The Supreme Court heard arguments today for Carpenter v. United States, a case that could have serious implications on how police use cellphones to track a person’s location.
Timothy Carpenter was a robbery suspect arrested in connection with a string of armed robberies of RadioShack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan in 2011. After failing to catch Carpenter initially, FBI agents requested cellphone data from wireless carriers, with a court order from a magistrate judge under the Stored Communications Act. FBI agents obtained months of records from cellphone companies and successfully convicted Carpenter in 2013.
Because there was no warrant for the records request, the ACLU argues the location records were collected unconstitutionally....
