Supreme Court says warrant needed to track cell phones

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that, in most situations, police need to obtain a search warrant to track an individual using the location data of his or her cellphone. While the police in Carpenter v. United States were not using a cell-site simulator, or stingray, to track the defendant’s location, POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein wrote that “[c]ollection of that sort of GPS information is also likely to require a warrant in most circumstances under Friday’s decision.”