Latest in Carpenter v. United States
In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment applies when the government acquires large amounts of cell-phone location data.
I recently posted a new draft article, “Implementing Carpenter,” on the Supreme Court's blockbuster June 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States.
Last June in a 5-4 ruling in Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court extended Fourth Amendment protections to an individual’s cell phone location data for the first time.
In a fascinating decision, Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, the Seventh Circuit has held that a public utility commits a "search" of a home when it records every 15 minutes how much electricity the utility is providing the home, at least until the smart readers that enable this data collection come into general public use.
Writing for the majority in Carpenter v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts called the court’s momentous Fourth Amendment decision “a narrow one.” The specific holding—that a warrant is required for law enforcement to access historical cell site location information (CSLI)—may indeed be narrow, and the decision rightfully cautions that “the Court must tread carefully” when considering new technologies.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.”
The Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States has lots of new directions in it. One direction that some commentators have focused on is its impact on the law of subpoenas.
Like nearly everyone else, I have a few thoughts on the Supreme Court’s decision Friday in Carpenter v. United States.
As 2017 (finally) comes to an end, we’re looking back on an eventful year.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Carpenter v. United States, a major Fourth Amendment case asking whether a warrant is necessary before law enforcement can obtain cell site data identifying a suspect phone's location from a service provider. Lawfare contributor and Fourth Amendment expert Orin Kerr discussed the case with me at Brookings shortly after the argument.