That Tracking Beacon You Call a Cell Phone At Issue in Florida Case

Your cellphone isn’t just good for texting
friends, playing Flappy Bird, listening to music, checking the
weather, and ignoring your mother’s calls (you assigned her number
Darth Vader’s theme music, right?). It’s also a very efficient
tracking beacon for following your movements from place to place.
Now, that’s multitasking!

It’s especially efficient when cops don’t go through the hassle
of getting a warrant before following your daily routine. But
pleasingly paperwork-free though that approach may be for police
departments, it’s more than a bit creepy. The American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) argues that it’s also unconstitutional, in a
Florida case now before the 11^th Circuit Court of
Appeals.

In terms of the details of the case, the ACLU presents a

handy summary:

In 2010, the government obtained four people’s cellphone
location records over a 67-day period in a criminal investigation
in Florida, without a warrant.

For one suspect, Quartavious Davis, police got 11,606 location
records—an average of 173 location points each day. After Mr. Davis
was convicted at trial based substantially on the cellphone
location evidence, he appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals. The ACLU, along with the ACLU of Florida, Center for
Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, has filed an
amicus brief arguing that the government violated the Fourth
Amendment when it obtained Mr. Davis’s location records from his
wireless carrier without a warrant.

Think about the details of your life the location of your
cellphone can open to scrutiny. Do you want each and every place
you’ve been to be trackable through casual scrutiny, with no burden
of proof required?

“Your cellphone location records can reveal extraordinarily
private information about you, including where you go to the
doctor, who your friends are, and where you sleep at night,” Nathan
Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and
Technology Project,
told the court.

Hell. Keeping where you sleep at night private is half the
reason you screen your calls to begin with.

Along those lines, the
amicus brief argues that “Americans have a reasonable
expectation that they will not be subject to long-term and constant
surveillance of their movements.”

So, if the cops want to know where you’ve been, they should have
to satisfy Fourth Amendment requirements for getting a warrant.

Ron Bailey reported in December that following your cellphone
has become a
popular law enforcement pastime.