Cell Phone Privacy Upheld Here, But Supreme Court Not So Sure
Cell Phone Privacy Upheld Here, But Supreme Court Not So Sure
https://minneapolistimes.com/cell-phone-privacy-upheld-here-but-supreme-court-not-so-sure/
Publish Date: 2026-05-26 05:03:00
Source Domain: minneapolistimes.com
Predicting the prospective national outcome remains an incredibly close call. Don’t bet your cell phone on it.
The Minnesota Supreme Court struck a major blow for digital privacy on behalf of cell phone users—which consists of just about everyone these days, given that 98% of all adults in this country own one, with nearly three-quarters sporting iPhones. The ball, or rather the cell, is now in the court, literally and figuratively, of its federal counterpart in the nation’s capital as to the rest of the country.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with its customary exquisite timing, is about to rule on a case involving the permissibility of law enforcement using digital cell phone tracking to apprehend criminal suspects. This very issue was addressed and resolved in mid-April 2026 by the Minnesota Supreme Court, a couple of weeks before the justices in Washington, D.C., heard their own version of the high-stakes constitutional dispute.
The high court case, Chatrie v. United States, challenges the conviction of a Virginia man who robbed a credit union outside of Richmond. He was identified, apprehended, and ultimately pleaded guilty due to a “geofence” search warrant that swept location data from all cell phones near the facility for a half-hour window before and after the heist.
The case mirrors a landmark decision handed down by the Minnesota Supreme Court, which ruled that while this type of law enforcement technique is constitutionally permissible, it must be strictly reined in with particularity to suspected individual cell phone users, rather than deployed as a sweeping, blunderbuss dragnet. The pendency of the high court case and the recency of its Minnesota counterpart warrant a closer look at these two pivotal search-and-seizure disputes.
Lower Court Litigation
The results of the initial litigation in the Chatrie case were adverse to the defendant, who was sentenced to nearly 12 years of federal imprisonment. The federal trial judge deemed the geofence…
