Unless you are an aficionado of the Patriot Act (USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, Pub L 107-56, 115 US Stat 272), or routinely involved in eavesdropping litigation, (18 U.S.C. 2518, et.seq; the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C.S. §2701 et seq.; United States v. Ackies, 918 F.3d 190 [1st Cir., 2019]), you probably overlooked some rather amusing and ironic legal banter on a seldom-referenced issue in a high-profile case. The issue concerned the ubiquitous cell phone and its location “tracking” capability, known as cell site location information (CSLI), in the Fulton County, Georgia, criminal prosecution against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants. State v. Trump et. al., No. 23SC18947.

In the routine case, the government usually seeks admission of CSLI evidence against a defendant. Once the government has satisfied the privacy hurdles imposed on the admission of CSLI by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, such data is then used by the government to connect a defendant to the commission of a crime through the time and location information gathered from the appropriate cell towers and expert testimony. See, e.g., United States v. Skinner, 690 F.3d 772 (6th Cir. 2012); United States v. Evans, 892 F. Supp. 2d 949 (D. Ill. 2012); United States v. Allums, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28276 (D. Ut. 2009).