But, in oral arguments today before a federal appellate panel in Philadelphia, the government contended that no warrant is required to get such information about a cell phone user's geographic location from the service provider, Reuters reports. No information about what was said during the actual phone call would be provided, only the user's location, pointed out Mark Eckenwiler, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice.
The appeal by the DOJ seeks to overturn a lower court ruling that probable cause was needed before Sprint Spectrum could be required to provide cell phone tracking information for authorities to use in a narcotics trafficking investigation.
"We think the data in this case is accurate enough to implicate the Fourth Amendment," said attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Because cell tower data can pinpoint a user's location within a tenth of a mile, the EFF argued, obtaining tracking information without probable cause would violate constitutional protections against unreasonable seizure.
The panel extended the usual 30-minute time limit for oral arguments to 80 minutes, notes the Associated Press.
"We should be able to use our cell phones without them creating a virtual map of our movements and associations," contended law professor Susan Freiwald of the University of San Francisco.
The case is being closely watched because the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly is the first federal court to consider the cell phone tracking probable cause issue at this level.