Fifth Circuit Cell Phone Tracking Case
EFF joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation and the ACLU Foundation of Texas in backing a judge who required a search warrant before approving the seizure of two months of cell phone location data by law enforcement. In this case, the government asked a magistrate judge to approve a request to two cell phone companies for 60 days of cell phone location records as part of a routine law enforcement investigation. The judge denied the request, saying it was necessary for the government to get a warrant based on probable cause before it could obtain the records. In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, EFF argues that the judge was correct, as getting a warrant is essential to ensuring Fourth Amendment protections.
The case was argued to the Fifth Circuit in October 2, 2012 in New Orleans. In July 2013, the Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court in a 2-1 decision, ruling that law enforcement didn't need a search warrant to access historical cell site records.
Updates
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The Attorney General’s Office of New Jersey is on a crusade to dismantle the important search and seizure protections afforded to the state’s citizens. As part of the latest assault on individual rights to due process, in State v. Lunsford, the attorney general has asked the New Jersey Supreme Court...
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Across the country, a vigorous debate is taking place in federal and state courthouses about how privacy protections should apply to modern technologies. One of the most spirited issues in this debate is whether the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement to get a warrant to track a person’s location...
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Did you just buy a shiny new smartphone loaded with the newest and greatest features to have conversations throughout the day, wherever you are? While your phone’s capabilities are distinctly modern, a new decision in United States v. Davis allowing police to get without a warrant records of...
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Last year, the highest court in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court, issued a landmark decision in Commonwealth v. Augustine, requiring police in the state to get a search warrant before they can track individuals’ past movements using information from their cell phones. It was a significant victory for...
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Once again, a federal court will decide whether police can track your movements over an extended period of time without a search warrant. Federal and state courts have divided over whether the Fourth Amendment requires police seek a search warrant to obtain historical cell site location information (CSLI)—the records of...
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