Supreme Court rules police need a warrant to access a suspects’ cellphone location data

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that police cannot freely access people's cellphone location data, regardless if they are suspected for a crime.

Police have always needed court-approved warrants before searching people's phones (due to the search and seizure protections under the Fourth Amendment), but they routinely breeched that protocol by accessing data from wireless carriers without a court's permission.

Phone privacy rights — from wiretaps to location data — have long been debated in the courts, so today's ruling is a symbolic win for privacy advocates and somewhat of an upset for law enforcement. Read more...