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It’s been over a year since 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies seeking information about their policies, procedures, and practices for tracking cell phones. And 13 months later (and in the wake of this front page article in the New York Times), we’re still handling responses. We’ve posted the latest batch of documents received on our interactive webmap; here are highlights:

Some law enforcement agencies are trying to avoid letting the public know what they’re doing. The law enforcement guide for police in Irvine, Calif., specifically states, “Do not disclose this information in court any more than is absolutely necessary to make your case. Never disclose to the media these techniques—especially cell tower tracking.” We saw the same attitude in training materials from the Iowa Fusion Center, which instructs law enforcement, “Do not mention to the public or media the use of cell phone technology or equipment to locate the targeted subject.” Read: “We would hate for the public to know how easy it is for us to obtain their personal information. It would be inconvenient if they asked for privacy protections.” Law enforcement could most likely solve more crimes more expediently if they could break down a suspect’s front door or open his/her postal mail without a warrant, but as my colleague Catherine Crump points out, while that may be convenient, it is not okay. Warrantless cell phone location tracking shouldn’t be either.

Fortunately, Irvine’s isn’t the only word on advice to law enforcement agents. Santa Ana, Calif., provides its agents with much more civil liberties-friendly training than its neighbor to the south, and its warnings should serve any law enforcement agency: “Without a warrant . . . cell phone location data are released only in exigent situations. Exigent circumstances are best described as immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury to any person. Keep in mind that even if you convince a provider that the circumstances warrant release of the information, a district attorney and defense attorney will at some point be reviewing the case.”

More importantly, some of the law enforcement agencies in California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, reported that, like their counterparts in parts of Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, and New Jersey, they always obtain probable cause warrants in order to track cell phone location information. And then there’s the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, which does not currently track cell phone location information, but which promised that if it starts sometime in the future, it will definitely require probable cause warrants in order to do so. We hope other law enforcement agencies will make similar commitments.

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http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/n...