Supreme Court's Cell Phone Tracking Case Could Hurt Privacy

[Commentary] One of the biggest cases for the US Supreme Court’s current term could mark a watershed moment for the Fourth Amendment. In Carpenter v. United States, the court will consider whether police need probable cause to get a search warrant to access cell site location information (CSLI), data that's automatically generated whenever a mobile phone connects to a cell tower. Not only does this case offer a chance to protect privacy rights for cell phones, Carpenter also provides an opportunity to reevaluate an antiquated legal theory, called the third-party doctrine, that underpins many government surveillance programs.

If the Supreme Court rules that CSLI falls outside the Fourth Amendment, warrantless searches will inevitably lead to wrongful seizures.

[Nick Sibilla is a legislative analyst at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning public interest law firm.]