In re Telephone Info (Cousins)
When the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco applied for an order to obtain historical cell site records, federal magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins wondered why the government did not believe it needed to apply for a search warrant to get this detailed location information of which cell phone towers a particular phone connects to. After the government explained why it did not believe it needed a search warrant, Judge Cousins invited the San Francisco Federal Defender to file a response.
EFF filed an amicus brief in support of the Federal Defender's argument that the government needed to use a search warrant to obtain historical cell site data. Our amicus brief argues there is a growing societal recognition that it is reasonable to expect privacy in cell phone data that reveals a person's location, as reflected by a growing number of state courts and legislatures requiring law enforcement use a search warrant to obtain this sensitive information. Our amicus brief also notes the California constitution specifically treats telephone records as private.
Updates
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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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The Fourth Amendment protects us from “unreasonable” government searches of our persons, houses, papers and effects. How courts should determine what is and isn’t reasonable in our increasingly digital world is the subject of a new amicus brief we filed today in San Francisco federal court.
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