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mewalke wrote:

talltex wrote:

gigag04 wrote:FYI - the major providers still require you have a warrant, absent a life threatening emergency (kidnapping, suicide, murderer fleeing murder)

It can be scary news in the headlines but won't change how LEOs have to operate.

I'm confused (not a particularly unusual condition). If the current highest court ruling...the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals...says that the data belongs to the providers and is thus excluded from 4th Amendment protection, how can the providers still REQUIRE a government agency requesting the info to have a warrant ? I understand that the providers will file an appeal to the Supreme Court...but until such time that the SCOTUS decides to hear the case...which could be be several years or not at all...the highest court with standing, has issued a valid ruling for those districts within its jurisdiction. CAN the providers ignore that current ruling while the case is being appealed ?

You can always deny a law enforcement request. For corporations, the worst that usually happens is law enforcement comes back with a court order for the info. Typically the big telecom companies will not hand over any identifiable information without a court order.

Well, that's the same as it's always been and that hasn't changed...they still have to have a court order to get the info, but they don't have to justify it with probable cause/reasonable suspicion of ongoing criminal activity that they previously had to in order to get a warrant issued. Before they couldn't request specific info without a search warrant because each person's individual data was considered THEIR property.

gigag04 wrote:FYI - the major providers still require you have a warrant, absent a life threatening emergency (kidnapping, suicide, murderer fleeing murder)

It can be scary news in the headlines but won't change how LEOs have to operate.

I'm confused (not a particularly unusual condition). If the current highest court ruling...the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals...says that the data belongs to the providers and is thus excluded from 4th Amendment protection, how can the providers still REQUIRE a government agency requesting the info to have a warrant ? I understand that the providers will file an appeal to the Supreme Court...but until such time that the SCOTUS decides to hear the case...which could be be several years or not at all...the highest court with standing, has issued a valid ruling for those districts within its jurisdiction. CAN the providers ignore that current ruling while the case is being appealed ?

flechero wrote:Or turn off the gps feature when you aren't using it. My phone wouldn't do much more than help them find spots that don't hold fish.

Now that's funny!
but we're not talking about a mapping app like Garmin...every cell phone has a GPS locator built into the phone that can be tracked and the only way to turn it off is to cut off power to the phone. My problem is not that they can track me doing something wrong...but that the government has a legal right to track me at all without a warrant. It's the same issue I have with the NSA keeping records of all out phone calls...there's just NO reason why they should be able to do so. In today's paper, there was an article about the Senate hearings on the NSA phone data program. One of the Senators questioned the claim that they'd made previously about it being responsible for thwarting over 50 terrorist plots, and they admitted that they could only show one case in which the phone data program itself was responsible. If it's not demonstrably effective, then why should we continue to spend billions of dollars to operate and staff it? Just because we have the capability to do something doesn't mean we should.

US 5th Circuit Court of appeals, overturned Houston Federal District ruling in 2011 that required a search warrant be issued before personal cell phone records and GPS tracking data could be obtained by Government agencies. The new ruling said that that information belongs to the service provider, not the individual, so it's not covered under the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Big Brother not only listens to the conversations...he knows where you are when you have them.