Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cellphone Tracking Case -
By ADAM LIPTAKJUNE 5, 2017
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether the government needs a warrant
to obtain information from cellphone companies showing their customers’ locations.
Relying on the Smith decision’s “third-party doctrine,” federal appeals courts have said
that government investigators seeking data from cellphone companies showing users’ movements do not require a warrant
16-402, concerns historical data held by cellphone companies
that shows users’ movements over time and could, for instance, place them at the scene of a crime.
In 1979, in Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled
that a robbery suspect had no reasonable expectation that his right to privacy extended to the numbers dialed from his phone.