Aug 17 - Warrantless cellphone tracking is legal, federal court rules

Warrantless cellphone tracking is legal, federal court rules - Technolog on NBCNews.com



An interstate drug trafficker hauling a motorhome filled with marijuana isn’t the most sympathetic defendant. But a federal court’s declaration that Melvin Skinner pretty much should’ve known his pre-paid cellphone could be tracked via GPS — and therefore cops didn’t require a warrant to track him — has repercussions that privacy advocates say deserve your attention.


Even if you don’t drive around in recreational vehicles loaded down more than a thousand pounds of pot.


On Tuesday, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that law enforcement officials don’t need a warrant to track suspects via cellphones. Attorneys argued to overturn Skinner’s many convictions, citing that the GPS location information that led to the defendant’s arrest was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. This didn’t wash with the majority of judges over the case, who voted in a 2-1 ruling.


“When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them,” wrote Judge John Rogers in the majority opinion that will affect future cases in a huge chunk of the country.


Skinner was arrested in 2006, with 1,100 pounds of marijuana in the motorhome he was driving, after law enforcement officials tracked him via one of the pre-paid phones the drug ring purchased using false identities. Such “burner” phones are regularly discarded by criminals to avoid tracking. In this case however, officials obtained Skinner’s number from another member of the ring, and then a court order that required the cellphone company to disclose “cell site information, GPS real-time location, and ‘ping’ data” for Skinner’s phone.



Accessing this information, law enforced trailed Skinner to a Texas rest area where a drug-sniffing dog turned up 1,100 pounds of pot in the motorhome he was driving. Skinner was arrested, of course, and was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute over 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, conspiracy to commit money laundering, aiding and abetting the attempt to distribute in excess of 100 kilograms of marijuana — charges his lawyers say were derived by a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.


Here's the crux, as it may relate to everyone else: "There is no Fourth Amendment violation because Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data given off by his voluntarily procured pay-as-you-go cellphone." That's what Judge Rogers stated in the in the majority opinion, where he cited the Stored Communications Act. The law hamstrings the Fourth Amendment in relation to wire and electronic communications — noting that the use of third-party providers diminishes a person's expectation of privacy.


Rogers maintains his statement within the context of committing a crime. As the judge writes, "If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal." Failing that, "technology would help criminals but not the police."



This ruling is creating cognitive dissonance among privacy advocates who note that in January, all nine members of the Supreme Court held that warrantless GPS tracking is unconstitutional. In that case, police tracked suspected drug dealer Antoine Jones for 28 days — without a warrant — via a GPS device they’d attached to his car.


"That the officers were able to use less expensive and more efficient means to track the vehicles is only to their credit," he wrote.


Given the ubiquity of cellphones — most of which come with some form of GPS automatically enabled — this latest ruling rings a warning bell among privacy advocates.
"Location data is extraordinarily sensitive. It can reveal where you worship, where your family and friends live, what sort of doctors you visit, and what meetings and activities you attend," Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Marcia Hofmann wrote in a blog post prior to the court's decision.
"Whether this information is collected by a GPS device or a mobile phone company, the government should only be able to get it with a warrant based on probable cause that's approved by a judge."





"The 6th Circuit’s cell-tracking opinion is really disappointing. It’s the first appeals court decision about cell tracking after the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones and I’d hoped for a better result," Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told NBC News.


Crump led the ACLU’s blockbuster analysis of collection of cellphone location data by local police. The results, released earlier this year, revealed that many of the 200 law enforcement agencies that responded to the ACLU’s public records request, track cellphones without a warrant.




In this latest, ruling, Crump said, “the court seems to think that if criminals use cellphones, they can hardly complain if they are tracked through these phones. But the court’s reasoning deprives all of us of constitutional protection against warrantless cellphone tracking. And besides, even suspected bad guys have constitutional rights"

Damn.

you shouldnt have anything to hide anyway.

Haven't read the post yet...

But wtf does "not having anything to hide" have to do with wanting privacy

Would you allow your a stranger to peek through your window while your ol lady nak3d.....itd be fine right.........i mean she souldnt have anything to hide

There was an article in the wall street journal talking about this !!.

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he got caught as a result of cats telling on him and they building the case for there. he might get some stuff back on appeal. i'm curious though as to how if he got caught with 1100 lbs they charged him with 1,000 kgs....that's more than twice the weight. they're always adding !! and never just charge ppl with what they find to get ppl more time.

anyway, you can't win against these ppl. you are always wrong and they are always right. i wonder they did with all that weed they found.

said it before dude, if things like this dont worry you even if you do nothing wrong, then maybe you need to think a lil more

if you ever decide to stand up for yourself because a revolution is starting to brew etc or protest because of an atrocity, they will be able to track your[..] straight away without any evidence, lock your[..] up n torture you

maybe theyd end up doing it regardless, but at least with a law saying they need a warrant itll take a lil more time/make it a lil more harder


probably used it in future operations, selling to dealers to build up a case or whatnot

oh the irony

they watching me but The Most High is watching them, who should be worried? [pic]

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I dont think The Most High has any severe punishments planned for cell-phone trackers. IJS.......moving on


This comes as no surprise, however there are a lot of cats in the hood who think throw aways (pre-paids, pay-as-you-go, etc.) phones can not be tracked. This shyt right here has shortened the playing field.

!! it, Im bout to cop one of these and bring the them number codes back.

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I thought this had been legal for years

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What's the point in pretending that the constitution protects US citizens anymore?