In a 5–4 decision (.pdf; 508KB) — with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the so-called “liberal” arm of the court — the US Supreme Court has ruled that government authorities must obtain a probable-cause warrant to access cell tower records. These cell tower records provide a “detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled” snapshot of an individual’s movements and location, Roberts wrote in his opinion for the majority.
In his opinion, Roberts limited the scope of the court’s ruling in Carpenter v. US to non-exigent situations:
“A warrant is required only in the rare case where the suspect has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party. And even though the Government will generally need a warrant to access CSLI [cell-site location information], case-specific exceptions — e.g., exigent circumstances — may support a warrantless search.
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“… if law enforcement is confronted with an urgent situation, such fact-specific threats will likely justify the warrantless collection of CSLI. Lower courts, for instance, have approved warrantless searches related to bomb threats, active shootings, and child abductions. Our decision today does not call into doubt warrantless access to CSLI in such circumstances.”
Even while the majority stopped short of overturning the “third-party doctrine,” the fact that the records sought were held by a third party denoted a significant departure from earlier decisions by the court. The third-party doctrine provides the foundation for the US National Security Agency’s Section 215 metadata program, disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor joined Roberts in the majority.
Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling “guarantees a blizzard of litigation while threatening many legitimate and valuable investigative practices upon which law enforcement has rightfully come to rely.” Alito was joined in dissent by Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy, each of whom wrote a dissenting opinion.
The US Justice Department argued that no warrant was necessary, citing the Stored Communications Act that requires only “reasonable grounds to believe” that the records sought “are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Authoritative, canonical source: US Supreme Court rules that cell tower records require warrant.
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