Subscribers’ data obtained from cellphone towers is protected by US Constitution

Cellphone data captured from towers is protected under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and accessing such information without proper sanction is deemed as illegal. Such a ruling was brought by a federal judge who broke the long line of similar cases when police wasn’t required to obtain search warrants based on probable cause before accessing the subscriber information. US Magistrate Judge Stephen Wm Smith of the Southern District of Texas said recent changes in case law and rapidly evolving mobile technology required a departure from the outcomes in that long line of cases.

“In 1789 it was inconceivable that every peripatetic step of a citizen's life could be monitored, recorded, and revealed to the government,” he wrote in a decision that was released late last month but only noticed in the last few days. “For a cell phone user born in 1984, however, it is conceivable that every movement of his adult life can be imperceptibly captured, compiled, and retrieved from a digital dossier somewhere in a computer cloud. Now as then, the Fourth Amendment remains our polestar.”

The judge’s ruling marks a great victory for privacy advocates who have long argued that historical cell-site information gives the government the ability to track users' location each time they make a call or send a text message. In this case, however, it would appear the government was seeking to electronically surveil targets “whether the phone was in active use or not,” Smith said.

The government's request for permission to capture 60 days worth of tower data didn't sit well with the judge, who likened the electronic record to “a continuous reality TV show, exposing two months’ worth of a person’s movements, activities, and associations in relentless detail.”