Phone location data privacy issue hits federal court Tuesday

John P. Mello Jr. writes:

The U.S. government will be taking a second crack Tuesday at overturning a lower court ruling that’s preventing police from obtaining cell phone location records from two wireless carriers without a search warrant.

Now before the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the government’s attempt to obtain 60 days of records from the carriers as part of a “routine” law enforcement investigation was previously rebuffed by a magistrate judge in a federal district court in Texas.