Justices say Constitution protects people's location history

- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment (which protects against unreasonable searches) requires police to get a warrant before accessing a person's long-term cellphone location history from third-party companies like phone carriers or Google. - This is a landmark digital-privacy decision: until now, courts often used the "third-party doctrine" — the idea that if you voluntarily share data with a company (e.g., your carrier knows your location), you lose your privacy rights in it. The ruling limits that doctrine for sensitive digital data. - The case concerned a man convicted after police obtained months of his cell-site location data without a warrant. The Court held that accessing such a detailed record of someone's movements is a "search" under the Constitution. - This matters because law enforcement increasingly relies on cell-tower records, Google location tracking, and similar data. The decision sets a new baseline for privacy in the digital age and could affect pending legislation on data surveillance.