The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review a case examining whether the Constitution requires law enforcement to get a warrant before obtaining cellphone location data for particular users. The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. Relying on a 1979 case known as Smith v. Maryland, courts across the country have ruled that law enforcement officials don’t need a court-approved warrant to access this information. For example, in the case of Timothy Carpenter ― the petitioner at the center of this Supreme Court case ― federal prosecutors investigating a series of robberies sought and obtained 127 days’ worth of cell-site information about him and his movements. The federal government has resisted efforts to get the Fourth Amendment to apply to these location records.

Source: Huffington Post June 05, 2017 14:10 UTC