“Get A D*** Warrant” – Supreme Court Rules Law Enforcement Use Of Cell Phone Location Data Requires Warrant

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The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain cell phone location data through a “geofence warrant.”

Thus, individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in records of their cell phone’s location.

The case in question pertained to law enforcement officials using a geofence warrant that instructed Google to provide location data for cellphone users who were near a particular place during a specific time period to obtain evidence used to convict a Virginia man of a 2019 bank robbery.

The high court ruled they conducted a “search” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.

“By a vote of 6-3, the justices sent Okello Chatrie’s case back to the lower court for it to consider whether, as the Fourth Amendment requires, the search was ‘reasonable,’” SCOTUSblog reports.

Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “[a]n individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.”

“Important SCOTUS ruling. Get a d*** warrant if snooping on cell phone locations!” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) commented.

SCOTUSblog explained further:

Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissenting opinion joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, contended that the majority’s opinion “will send seismic waves through our Fourth Amendment doctrine” but would ultimately not have any effect on Chatrie’s case.

The issue at the center of Chatrie v. United States arose after a man armed with a gun entered a federal credit union outside Richmond, Virginia, and gave the teller a note demanding money. He made off with nearly $200,000, but law enforcement officials did not have any leads until they served Google with a geofence warrant, which directed the tech company to provide location data for cellphone users who were near the bank at the time of the robbery.

The information that Google provided to law enforcement officials came in three tranches. First, Google gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts (but without the names attached to those accounts) linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Second, based on that list of 19 accounts, the government asked for additional information about nine accounts that were in the area during a two-hour period. At the third step, a detective asked for, and received, the names and information associated with three accounts – one of which was Chatrie’s.

Relying on the location data, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to search two residences linked to Chatrie, where they found almost $100,000 of the stolen cash, a gun, and demand notes.

Prosecutors charged Chatrie with bank robbery. He asked the trial judge to bar prosecutors from using the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant at his trial, arguing that the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

Kagan said courts have to guard against “undue encroachment” on Fourth Amendment rights.

“The Fourth Amendment must, as ever, protect against unjustified government intrusion on the privacy of the individual,” she added, according to NBC News.

NBC News has more:

The concern as it relates to cell phone location-based searches is that the amount of data available gives the government a “virtual panopticon with which to scrutinize its citizens’ activities,” Kagan wrote.

In dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said he would have found that no warrant is required, calling the ruling an “irresponsible escapade” that the court should never have agreed to hear.

He accused the majority of “striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age.”

Privacy rights advocates have raised concerns about geofence warrants, calling them a form of dragnet surveillance because the information is not just about one suspect but anyone who was in the location in question. They have warned that such warrants could be used to target disfavored political groups, including protesters.

In the Chatrie case, Google initially provided information about 19 users, and a police officer later narrowed it down.

Chatrie pleaded guilty to federal charges of armed robbery and brandishing a firearm, and he was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison. But he reserved the right to appeal on the issue now decided by the Supreme Court.

When the case returns to lower courts, Chatrie’s lawyers will argue that the warrant was too broad and therefore violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

The post “Get A D*** Warrant” – Supreme Court Rules Law Enforcement Use Of Cell Phone Location Data Requires Warrant appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.

IN the summer of 2019, I was seated in the wine cellar of a walled Medieval town high above the Dordogne Valley of France, not far from Sarlat-la-Canéda, making phone calls, writing reports. I have given this story in other places and it appears as though you’re about to hear it again. Rob Skiba is a name you that you might be familiar with. Though he had made a name for himself as a Nephilim researcher, more recently Rob had taken a dive into the deep end of the pool via flat earth research. The recorded interviews I conducted between he and Rick Hummer, a fellow flat earth investigator and close friend of his, was published while still occupying that very wine cellar. Read all about it. Chicago Is Not a Mirage.

Word quickly spread. Within a few short weeks, dozens of flat earth researchers began accepting my invite for a private interview, if not a series of interviews. From a 17th-century tower built by King Louis XIV, and with a stunning view of the Alps, I sat down with Robbie Davidson, founder of the Flat Earth International Conferences, conducting multiple sessions. While staying in Dumfries, Scotland, David Weiss agreed to take part in the interviews, as did Bob Knodel of Globebusters. There were others. But when I asked the interviewees to discuss the moments that shaped their lives, among the many PSYOPs, false flag attacks, and hoaxes that were discussed, only these men committed commentary to the false 9/11 narrative.

The resulting recordings ballooned into The Unexpected Cosmology, a book which became a website and was even intended as an anthology. And of course, the following discourse was originally a chapter. It was Walt Disney who stated, “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Those sentiments remain applicable here as well. American Sensationalism: The 9/11 Interviews was always intended to be expanded upon with the inclusion of new researchers. So I’m sorry to say the project became stagnant during the Covid-19 psychodrama. I took a break to tackle other projects. We lost Rob Skiba. Rob offered hours of private conversation regarding his life but we never got around to the big one. 9/11. It was in the cards. Sadly, Bob Knodel died soon afterwards. Voices are being squeezed from an entire generation. Gnosis passes with them.

In the aftermath, the FE community became fractured. People began going their separate ways. Robbie Davidson, among a noted few others who were interviewed for the project, got up and left the movement altogether. It is not my intent to erase his or the contributions of others if only brief. They came, they went, their testimonies remain.

The original vision may have hit roadblocks but it is not forgotten. I expanded this paper a few years later to include testimony from author Pauly Hart, a dear friend of mine. I had wanted to continue that trend every year thereafter but you know how it goes. For the 25th anniversary of the attack I have redirected my efforts to its first large scale expansion, including Andrew Hoy and Darrin Geisinger into the mix. Perhaps others will lend their experiences to the recorder in time.

The following is their report.

Read the 9/11 Interviews

Watch the Interviews