Legal Research

As reported earlier, University of San Francisco School of Law Professor Susan Freiwald authored an amicus brief and took part in the oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The case involves the compelled disclosure of cell phone records and whether the police must get a warrant when seeking such records. The Court's decision is a partial victory for privacy advocates because it grants Federal Magistrates discretionary power to require a full probable cause search warrant when the government is seeking location information from cell phone providers. Unfortunately, the Court failed to definitively address the broader issues of Fourth Amendment protection of cell phone location that Professor Freiwald was seeking. Professor Freiwald has been fielding questions from the national media about the impact of the decision and was singled out for special thanks by the Court and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her work on this case.

Click here to download a .pdf version of the decision.