Prince Jones v US

[Jerry]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 01:22:13 -0400, Robert J. Hansen stated:

>Good news for US citizens: _Prince Jones v US_ was decided Thursday.
>The important text from the opinion is recreated here, and the
>implications for encrypted email follow.
>
>* * * * *
>
>But in addition to the fact that people reasonably value and hope to
>protect the privacy of their location information, what necessitates our
>conclusion is the _method_ by which the government obtained the location
>information in this case. Unlike in a situation in which the government
>determines a person's location through visual surveillance or by
>employing the older generation of tracking devices, it cannot be argued
>that "the information obtained by [the government] in this case was ...
>readily available and in the public view". The cell-site simulator
>employed in this case gave the government a powerful person-locating
>capability that private actors do not have and that, as explained above,
>the government itself had previously lacked -- a capability only
>superficially analogous to the visual tracking of a suspect. And the
>simulator's operation involved exploitation of a security flaw in a
>device that most people now feel obligated to carry with them at all
>times. Allowing the government to deploy such a powerful tool without
>judicial oversight would surely "shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy"
>far below that which "existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted". It
>would also place an individual in the difficult position either of
>accepting the risk that at any moment his or her cellphone could be
>converted into tracking device or of forgoing "necessary use of" the
>cellphone. We thus conclude that under ordinary circumstances, the use
>of a cell-site simulator to locate a person through his or her cellphone
>invades the person's actual, legitimate, and reasonable expectation of
>privacy in his or her location information and is a search.
>
>* * * * *
>
>The above is taken from the opinion -- citations omitted.  But it
>appears to me this logic is immediately applicable to many different
>kinds of surveillance: namely, if it involves security flaws in common
>everyday technologies which millions of Americans entrust with their
>secrets and who really cannot reasonably avoid using... then it needs a
>warrant.
>
>The implications for electronic privacy in the United States should be
>clear.  This is a really good development.  :)

Can you cite the case #. All I could find is an old "local appeals court in
Washington, D.C." ruling. I found nothing under the US Supreme Court.

-- 
Jerry