Cellphones have dramatically changed the way people work, socialize, and navigate. Yet, they have also provided a way for law enforcement to collect call logs, locations, and activities on citizens without obtaining a warrant. Are the activities and information contained in a cellphone an extension of personal property or does the open technology of cellphones sever the information from the person? The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, is set to hear the legal arguments for both the protection of civil liberties and for full government access on Friday, February 12th.
The current state of cellphone protection as well as the precedence and need for protection is outlined in a recent New York Times editorial:
Many people have no idea how much data their cellphones collect about them. Phones, for example, report back to the carriers on where the users are at any given time — in some cases even when the phone is not in use. When you carry a cellphone, you are “essentially carrying a tracking device,” says Jennifer Granick, the civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Those records are a treasure trove for law enforcement. The police can ask phone companies to monitor the movements of a suspect in real time. Or they can request stored records on a customer’s movements in the past weeks, months or even years. It is this historical data that is at issue in Friday’s arguments.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, could be the first federal appeals court to rule on what legal standard should apply to government requests for locational information. Because of the particular facts of this appeal, the court may do so on narrow statutory grounds. But, in this case or another one, the courts should make clear that the Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a search warrant for locational records after showing probable cause for connecting the phone user to criminal activity.
Information about a person’s movements is by nature extremely private. It can reveal where they attend religious services and what political meetings or protests they are involved in. It can provide evidence of marital infidelity. If the courts allow the government to obtain these records without probable cause, the impact on ordinary people’s freedom will be substantial.
I agree. Technology should not be used to bypass established rights and protections of citizens but should rather be incorporated into those freedoms. The long-run benefits of protected and expected rights to privacy outweigh the immediate benefits of speedily obtaining information during a criminal investigation.
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