United States v. Graham

United States v. Graham was a 2012 decision by Maryland District Court case in which the Court held that historical cell site location data is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Reacting to precedent established by the recent Supreme Court case United States v. Antoine Jones in conjunction with the application of the third party doctrine, Judge Richard D. Bennett, found that "information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection" because that information no longer belongs to the consumer, but rather to the telecommunications company that handles the transmissions records. The historical cell site location data is then not subject to the privacy protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment standard of probable cause, but rather to the Stored Communications Act, which governs the voluntary or compelled disclosure of stored electronic communications records.