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A federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled Tuesday that the government may need a warrant when trying to obtain phone records that show a person's location.
It was not a clear victory for privacy advocates, but it kept open a door that law enforcement had wanted to slam shut.
Kevin Bankston, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the appeals court recognized that there were circumstances that fall under the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
"The court rejected the argument that everyone who uses a cell phone has volunteered to be tracked," Bankston said.
So the question here is can the government access records, without a warrant, that give away your location? This decision went against the government, but other decisions have gone for the government. This is going to eventually be resolved, one way or the other, by the Supreme Court.
My own answer is that, if there is no suspicion, then where I go is none of the government's damn business. If there is, then they had better obtain a warrant. Otherwise, this constitutes an unreasonable search. A warrant is the only thing that makes the search reasonable, and allows us to be safe, knowing that we are not being targeted just because we hold political views that differ from the government's views. That has happened before, many times. It cannot be allowed to happen again.
Article is here.