The Government Can Track You by Your Cell Phone Without a Warrant

(Photo: Runs With Scissors; Edited: JR / TO)

Monday, 20 August 2012 00:00 By Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report 

Should police and the government be able to track you by your cell phone GPS without obtaining a search warrant? A federal appeals court appears to believe so, and recently ruled that tracking suspected criminals by their cell phones is similar to tailing their car or tracking their scent with police dogs.

Civil liberties groups say the broad ruling, handed down by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio, could have sweeping impacts on the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of the innocent as well as those suspected of crimes.

The case involves alleged marijuana trafficker Melvin Skinner, who was busted with 1,100 pounds of pot after a complicated Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation that involved tracking Skinner's movements by his prepaid cell phone for three days. To track Skinner, the DEA obtained various forms of cell phone data, including cell site information, GPS real-time location data and "ping" data.

Agents gathered Skinner's cell phone information and tracked him without a search warrant and instead obtained a court order that did not meet the probable cause standard of most search warrants. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed briefs in similar cases arguing that warrantless cell phone tracking and data access violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause.
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7 Privacy Threats the Constitution Can't Protect You Against

When it comes to a spate of new technologies, our privacy protections are wildly outdated.

February 4, 2012

The week before last, the Roberts Supreme Court uncharacteristically handed down a decision that doesn't radically infringe on civil liberties. The justices unanimously ruled that police overshot their authority by planting a GPS device on suspected drug dealer Antoine Jones' car without a warrant, tracking his movements for over a month. For now, Americans can rest assured that police can't secretly tag them -- at least without a warrant.

At the same time, privacy advocates pointed out -- and some of the justices admitted -- that the court's majority opinion in US vs. Jones completely skirted more pressing privacy issues. The problem, the majority argued, was that police had trespassed on Jones' private property by planting a GPS device on his car. The majority opinion did not address whether or not it's okay for law enforcement to use a sophisticated surveillance technology to log someone's movements for a whole month without a warrant. 

In separate, concurring opinions Justices Alito and Sotomayor both warned of the multitude of surveillance technologies that do not require intrusion onto private property to trample privacy rights. Here's a (non-comprehensive) breakdown of existing or impending technologies that make our privacy protections wildly outdated. 

1. Everything you use, all the time.

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