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The companies filed a 44-page brief with the court on Monday
night in a high-profile dispute over whether police should have
to get a warrant before obtaining data that could reveal a
cellphone user's whereabouts.
Signed by some of Silicon Valley's biggest names, including
Apple <AAPL.O>, Facebook <FB.O>, Twitter <TWTR.N>, Snap <SNAP.N>
and Alphabet's <GOOGL.O> Google, the brief said that as
individuals' data is increasingly collected through digital
devices, greater privacy protections are needed under the law.
"That users rely on technology companies to process their data
for limited purposes does not mean that they expect their
intimate data to be monitored by the government without a
warrant," the brief said.
The justices agreed last June to hear the appeal by Timothy
Carpenter, who was convicted in 2013 in a series of armed
robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Ohio and
Michigan.
Federal prosecutors helped place him near several of the
robberies using "cell site location information" obtained from
his wireless carrier.
Carpenter claims that without a warrant from a court, such data
amounts to an unreasonable search and seizure under the U.S.
Constitution's Fourth Amendment. But last year a federal appeals
court upheld his convictions, finding that no warrant was
required.
Carpenter's case will be argued before the court some time after
its new term begins in October.
The case comes amid growing scrutiny of the surveillance
practices of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies and
concern among lawmakers across the political spectrum about
civil liberties and police evading warrant requirements.
Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney with the American Civil
Liberties Union who is representing Carpenter, said the
companies' brief represented a "robust defense of their
customers' privacy rights in the digital age."
Verizon's participation in the brief was important, he added,
given that it receives, like other wireless carriers, thousands
of requests for cellphone location records every year from law
enforcement. The requests are routinely granted.
Civil liberties lawyers have said police need "probable cause,"
and therefore a warrant, to avoid constitutionally unreasonable
searches.
The companies said in their brief the Supreme Court should
clarify that when it comes to digital data that can reveal
personal information, people should not lose protections against
government intrusion "simply by choosing to use those
technologies."
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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