Huge: #SCOTUS holds that gathering location data held by cellphone companies is a 4th Am. search and requires a warrant. supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf… 
Roberts, writing for a 5-4 majority, says that the cellphone location records are "qualitatively different" from bank and dialing info. The third-party doctrine does not apply.
People "compulsively carry cellphones with them all the time," meaning cell-site location data gives the government "near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle monitor to the phone's user."
This is significant -> #SCOTUS holds that the "seismic shifts in digital technology" means it must evaluate 4th Amendment claims differently. Telecom companies now create an "exhaustive chronicle of location information" that goes back years and is "infallible."
#SCOTUS also rejects the notion that cellphone users are sharing their locations with carriers voluntarily. "In no meaningful sense does the user voluntarily assume the risk of turning over a comprehensive dossier of his physical movements."
Roberts says the majority opinion in Carpenter is "narrow." It might not apply to real-time location data, It doesn't require a warrant for calling records, or for other "conventional surveillance techniques." And he says it shouldn't be applied to national security collections.
#SCOTUS: Gathering historic cell-site location info from carriers is a 4th Am. search, so "the Government must generally obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring such records."
At bottom, Carpenter is another decision by #SCOTUS that cellphones are different and should be treated differently under the 4th Am.
Read it here: supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf…
