Florida Supreme Court Rejects Cell Phone Tracking by Police

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/fl-supreme-court-rejects-cell-phone-tracking-police

Fl. Supreme Court Rejects Cell Phone Tracking by Police

By Jim Saunders of The News Service of Florida
6:37 pm
Thu October 16, 2014

Pointing to privacy rights, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday said police need to get warrants before using cell-phone information to conduct "real-time" tracking of criminal suspects.

Justices, in a 5-2 decision, sided with a man who was arrested in 2007 in Broward County after a search of his vehicle uncovered a kilogram brick of cocaine hidden in a spare-tire well. Police tracked the man, Shawn Alvin Tracey, through location information given off when cell-phone calls are made.

In a 46-page majority opinion, Chief Justice Jorge Labarga wrote that using the information without a warrant violated Tracey's Fourth Amendment constitutional rights, which protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures. Labarga, in ruling that evidence against Tracey should be suppressed, also pointed to the public's dependence on cell phones.

"We cannot overlook the inexorable and significant fact that, because cell phones are indispensable to so many people and are normally carried on one's person, cell phone tracking can easily invade the right to privacy in one's home or other private areas, a matter that the government cannot always anticipate and one which, when it occurs, is clearly a Fourth Amendment violation,'' wrote Labarga, who was joined in the majority by justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and James E.C. Perry.

[GGJohn]

1. DAMN!!!!!!

Good ruling, kudos to the 5 justices and shame on the 2 who dissented.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. I knew it!

I have every reason to believe they were using it in my county. And I doubt that a determination from the Florida Supreme Court is going to make one bit of difference. They will have to be caught before they stop.