Government claims Americans have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ with cell phone usage
It seems like these days, abuses of our Constitution are occurring more frequently by those who have been entrusted to protect and uphold it.
U.S. attorney Nathan Judish argued recently before the 5th Circuit Court in New Orleans that the government need not obtain a probable cause search warrant for cellphone user data because, he says, customers have “no reasonable expectation of privacy.” (No word on whether he – or the Justice Department as a whole – takes that same stance for customers of traditional “landline” telephones.)
Judish – senior counsel for the Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section – “argued that because cellphone companies store usage information at their own discretion, they act as witnesses in a criminal investigation where any relevant information is admissible without a warrant,” Courthouse News Service reported.
That rumble you just heard was our Founding Fathers collectively rolling over in their graves at such a tortured explanation of why the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment’s privacy guarantees suddenly don’t apply to federal agents.
The case stems from a government attempt to obtain judicial orders granting the government authority to obtain 60 days’ worth of location data from two cellphone companies as part of – get this – a routineinvestigation. So there’s not even extenuating circumstances or other special need for the government to want to trash the Constitution; the Leviathan simply wants so the Leviathan thinks it should get.
Harold
ACGR's "News with Attitude" 