Cops Need A Warrant To Search Your Cell Phone’s Location History, Supreme Court Rules

The Supreme Court just ruled that cops need a search warrant to get information about where people have been from their cell phones.

The 5-4 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, sets a strong legal limit on how much of your digital data the government can access. But the justices also stressed that these limits apply only to the type of data at question in the case: historical location information. The justices made clear they weren’t weighing in on real-time location records or data related to foreign affairs or national security.

Even so, the ruling is a strong rebuke of the government's encroachment on technological advances.

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[VICENews]

The ACLU brought the case, Carpenter v. U.S., on behalf of Timothy Carpenter, who was arrested for a series of robberies around Detroit largely because his cell phone location data put him within two miles of the crimes.

[nesscruz]

Great ruling.... But lets be HONEST here. Do we honestly think the cops are going to follow rules?? We'll see

[DanielA-pgno]

Cops would probably find my location in one place for many years, my bedroom

[rabbibenyaminkauffmann]

Police checks my previous location. "Why are you stationery near your house for 2 hours every evening after you get back from work"
Me - "I sit in my car"
Cop - "what?"
Me - "I have a wife"
Cop - "okay you're free to go sir"

[killacamfoo]

Advertisers should get a warrant to view location data. Nearly every app you have has background location enabled without your knowledge. You cannot disable it.

[Smokey]

This is probably why my friend still uses his flip phone from the stone age.

[bryonwatkins]

1. Cops 👮‍♀️ 👮‍♀️ not only need a warrant, that doesn’t mean they can search the entire phone📱 if they LAWFULLY get one (will come back to this point at the end)!!!!

2. Each app, just like a car 🚗, is considered a separate area. Chief Justice John Roberts made this clear in the context of his opinion in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) which overruled People v. Diaz, 51 Cal. 4th 84, 244 P.3d 501, 119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 105 (2011).

3. You can only search the area that might be harmful to officers or the area when the evidence might be.

4. In addition, if cops opens a iPhone to get evidence from, let’s say, the video area, they can’t search any other areas like text messages, pictures, contacts, etc. Reading the above cases and their law reviews, this is VERY easy to comprehend!!!!

5. FURTHERMORE, upon further research on police corruption, police lie a lot in search and arrest warrant affidavit applications!!!!

6. In conclusion, going back to my words in paragraph one, in parenthesis, police👮‍♀️ 👮‍♀️ doing that, they violate many laws in the: (1) “good-faith” doctrine exception to the exclusionary rule; (2)“exclusionary rule” doctrine; “suppression” doctrine; (3)“objective reasonableness” doctrine; (4) “probable cause” doctrine; (5) “silver platter” doctrine; (6) “true threat” doctrine; (7) “inevitable” doctrine; (8) “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine; and (9) “independent source” doctrine!!!! Check Mate!!!! WOOO 🥳!!!!

[stygianphantasm]

I wanna see some legislation on the stingray technology

[bigbird]

Users don't choose to give that day to do a third party such as a cell phone provider their extorted into having their information taken

[DaneReidVoiceOver]

The police and FBI do of course ignore your location information if they want to charge you for a crime. They will argue that that info doesn't clear you from prosecution. They like to have it both ways

[charonsferryold]

Does this rule also apply to friends and family?

[ghost_d_og]

Just use a VPN and don't get Windows 10 😂😂😂

[ninjakawasaki]

So what difference does it make if they’re going to get the location anyways?

[bigbird]

It's shocking how personal things and personal ideas are considered under privacy laws currently and yet not when it's on a new technology such as a cellular phone when all it is and is an extension of previous laws on a new medium

[TACAV]

The cops already needed a search warrant to look in your phone's contents. This new ruling pertained to historical cell tower information from the service provider. and before this ruling the cops still needed a judge signed court order to get that. So it wasn't like cell service providers were just handing this information out willy nilly before this court ruling. All this did was up the amount of facts/reasoning/justification level for the police to get the same info to a higher degree (warrant vs previous court order). ie: Judge to police: "Tell me why you need this information and how it's applicable to getting evidence to your investigation." The cops just need to do the same thing investigation wise but now have a bit more to get the same information.

Some of these comments below are silly. Cops: "Why are you siting here for two hours?" Person: Cause I work there." In reality. evidence gained from tower dumps like this is usually more like." Cops: "Why was your phone pinging at these four different areas at exactly the same time four different robberies occurred." Or "Why was your phone pinging off in the middle of the woods in this deserted lot where nobody goes on the same night as when the body was found dumped the next day by search teams?" Usually the cell tower information is not the sole part of the investigation or a substitute for it. It's just a piece adding too it. So in reality this court case doesn't change how things are done all that much.

[breadman]

It's concerning this even needed a court case in the first place...

[TheJttv]

I really like this series. Can we get a video for every supreme court ruling?

[auspicioustoot]

They’re still using stingrays though....

[PeterPutz]

This is a mute point. These days the strongest tool the cops have is that they can search cell phone tower data of a location over time, see who was in the area at the approx. time of the crime and bring in anyone who matches the rough description. How do you think the cops find crims so quickly... the dumb crims have their phone in their pocket... smart crims leave it at home. So really, searching a phone after arresting a suspect is just icing on the cake and helps with reinforcing motive via nasty texts etc, the cops already know you where there, even if you don't think they do. So location data on the phone being searched after arrest... meh.

[fractal]

Cops need a warrant to search your phone period