Sunday, October 13, 2013

Massachusetts SJC to weigh in on Cellphone Records without a Search Warrant

In a case that echoes the controversy over the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, Massachusetts’ highest court heard arguments Thursday in deliberations that will determine whether police can get a criminal suspect’s cellphone records without a search warrant. 
Civil libertarians said the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision will have far-reaching implications for privacy rights in Massachusetts and warned that police would be able to easily access information about anyone’s daily movements unless they are kept in check by a search-warrant requirement.
The case involves the 2004 homicide of a Malden woman, Julaine Jules, and the arrest of her then-boyfriend, Shabazz Augustine, in 2011. During their investigation, prosecutors sought and received Augustine’s cellphone records in order to pinpoint his whereabouts around the time of the killing. 
The records were obtained under a federal law that allows a lower threshold of proof than does a search warrant, for which a judge must determine there is probable cause to believe the suspect was involved in a crime.
Privacy rights activists said the turning over of the records violated protections in the Massachusetts Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure. 
[...] 
In the Massachusetts case heard Thursday, a Suffolk County Superior Court judge had ruled in February that because cellphone records can reveal a person’s movements and activities in great detail, the records were inadmissible without a search warrant. Prosecutors appealed, bringing the issue before the Supreme Judicial Court. 
The Court ruling is expected in about 6 months.

Read the full story HERE.

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