ACLU presses DOJ for information on cell phone tracking

07/18/12: The Blog of Legal Times reports the Justice Department is fighting the American Civil Liberties Union effort to review information about six failed criminal prosecutions that involved the use of warrantless tracking of cell phones.  At issue is whether the department can keep secret information about six cases that ended in an acquittal or dismissed charges.  A trial judge in Washington told DOJ to turn over docket information about successful cases in which investigators tracked cell phones.  An appeals court last year upheld that ruling.  Now, the focus is on the failed prosecutions.  Justice Department lawyers said in a recent court filing in Washington that “there is a strong privacy interest in withholding the requested information about the six acquittals [and] no significant countervailing public interest in disclosure of this information.”