SUPREME COURT: “The Supreme Court will hear a major case involving privacy in the digital age on Wednesday [11-29-17], and will grapple with how to apply established legal rules to rapidly changing technology.
The case concerns whether investigators need warrants to obtain cell tower data in order to track and reconstruct the movements of cell phone users over extended periods. The content of the calls is not at issue, just the locational data.
How the justices decide the case could provide a framework for other issues, including the future of the government’s surveillance power. Privacy advocates say the case could impact everything from digital medical records and search queries on Google to smart watch data.
Most courts have held that there is a diminished privacy interest in the area of cell-site location data because the information has already been voluntarily provided to phone companies — or ‘third parties.’
‘This case is the first chance to start to set reasonable limits applicable to requests for these kinds of digital-age records by making clear that a warrant will sometimes be required,’ said Nathan Freed Wessler, an ACLU lawyer opposing the government in the case.”
-Ariane de Vogue, “Supreme Court takes on major Fourth Amendment case,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Nov. 29, 2017 06:10am