Police can retroactively bug your phone for your breadcrumb trail

Wired's Jennifer Granick has a chilling editorial on what a new decision out of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on cell-phone records means for you: law enforcement can now gain access to the record of where you've taken your cellphone, because "stored data" doesn't get the same privacy protection that "live data" does.

While most courts considering the issue have held that police need "probable cause" to track your movements, a new decision (.pdf) last week out of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts holds that law enforcement need show only "relevance to an ongoing investigation" to get a historical record of your past movement (something like the Jeffy trail in The Family Circus cartoon).

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