Reacting to the precedent established by the recent Supreme Court case United States v. 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.

[1] Other cases were decided in favor of applying the 'specific and articulable facts' standard under the Stored Communications Act since the courts believed that such acquisition of historical cell site location data did not implicate the Fourth Amendment- United States v. Dye (N.D. Ohio Apr.

Ten minutes after the McDonald's robbery, the defendants were found and arrested by the police and, upon request, provided their cell phone numbers to the officers at the scene.

The order requested the disclosure of geographic data for August 10–15, 2010; September 18–20, 2010; January 21–23, 2011; and February 4–5, 2011 dates important for linking the defendants to the robberies.

[1] They contended that the implications of this technology allow the government to retroactively surveil a suspect through a device he carries with him twenty-four hours a day, even to constitutionally protected places such as the home.

The government analogized the cell site location data to the pen register and used the third-party doctrine established by the Supreme Court case Smith v. Maryland to argue that the defendants had voluntarily given their information to the third party which did not implicate the Fourth Amendment based on precedent.

"[1] Regarding the government's argument about the defendant's lack of standing because of the fictitious name he used, the Court considered the issue combined with the legitimacy of the expectation of privacy in the historical cell site location data.

[4] In Katz v. United States, Justice Harlan evolved a two-prong test to determine when an object may be the subject of a Fourth Amendment protection.

He stated that a legitimate expectation of privacy "must have a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.

The court pronounced that the real and substantial issue to be decided in the case was whether the defendants had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the historical cell site location data or not.

Judge Bennett cited multiple past orders in various districts which held that there was no Fourth Amendment violation if the request was for a concrete and short period of time.

"[1] However, Judge Bennett disagreed with this reasoning and stated that Congress expressly intended to require only "specific and articulable facts" in its enactment of the Stored Communications Act for the precise purpose that individuals do not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in information conveyed to third parties.

[1] Because the officers pursuing the historical cell site location data relied in good faith on the Stored Communications Act and the orders issued by the Magistrate Judges, the exclusionary rule does not apply as per Illinois v. Krull.

Judge Bennett concluded that the Defendants' Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when the government, according to the standards of the Stored Communications Act, acquired their historical cell site location data.

"We conclude that the government's warrantless procurement of the CSLI [cell site location information] was an unreasonable search in violation of Appellants' Fourth Amendment rights.

Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, voted 12-3 that the government can get the information without a warrant under a decades-old legal theory that it had already been disclosed to a third party, in this case a telephone company.

[6] In a subsequent case decided September 23, 2014, Judge Bennett noted that "United States v. Graham is currently on appeal to the Fourth Circuit and has been pending before that Court for nearly two years.