackin

[ebvwfbw]

Congratulations. You were smart enough to get out of jury duty. I know so many that aren't that smart. You even pulled it off in the 9th circus.
I pulled mine off in Baltimore.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[pr0fessor]

I'm sorry 40 years ago companies didn't track my location 24/7 or collect every scrap of information they could to sell to advertisers the technology that allows them to do that today wasn't even available to the general public.

Re:"voluntarily shared information"?

[MaryannG]

Uh...no kidding? That's like saying your grandparents never had issues with phishing or robocallers 70 years ago.

I get that you WISH they didn't use the data they collect from your voluntary usage of their services...but they have ALWAYS used the data they collected for their business purposes. I did note how you cleverly slid the goalposts there a little with the "selling to advertisers" angle but, again, that something that personally pisses YOU off. Selling the data they own and collected is still their choice and, as odious as it is to you, that is another legit business practice. However, if you live in the EU their new law means you can likely ask them to purge that info uniquely associated to you.