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11th Circuit Rules Feds Don't Need Warrant to Get Your Phone Location Records

May 12, 2015

The Verge has reported that the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled on May 5th that government doesn't need a warrant to search wireless carriers' cellphone records. The court ruled that the records were not from a 'search'.

The case involved Quartavious Davis, accused of a series of armed robberies, who prosecutors tracked using 11,606 location records from 2010, obtained from a carrier called MetroPCS. Davis' lawyers argued that the records were inadmissible, as they were obtained without a warrant or probable cause and violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

The Court disagreed, ruling that the government must only meet the standard for records obtainable under the Stored Communications Act, which requires that the government "offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe" the records "are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."

"To prevail on his Fourth Amendment claim, Davis must show both (1) that the application of the SCA to the facts of his case involved a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and (2) that such search was unreasonable. This Davis cannot do," the ruling states.

Privacy advocates are agitated about the ruling, arguing that the court has set a precedent for the government to easily obtain other records, such as web-browsing behavior. In 2013, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit made an opposite ruling.

A Supreme Court ruling is probably in the offing . . . .

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