American Civil Liberties Union

A federal magistrate judge in New York recently ruled that cell phone location data deserves no protection under the Fourth Amendment and that accordingly, the government can engage in real-time location surveillance without a search warrant. In an opinion straight from the Twilight Zone, magistrate judge Gary Brown ruled two weeks ago that “cell phone users who fail to turn off their cell phones do not exhibit an expectation of privacy.”

The case in question involved a physician who the DEA believed had issued thousands of prescriptions for pain killers in exchange for cash. In March of this year, the DEA had obtained a warrant for his arrest, and,

Google released its latest transparency report today. They’ve made some interesting additions and the overall number of government requests is on the rise. But before we get to that, there is one major overriding point: good for Google and where is everybody else? The only other major company to release these types of numbers is Twitter. Where are Verizon and Facebook and Microsoft? How about AT&T, Amazon or Comcast? I could make this list endless but the major salient fact is that Google has paved the way (this is their 7^th report) and there hasn’t exactly been a stampede to follow suit.

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed an amicus brief in what will be the first case in the country to address the constitutional implications of a so-called “stingray,” a little known device that can be used to track a suspect’s location and engage in other types of surveillance. We argue that if the government wants to use invasive surveillance technology like this, it must explain the technology to the courts so they can perform their judicial oversight function as required by the Constitution.

Tomorrow, the Department of Justice will tell a federal appeals court panel in New Orleans that law enforcement agents should be permitted to obtain two month’s worth of historical cell phone location information without a warrant. Several civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, have filed briefs arguing otherwise (you can read our amicus brief here). We believe that cell phone location data, particularly when collected over a lengthy period of time, reveals intimate facts about a person's private life. The appropriate legal standard for such private information should be a probable cause warrant, issued by a judge.