In a move that protects citizens privacy rights, Judge Terrence F. McVerry of the Western District of Pennsylvania, rejected the governments argument that they have a right to cellphone tower data, which could be used to track a cellphone anywhere, raising privacy concerns. Instead the government bust obtain a warrant thus must prove probably cause.
The government is arguing the data is not precise enough to constitute a breach of one's fourth admendment rights, and that there is no difference between historical data related to cellphone usage and credit card transactions. Apparently the government is not required to get a warrant to access your credit card usage history. They are required to get a warrant for GPS data, however.
Opinion:My thoughts are the government does not need the ability to track anyone unless there is probably cause, further maybe their free reign access into ones credit card usage should be ruled upon again, as that does locate you at a specific time and place though not as frequent as some cellphone data.
Further cellphone tracking will only get better with time, and the resolution of those tower interactions will provide even more information for the government. Thus whatever threat to privacy current cellphone historic data provides, it will only provide more as technology, tracking, increased use, and constant connectivity come about. It really is a no brainer that this should be disallowed as the data will only get better with time, and the information more personal. Why the government needs access to that for people that they have no foundation of "probable cause" to research, is beyond me, other than to do broad stroke data mining on individuals.
