Andrew Crocker writes:
When it comes to the highest court in Massachusetts, it sometimes seems like entire battles are won and lost in the footnotes. In a seemingly straightforward new case, the Supreme Judicial Court has managed to add a wrinkle on top of the already complicated patchwork of law surrounding cell phone location tracking. The court’s opinion today in Commonwealth v. Estabrook sets out what it calls a “bright-line rule” and reaffirms that, in general, the Massachusetts constitution requires a warrant for tracking a person’s location using cell site location information (CSLI). That’s worth celebrating, but cynical readers who are already wondering about the “in general” in the previous sentence should take a look at footnote twelve in the opinion. Meanwhile, all readers should probably buckle in for a somewhat detailed tale of judicial incrementalism.
Read more on EFF.