The case centers around a practice that allows police to gather historical cellphone location information without a warrant, by instead invoking a controversial statute called the Stored Communications Act...
Much of the debate focuses on how previous court rulings should be applied in the digital age. A legal theory known as third-party doctrine, which argues there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when a citizen gives their data to a third party, is often cited in similar cases, and has been used to decide the cell site issue. But whether the theory still holds in an age where so much personal information is digitally stored by third parties, or whether a new theory is needed, is now the question in front of the court.
These legal theories are based on assumptions about privacy which were made before the Internet, and before data was cheap and easy to store. Now, more and more of our most personal, sensitive data is held by corporations whose services we have little option of refusing. (Can any of us just *not* use email? Or a cell phone?) I'm pretty sure just about everyone assumes a high level of privacy for texts, emails, location data, etc. But this law says otherwise. We are quickly moving toward a world where privacy doesn't exist, including (and especially) from centers of power.