At least, that’s what the ACLU argued before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case about whether police need a warrant to track an individual’s location using data from cell phone towers. “Your cell phone location records can reveal extraordinarily private information about you, including where you go to the doctor, who your friends are, and where you sleep at night,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, who defended the ACLU’s brief before the three-judge panel. While Wessler makes cell towers sound omnipresent and a bit frightening, it’s not the structure itself that the ACLU is concerned with (like so many others), instead they are concerned with who has access to this private information. The ACLU explains that, because the location data created whenever an individual’s cell phone connects to a “cell site” (tower) to make or receive a call or text message can be used to track an individual’s location and movement, for police to access this data without first obtaining a warrant is a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches.
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