Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless seizure of cellphone location records, amicus brief argues – Reporters Committee for Freedom of the…

Press Release | August 14, 2017

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 19 other media organizations support requiring the government to obtain warrants for access to cellphone location records

The government should not be able to obtain cellphone location records without first getting a warrant, said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The current ruling makes it too easy for the government to track a persons every move through their cellphone, which is especially worrisome if the location records in question belong to a journalist. This endangers journalists ability to gather information and keep the public informed without the risk of being easily and routinely surveilled.

The coalition brief argues that cellphone location records paint an intimate and comprehensive picture of where individuals go, and thus the people and places they associate with.

According to the brief, a journalists cellphone location data can disclose particularly sensitive details about the journalistic process: It can reveal the stories a journalist is working on before they are published, where a journalist went to gather information for those stories, and the identity of a journalists sourcesExposure of sources and journalistic methods can put sources jobs and lives at risk, compromise the integrity of the newsgathering process, and have a chilling effect on reporting.

The brief also argues that if the government can easily and routinely access detailed information about a persons movements without a warrant, it threatens the ability to freely engage in activities protected by the First Amendment like newsgathering, which now often relies on use of a cellphone.

Cellphones have become a mobile newsroom and a necessary newsgathering tool for journalists. Unfortunately, theres no way to use a cellphone without sharing some location data with a service provider, said Brown. Allowing the government to easily access cellphone location records that paint a picture of where a journalist goes and possibly even who they meet with chills reporter-source relationships, threatens newsgathering, and ultimately harms the flow of information to the public.

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Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless seizure of cellphone location records, amicus brief argues - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the...