

EFF: Courts May Require Search Warrants for Cell Phone Location Records - ukdm
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/breaking-news-eff-location-privacy-win-courts-may

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oiuytgfrgh
Excellent - so if this passes, and also passes all the higher courts then it
will be against the law to arbitrarily track cell phones.

Except for matters of national security

Or when the NSA do it

Or if it's about terrorism

Or if the police asks the phone companies nicely, and then pardon them for
breaking the law afterwards.

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mattmaroon
Yeah yeah, we know. Obligatory HN anti-government rant. Only here can that not
only occur on a post about a government limiting its own powers (quite
reasonably too) through its own system of checks and balances, but not even be
a surprise.

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CapitalistCartr
That is because in the USA, the people grant the federal government it's
powers; the federal government doesn't decide what those powers will be. At
least in theory. So our government doesn't limit it's own powers, we do,
usually by way of the courts. And when any part of that federal government
grossly oversteps the powers we've granted it, some of us get quite upset
about it.

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mattmaroon
Well, it's not exactly clear what powers we the people have granted the
Federal Government, so the courts (part of the government) exist partially to
interpret that. In this case, which should be cause for celebration, the
courts came to the conclusion (which I think most here would agree with) that
those powers do not include pulling cell phone records at will.

The commenter to which I responded got off topic on an anti-government tangent
that made a number of assumptions not at all related to the article for no
other reason than to make an anti-government rant, which I grant is a cheap
source of karma here.

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btilly
Does anyone know whether this ruling affects the use of cell phone location
records in civil cases?

For example these records have been used in divorce cases to provide evidence
of affairs. (If two cell phones have a repeated tendency to meet each other in
motel rooms, this is evidence that the carriers of said cell phones did
likewise.) Does this ruling on what the police can do affect that at all?

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darrikmazey
In a civil case, why would the police be involved at all? IANAL, but I have
been married three times, and I can't imagine a judge in a divorce case
wasting time with cell phone records. However, I live in a no-fault divorce
state, so my experience may not translate.

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btilly
The police aren't involved in that case.

If the divorce is contested (which can happen in a no-fault state), the
lawyers for either side can send subpoenas to anyone they like looking for
relevant records, and a standard one to send is to the cellphone company.
Which can reveal a _lot_.

My question is whether a sufficient right to the privacy of those records has
been established to block those requests in principle.

