A major privacy issue related to cellular phone data could soon hit the U.S. Supreme Court for a final ruling. 

According to JustTheNews, two circuit courts have taken completely different stances on the issue of "the government 's newer electronic dragnet tools – geofence warrants that track people via their cell phones."

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals does not believe such tools are constitutional, while the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals believes otherwise.

Given the differing rulings, the issue will almost undoubtedly be determined by the high court.

What's going on?

In a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that came down just last week, the court ruled that geofence warrants are "categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment."

Interesting--Fifth Circuit just ruled that geofence warrants violate 4A. Recall the FBI sought and received a Google geofence warrant on Jan 6, 2021.

INTO MY VEINS JUDGE HO (Trump appointee, on short list for SCOTUS, Trump chose ACB instead) pic.twitter.com/EQnnGXBPma

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 13, 2024

The ruling added, "It is undeniable that general warrants are plainly unconstitutional."

On the opposite side of the fence, the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruled otherwise.

JustTheNews noted:

A few states over, the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals came to a different conclusion, ruling that when law enforcement gathers two hours of all a cell phone users’ records in Google’s database for a certain location near a crime it didn’t violate privacy because more than a half-billion cell phone users had opted to turn on the geo-tracking capabilities of their to make their apps work better.

The court ruled that the opt-ins serve as a "waiver" of users' privacy to allow such tracking.

What will happen?

When two circuit courts disagree on a decision, it carves an immediate pathway for the issue to be solved at the Supreme Court level. Some privacy experts, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believe the high court will ultimately side with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that it's unconstitutional.

The EFF wrote in a recent blog piece, "Police around the country have increasingly relied on geofence warrants and other reverse warrants, and this opinion should act as a warning against narrow applications of Fourth Amendment precedent in these cases."

Many users across social media also believe such warrants are a gross intrusion of privacy.

"They captured the spirit of the founding fathers right there. The constitution limits the power of the government to prevent abuse from intentional and non intentional abusers," one X user wrote.