Can’t say the implications of this are very good:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled 2-to-1 Tuesday to uphold a 20-year-prison sentence for a marijuana smuggler who was caught after the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) tracked his pay-as-you-go phone’s location data from its communication with nearby cell towers.

As circuit court Judge John Rogers wrote in his majority opinion: ”Unfortunately for the drug runners, the phones were trackable in a way they may not have suspected…”

The decision appears to uphold the “third-party doctrine,” a legal precedent that states that citizens who readily provide information to third parties, in this case a cellular phone company, don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The decision adds a layer of nuance and arguably complications to the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Jones in January that warrantless GPS tracking is unconstitutional if it involves physically intruding on a suspect’s property.

That’s right, cell phone owners! Bet you didn’t know you gave up your right not to be tracked all the time.