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Carpenter v. United States on Cell Site Location
Carpenter v. United States, SCOTUS June 2018. Episode 508 (Duration 17:52)
Carpenter v. United States Says Police Need A Warrant To Get It Your Cell Site Location Data
Police need a warrant to capture your CSLI.
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The Charge
Defendant was charged with six counts of robbery and an additional six counts of carrying a firearm during a federal crime of violence.
He was convicted and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Issue
This case presents the question whether the Government conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment when it accesses historical cell phone records that provide a comprehensive chronicle of the user’s past movements.
Defendant argued the Government’s seizure of the records violated the Fourth Amendment because they had been obtained without a warrant supported by probable cause.
Cell Site Location Information(The Technology)
Cell phones continuously scan their environment looking for the best signal, which generally comes from the closest cell site.
Most modern devices, such as smartphones, tap into the wireless network several times a minute whenever their signal is on, even if the owner is not using one of the phone’s features. Each time the phone connects to a cell site, it generates a time-stamped record known as cell-site location information (CSLI).
The precision of this information depends on the size of the geographic area covered by the cell site. The greater the concentration of cell sites, the smaller the coverage area. As data usage from cell phones has increased, wireless carriers have installed more cell sites to handle the traffic. That has led to increasingly compact coverage areas, especially in urban areas.
Wireless carriers collect and store CSLI for their own business purposes.
The Investigation
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By Police NuggetsCarpenter v. United States, SCOTUS June 2018. Episode 508 (Duration 17:52)
Carpenter v. United States Says Police Need A Warrant To Get It Your Cell Site Location Data
Police need a warrant to capture your CSLI.
Subscribe: Apple | Google | Spotify | Android | RSS | Direct Download
APPLE PODCASTS GOOGLE PODCASTS
SPOTIFY ANDROID RSS
DIRECT DOWNLOAD
The Charge
Defendant was charged with six counts of robbery and an additional six counts of carrying a firearm during a federal crime of violence.
He was convicted and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.
Issue
This case presents the question whether the Government conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment when it accesses historical cell phone records that provide a comprehensive chronicle of the user’s past movements.
Defendant argued the Government’s seizure of the records violated the Fourth Amendment because they had been obtained without a warrant supported by probable cause.
Cell Site Location Information(The Technology)
Cell phones continuously scan their environment looking for the best signal, which generally comes from the closest cell site.
Most modern devices, such as smartphones, tap into the wireless network several times a minute whenever their signal is on, even if the owner is not using one of the phone’s features. Each time the phone connects to a cell site, it generates a time-stamped record known as cell-site location information (CSLI).
The precision of this information depends on the size of the geographic area covered by the cell site. The greater the concentration of cell sites, the smaller the coverage area. As data usage from cell phones has increased, wireless carriers have installed more cell sites to handle the traffic. That has led to increasingly compact coverage areas, especially in urban areas.
Wireless carriers collect and store CSLI for their own business purposes.
The Investigation