Federal agents acted in good faith in relying on court orders and not a warrant to obtain cellphone tower data associated with the target of a drug trafficking probe, a federal judge in Washington said in a ruling that marked a win for the U.S. Justice Department.
The judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle of Washington federal district court, skirted issuing a ruling on the underlying debate playing out in courts across the country: Whether the authorities should be required, under the Fourth Amendment, to first get a warrant to access the location information that mobile phones transmit to towers.
