Showing posts with label electronic privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic privacy. Show all posts

Thursday, August 01, 2013

4th Amend takes a hit.


"In a significant victory for law enforcement, a federal appeals court on Tuesday said that government authorities could extract historical location data directly from telecommunications carriers without a search warrant.  The ruling is the first that squarely addresses the constitutionality of warrantless searches of the historical location data stored by cellphone service providers."  The 5th Circuit justified this under the theory that business records are not covered by the 4th Amend.  This is contrary to a prior state court decision. The Supreme Court needs to step in.  In these times of stress and fear, both the 4th and 2nd Amends are taking hit in the federal courts.