Supreme Court considers if your privacy rights include location data

With all the attention focused on the FCC's upcoming vote to dismantle net neutrality protections, it's easy to have missed an upcoming hearing that has the potential to reshape electronic privacy protection. Today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Carpenter v. United States — and at issue is cellphone tower location data that law enforcement obtained without a warrant.

Defendant Timothy Carpenter, who was convicted as the mastermind behind two years of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio, has argued that his location data, as gathered by his cell phone service provider, is covered under the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Thus far, appeals courts have upheld the initial decision that law enforcement didn't need a warrant to acquire this data, so the Supreme Court is now tasked with determining whether this data is deserving of more rigorous privacy protection.

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