The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled that it could impose limits on the government’s ability to track Americans by collecting information from cellphones.
The justices heard 80 minutes of arguments today in a case in which privacy intersects with technology.
Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices indicated they could extend the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches to police collection of cellphone tower information—an important criminal investigation tool.
“The whole question is whether the information is accessible to the government” without a warrant, Roberts said.
In the case before the court, investigators acquired 127 days of cell phone tower information without a search warrant, allowing them to place convicted robber Timothy Carpenter in the vicinity of a string of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio. Carpenter is serving a 116-year prison term for his role in the robberies.
Investigators in the case obtained the cell tower records with a court order that requires a lower standard than the probable cause.
Underlying the argument was some justices’ wariness of new technology and its ability to track not just movements, but purchases, subscriptions, internet searches and every aspect of Americans’ lives.
“Most Americans, I think, still want to avoid Big Brother,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
