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SJC: Warrants needed for some cell records
http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140218/NEWS/140215936/1994/NEWSSJC: Warrants needed for some cell records
By Mark Pratt
The Associated Press
BOSTON — Law enforcement in Massachusetts must get a search warrant before obtaining cellphone records to track someone's movements in most cases, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-2 against prosecutors who wanted a murder suspect's cellphone records over a two-week period admissible as evidence.
The court ruled that obtaining cell site location information over such a long period without a warrant based on probable cause was an invasion of privacy and a violation of the state Declaration of Rights. Cell site location information shows which cell towers a user's phone communicates with at the beginning and end of a call, giving that person's approximate location.
"Even though restricted to telephone calls sent and received (answered or unanswered), the tracking of the defendant's movements in the urban Boston area for two weeks was more than sufficient to intrude upon the defendant's expectation of privacy," the majority said in the ruling.