CA5: Prospective CSLI is a records request, and it is not subject to the Fourth Amendment

A court order for prospective cell site location information is a records request, and it is not subject to the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Wallace, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8914 (5th Cir. May 22, 2017), substituted opinion 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14311 (5th Cir. Aug. 3, 2017):

The plain language of 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c) states that the government may obtain “a court order” requiring a cellular telephone company to turn over “record[s] or other information” related to its “customer[s].” Nothing in the text of the statute suggests that “other information” does not encompass prospective cell site data. Given the “strong presumption of constitutionality due to an Act of Congress,” United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 416, 96 S. Ct. 820, 46 L. Ed. 2d 598 (1976), and the absence of a “clear, controlling case explicitly stating that the government may not obtain real-time cell site location data under the SCA,” United States v. Espudo, 954 F. Supp. 2d 1029, 1044 (S.D. Cal. 2013), it was reasonable for the officers to rely on the text of the statute. We cannot conclude that DPS officers “had knowledge, or [could] properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 919. As such, the district court did not err by denying Wallace’s motion to suppress.