Court Says Feds Need A Warrant To Listen To Touchtone Beeps Too

from the beep-boop-bop-beep-beep-beep-beep dept

While there are still arguments over the legality of the government's warrantless wiretap program, apparently there's been a separate court case looking at whether or not a warrant is needed if the authorities are just listening to your touchtone dialing, rather than the contents of the call itself. The feds felt that if it was just the touchtone beeps, then they didn't need any warrant at all -- but a court has now shot that theory down. The feds tried to claim that such data was not "content" which would trigger the need for a warrant -- but considering that with today's touchtone IVR systems, such data could include passwords, PINs, social security numbers and other private data, it seems perfectly reasonable to suggest a warrant is necessary.

Filed Under: touchtones, warrants, wiretap