Privacy Right In Historical Location Data Still In Question

There has been a good deal of discussion about a recent federal district court ruling that the government's need to obtain a warrant before obtaining cell phone records for historical location data. (See report from Wall Street Journal). However, most of the reports have been misleading as they have suggested that this is the only federal district court ruling on this subject. There have been at least two other district court decisions on this subject in other jurisdictions that have decided that the government does not need to obtain a warrant for such information. As a result, the most recent ruling does not makes things clearer. Instead, it adds more uncertainty.