Were You Within a Mile of a Crime? The Government Wanted Your Phone Location Data. Judge said NO!

A federal judge just ruled that tower dumps, the police technique of grabbing data on EVERY cell phone near a crime scene, are unconstitutional. Not some tower dumps. All of them.

In August 2026, Judge Carlton Reeves (S.D. Mississippi) refused to sign warrants that would have given federal agents the location records of thousands of phones near a series of gang-related shootings in Jackson. He held that a tower dump is a Fourth Amendment search and that every tower-dump warrant is an illegal general warrant, the exact thing the Founders wrote the Fourth Amendment to stop.

In this video, I explain how tower dumps work, why police love them, and how Carpenter v. United States, the Fifth Circuit’s geofence ruling in United States v. Smith, and the Supreme Court’s new decision in Chatrie v. United States led here. It is the same line of cases behind the recent ruling that Flock license plate camera searches violate the Fourth Amendment.

Can police get your cell phone location data without suspecting you of anything? Drop your answer in the comments.

Case: In re Four Applications for Search Warrants Seeking Information Associated With Particular Cellular Towers, No. 3:25-CR-38, 2026 WL 2260371 (S.D. Miss. Aug. 5, 2026).

Read the court’s opinion (PDF)

Cases discussed:

• Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018)
• United States v. Smith, 110 F.4th 817 (5th Cir. 2024)
• Chatrie v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 2193 (2026)
• Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85 (1979)

If police used your phone’s location data, a tower dump or a geofence warrant to build a case against you, that search can be challenged. See our illegal search and seizure page.

This video is for educational purposes and is not legal advice.