ars technica: “Obama admin wants warrantless access to cell phone location data”

ars technica: Obama admin wants warrantless access to cell phone location data by Timothy B. Lee:

A Maryland court last week ruled that the government does not need a warrant to force a cell phone provider to disclose more than six months of data on the movements of one of its customers. Two defendants had been accused of armed robbery, and a key piece of evidence against them was data about the movements of the pair’s cell phones. The defendants had sought to suppress this location evidence because the government did not get a warrant before seeking the data from network providers. But last Thursday, Judge Richard D. Bennett ruled that a warrant is not required to obtain cell-site location records (CSLR) from a wireless carrier.

Courts all over the country have been wrestling with this question, and the government has been on something of a winning streak. While one court ruled last year that such information requests violate the Fourth Amendment, most others have reached the opposite conclusion.

The Obama administration laid out its position in a legal brief last month, arguing that customers have “no privacy interest” in CSLR held by a network provider. Under a legal principle known as the “third-party doctrine,” information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. The government contends that this rule applies to cell phone location data collected by a network provider.