Texas Police Don’t Need a Warrant to Get Your Cell Phone Location Data

When you make or receive calls, send or receive texts, a communication happens between you and the nearest cell tower to you that spills the beans on your precise location. A telecommunications company like AT&T will keep records of every call and text. The company keeps records of—among other things—the date, time, duration of the call, and the location of the cell tower that communicated with your phone. Based on these records, AT&T can pinpoint the GPS location of your phone—and you—at the time of the call or text. This may not be breaking news. But, police need only subpoena these records. A cell phone warrant is not required.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. Recently I had a moment of legal/cell-phone insight watching the Richard Gere film Arbitrage, and I also have the courage to admit that I watched the film Arbitrage. Gere plays Robert, who has all: a loving family, money, a devoted—and age-appropriate—wife. He is a hedge fund manager, and a huge business deal just on the horizon. He also has a much younger art-dealer girlfriend, Julie. So life seems pretty great for Robert until early in the film, he flips his car late-night on a lonely road, killing Julie.

In the crucial moments after the crash, he takes out his iPhone and starts to dial 9-1-1 for help. But then he thinks better of it, and walks to a payphone as the car explodes. I thought, aha! Deft move, indeed. If he would have placed that call, that would have put him at the scene of the crime moments before here death, possibly exposing him to serious charges and severe scandal. The rest of the film is basically Robert trying to pull a rug over this situation.

Texas Appeals Court Just Ruled on This Issue—the Ford case

Jon Ford was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend, Dana Edwards, at her apartment. The state’s theory was that Ford left a party shortly after Edwards, went to her apartment, and killed her. There was no direct evidence that Ford committed the murder. Mainly, the state relied on testimony from her friends at the party. There was also DNA on one of her bathroom face towels, although his lawyer argued that this would be natural since he was frequently in her apartment when they were dating. In addition, there were the cell phone records that put Ford near her apartment at the time of the murder.

Ford’s Appeal

When Ford appealed the conviction, the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio ruled that police are not required to get a warrant to obtain this location data from AT&T—the third party provider. The rationale behind the decision is that we voluntarily relinquishes our Fourth Amendment protections when we knowingly share them with the third party provider. It is important to note that this only applies to your location. The actual content of your message is protected. Although police could still get your actual text messages, they would need a warrant.

Have you been arrested for a crime? Call my office: 817-689-7002. Come into the office for a free and confidential case evaluation. Our office is downtown: 108 Main Street, Fort Worth, TX,76102