Supreme Court justices support digital privacy
Access to cell records may be unconstitutional
WASHINGTON – A majority of Supreme Court justices voiced concerns Wednesday that the government’s ability to monitor people through their cellphones violates their privacy.
Just as they ruled over the past five years that police cannot use GPS equipment to track vehicles or search cellphones without a warrant, the justices cast doubt on the use of longterm cellphone location data.
In a case that could have broad implications for privacy rights in the digital age, justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum said rapid advances in technology make decadesold precedents inadequate.
“A cellphone can be pinged in your bedroom. It can be pinged at your doctor’s office,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “I am not beyond the belief that someday a provider could turn on my cellphone and listen to my conversations.”
The liberal Sotomayor was joined by conservatives such as Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, who argued that permitting police to get information from third parties such as wireless carriers may be unconstitutional.
The latest case grew out of a series of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio in 2010 and 2011. To prosecute their case against Timothy Carpenter, the government obtained cellphone records that placed him in near the crimes.
The records were obtained under the Stored Communications Act of 1986, which allows phone companies to turn over records if the government has “reasonable grounds” to believe they will help a criminal investigation. A search warrant requires a tougher “probable cause” standard.
In 2016, police made some 125,000 requests for cellphone location data from Verizon and AT&T alone, often involving several suspects over months. Courts routinely grant those requests under the 1986 law.
But privacy groups warned that extending the theory to cellphone location data could be a slippery slope leading to email and text messages, social media communications, Internet browsing histories and the “Internet of Things.”
“I am not beyond the belief that someday a provider could turn on my cellphone and listen to my conversations.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor