The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday against telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon in a closely watched federal dispute over massive financial penalties tied to the sale of consumers’ real-time location data. The nation’s highest court held that the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) administrative enforcement process does not violate the constitutional right to a jury trial.

The landmark decision preserves the FCC’s authority to impose financial penalties through its administrative enforcement system, marking a major victory for federal regulators seeking to police severe privacy violations in the tech industry. Last year, AT&T persuaded the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out an FCC fine, arguing that the agency’s process improperly bypassed a jury. Verizon, however, lost a similar challenge before the 2nd Circuit, creating conflicting rulings that prompted Supreme Court review.

In an 8-1 decision, the justices sided with the FCC and overturned the 5th Circuit’s ruling, with Justice Clarence Thomas acting as the lone dissenter. The dispute originally stemmed from $104 million in FCC fines imposed on AT&T and Verizon over heavy allegations that the companies improperly handled customers’ tracking data, conduct first brought to light back in 2018. After paying the penalties under protest, both companies challenged the framework in federal court, claiming it violated their Seventh Amendment rights.

However, when the unredacted congressional testimony from the initial 2018 privacy investigation was officially unsealed following the ruling, it exposed a far deeper level of data sharing. What the intelligence logs revealed about which specific foreign entities were also buying this real-time location data sent immediate shockwaves through Capitol Hill…