By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Lawyers from the Department of Justice will appear in court today to argue in favor of warrantless tracking of cellphone, saying that Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the cellphone’s whereabouts.
Declan McCullagh, writing for CNETNews.com, is reporting that the case, which is the first of its kind to be argued in a federal appeals court, will address unsettled law regarding the use of cellphone records and could result in establishing new standards for locating wireless devices.
Right now, cell phone tracking is commonly used in criminal investigations and consists of obtaining cell phone records kept by mobile providers for their own billing purposes. Some data is very detailed and can reveal the minute-by-minute location of a mobile device. Records are generally kept by providers anywhere from six to 12 months.
How much access should the government have to these records, and under what conditions?
The Obama administration is arguing that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Attorneys for the ACLU and other civil liberties groups plan to Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.
“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who will be appearing in court today. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”
McCullagh says cases have been tried before involving cell phone privacy, but judges have been unable to agree on the groundrules, although “only a minority has sided with the Justice Department.”
A full report on this issue can be found at
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
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