SCOTUS May Consider Warrantless Cell Tracking

Last week the Supreme Court was asked to settle the issue of whether authorities must under the Fourth Amendment obtain a warrant to track a suspect’s whereabouts via cell phone records. After the Supreme Court in 2012 found that a warrant was required to attach a GPS tracking device to a vehicle, many authorities turned to cell phone tracking as a way to gain similar information. The case the Court has been asked to consider concerns a Florida man accused of several robberies in 2012. The prosecution prominently featured the man’s cell phone location data, which the police acquired without a warrant. The ACLU is representing the Florida man, and says precedents on third-party data sharing from the 1970s “has not held up well in the digital age.” In their filing, the ACLU says: “Ensuring that technological advances do not ‘erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment’ requires nuanced applications of analog-age precedents.”