Latest in fourth amendment
The limits on congressional surveillance vary from those on other, more common forms of government surveillance. As a whole, they raise difficult questions around the convergence of individual privacy and the separation of powers.
Last month, President Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. We reviewed several of Barrett’s writings to glean what they might reveal about her views on issues important to Lawfare readers.
The Supreme Court’s landmark Fourth Amendment decision in Carpenter could impose new limits on aerial surveillance.
The U.S. District Court in the District of Massachusetts held that searches of electronic devices at ports of entry require reasonable suspicion. The document is available here and below.
I recently posted a new draft article, “Implementing Carpenter,” on the Supreme Court's blockbuster June 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States.
There has been a lot of buzz the past couple of days about claims by Kory Langhofer, counsel for Trump for America, that Robert Mueller's investigators wrongfully obtained copies of the presidential transition team's emails. One of the claims in Langhofer's letter is that the access violated the Fourth Amendment. I haven't seen a substantial legal analysis of this issue yet, so I thought I would try one.
As the Supreme Court begins its formal consideration of the Carpenter case, it seems useful to me to finally take up the challenge that my friend, Orin Kerr, has often laid down -- he asks why nobody is defending the mosaic theory? So let me do it in this (rather lenghty) post.
Orin Kerr, professor at George Washington University Law School, filed an amicus brief today in support of the respondent in Carpenter vs. U.S. The brief, which may be of interest to Lawfare readers, is available here:
The Internet of Things is a marvel. Cars, medical devices, homes, refrigerators—all of them now come with silicon chips and data collection, analysis and sharing capabilities. For the most part the enhancements in efficiency, connectivity and cost-reduction make the use of IoT a no-brainer. But lurking in the background are a host of unaddressed issues of cybersecurity, civil liberties, transparency, accountability, and privacy. Today's story of the Tell-Tale Heart lies at the intersection of technology, privacy and criminal law.
On Friday, Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered Google to comply with search warrants for emails stored overseas.