Jones Back in Court, Challenging Admissibility of Cell Tracking Data
Cell site data is entitled to the same protection as GPS data and also cannot be used by the government to track someone without a warrant without violating the 4th Amendment, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy & Technology said in an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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Antoine Jones, a Washington, D.C., night club owner and subject of 2005 criminal probe, was eventually sentenced to life in prison after a 2008 trial when he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine and 50 or more grams of cocaine base. Jones’ attorneys appealed his case to the Supreme Court and in a landmark decision in January (CD Jan 24 p1), the court ruled that GPS evidence used to track him was wrongly obtained because police had not obtained a warrant. The Supreme Court sent the case back to federal District Court for further proceedings and prosecutors decided to seek a second conviction.
Jones is back in court, this time challenging whether police should be allowed to obtain tracking data from his wireless carrier that could also tie Jones to his alleged crime. EFF and CDT hope Jones’ case will provide a second federal precedent, this time offering the same privacy protections for call origination, termination and other tracking data.
"Jones’ motion to suppress should be granted because the government violated the 4th Amendment when it sought six months worth of location information from Jones’ provider of the essential service without obtaining a warrant based on probable cause,” CDT and EFF said in the brief. The government is likely to argue that cellular data is not as accurate as GPS data, the two said. “In fact, cell site information can be quite precise, and the technology is trending in directions that make it increasingly more so."
"Location data is extraordinarily sensitive,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. “It can reveal where you worship, where your family and friends live, what sort of doctors you visit, and what meetings and activities you attend. Whether this information is collected by a GPS device or a mobile phone company, the government should only be able to get it with a warrant based on probable cause that’s approved by a judge."
In a case decided Monday, the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of Melvin Skinner of drug charges after police used data emanating from his pay-as-you-go cellphone to track him to a rest stop near Abilene, Texas, where he was driving a motor home filled with more than 1,100 pounds of marijuana. “The district court denied Skinner’s motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the search of his vehicle, and Skinner was later convicted of two counts related to drug trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering,” the 6th Circuit said (http://xrl.us/bnkpzm). “The convictions must be upheld as there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and Skinner’s other arguments on appeal lack merit. In short, Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location.”