Supreme Court Urged to Clarify if Law Enforcement Needs Warrant for Cell Site Data
The Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice filed briefs with the Supreme Court, asking it to decide whether law enforcement agencies need a warrant to get cell…
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site location information (CSLI), wrote CDT fellow Natasha Duarte in a Friday blog post. "The briefs argue that the Fourth Amendment protects CSLI, which can generate a 'comprehensive record of a person’s public movements' and reveal sensitive information such as political, religious, and sexual associations," she wrote. Four appellate courts have basically concluded in cases, including Graham v. U.S. (see 1606010057), that a warrant isn't need to get CSLI information about a user from a service provider, basing decisions on what Duarte called outdated "third-party doctrine." That doctrine says a user can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when information is voluntarily given to a third party, she said. "These petitions present the Supreme Court with a timely opportunity to reconsider the applicability of the third-party doctrine to digital data -- and in particular, to CSLI," wrote Duarte. She said other courts have found the "concept of voluntary conveyance is a bad fit for CSLI" and clarification for third-party doctrine's scope is "overdue" since almost all digital data are disclosed to and held by third parties. Moreover, the Fourth Amendment should protect CSLI since it's sensitive data.