z*******n
发帖数: 1034 | 1 BY Terrence O'Brien @TerrenceOBrien June 11th 2014, at 6:18:00 pm ET
Quartavious Davis was sentenced to nearly 162 years in prison, without the
possibility of parole, for a string of armed robberies in the Miami area
several years ago. After having his day before the Court of Appeals for the
11th circuit, much of that severe punishment stands. Davis will likely
continue his battle to have his conviction overturned or his sentence
reduced, but his case has already struck one victory for privacy advocates.
The decision handed down by the judges today marks the first time that cell
phone location data has been explicitly included as part of a reasonable
expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.
Part of the evidence levied against Davis and his accomplices was data from
cellular providers showing they had made or received phone calls in the
vicinity of the alleged targets around the time the robberies occurred. The
problem is, no warrant was issued for this information, instead it was
obtained via court order that doesn't require probable cause, only "that
there are reasonable grounds to believe that the ... records or other
information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal
investigation."
In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the
subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy. The obtaining of that data
without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation.
The court thought that the particular subsection of the law used to obtain
the information was not appropriate. As you can see in the quote above, the
judges felt that location data is within a reasonable expectation of privacy
, because "Davis has not voluntarily disclosed his cell site location
information to the provider." The final verdict, warrantless mining of
location data is unconstitutional. Unfortunately for the defendant, even
though his constitutional rights were violated, the judges did not believe a
"reversible error" had been committed by a previous court. Instead, it let
the evidence stand under a "good faith" exception. So, while this may set a
strong precedent for future cases, it didn't help Davis. |
|
