A warrant isn’t required for police officers to ask telephone companies for customer records created by cell towers, an appeals court now says, reversing a previous ruling that had been originally hailed as a victory by privacy advocates.
According to the court’s latest 9-2 vote, the acquisition of historical cell tower location information by means of a court order wasn’t unconstitutional because Davis lacked any expectation of privacy with regards to those records.
Rather, the appeals court said that the records in question were created for business purposes by MetroPCS and were not at any time under Davis’ control, regardless of whether he approved of their existence.
“Davis can assert neither ownership nor possession of the third-party’s business records he sought to suppress. Instead, those cell tower records were created by MetroPCS, stored on its own premises and subject to its control,” the court ruled.
“The reach of the majority opinion is breathtaking,”David Oscar Markus, Davis’s attorney, told the
Washington Post. “
It means that the government can get anything stored by a third party — your Facebook posts, your Amazon purchases, your Internet search history, even the documents and pictures you store in the cloud, all without a warrant.”
Judge Beverly Martin, writing on behalf of the appeals court’s two dissenting votes, raised that question as well. Under a plain reading of the majority’s rule, she said, Americans surrender “
any privacy interest” whatsoever with regards to data given to third-parties.
“Nearly every website collects information about what we do when we visit,” she wrote.
“So now, under the majority’s rule, the Fourth Amendment allows the government to know from YouTube.com what we watch, or Facebook.com what we post or whom we 'friend,’ or Amazon.com what we buy, or Wikipedia.com what we research, or Match.com whom we date - all without a warrant.”
“We are pleased with the decision,” Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told the Washington Post.
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