>
Article snippet: The Supreme Court ruled Friday that law enforcement in most cases has to obtain a warrant in order to search and seize long-term cell phone records that would show a person's location. In a 5-4 ruling, the court held that the Fourth Amendment's protections against an unreasonable search protects people from having the government acquire their cell-site records from wireless providers in run-of-the-mill criminal investigations. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's four liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, to make up the majority. Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented along with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. The ruling marked a major win for privacy rights in the digital age. The case before the court centered on Timothy Carpenter, who argued the government violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure when it obtained records from his wireless provider revealing his location over 127 days. Authorities used the data as evidence at his trial to convict him of a string of robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio from December 2010 to March 2011. The government claimed it was well within its right under the Stored Communications Act of 1986 to obtain the records through a court order, which requires police to show reasonable grounds to believe the information is relevant to their criminal investigation. For a wa... Link to the full article to read more