The Supreme Court on Friday put new restraints on law enforcement's access to the ever-increasing amount of private information about Americans available in the digital age.
In the specific case before the court, the justices ruled that authorities generally must obtain a warrant to gain access to cell-tower records that can provide a virtual timeline and map of a person's whereabouts.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the 5 to 4 decision, in which he was joined by the court's liberal members. Each of the dissenting conservatives wrote separate opinions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:21PM
Exactly.
The system has to know which lobe of which tower your phone is connected to in order to do basic things like ring your phone when a call comes in.
However, They probably don't need to retain this information once your phone disconnects from that tower, because you drove out of range.
The fact that they do keep this information probably helps more people than it hurts. Missing persons, etc. But even that is arguable these days.
NOTE:
There were actually MUCH better articles about this than the WAPost article, as far as reporting the ramifications of this ruling. Read Curt Levey's" article. [foxnews.com]
The ruling strikes at the heart of The Supreme Court's 40 year old Third-Party Doctrine. That doctrine holds that no search or seizure occurs when the government obtains data that the accused has voluntarily conveyed to a third party – in this case, one's wireless provider.
Additionally, the Justices serve notice on the "No right to privacy in a public place" apologists:
While the court did say:
"Our decision today is a narrow one. We do not express a view on (scenarios) not before us."
they also telegraphed their expectations of a flood of litigation based on this ruling, which is far from narrow in its implications. It strikes at the very heart of the Third Party Doctrine, and could lead to eventual trashing of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). [wikipedia.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.