The Fourth Amendment famously protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” As capabilities for government surveillance rapidly develope alongside technology, the amendment has consistently been at the center of discussions over privacy and the scope of state power. In particular, NSA bulk surveillance has recently triggered a debate on the constitutionality of warrantless bulk collection under the Fourth Amendment, and on what should be considered a “reasonable” search in an increasingly digital age.
Latest in Fourth Amendment
The court held, for the second time in five years, that the government may compel a defendant to unlock an electronic device under certain circumstances.
The Supreme Court was wrong to assume in Carpenter that the government needed a warrant to get the data in question.
The good-faith exception has washed out cases involving pre-Carpenter searches, but a few courts have extended the ruling’s logic to new types of data.
How to think about a recent privacy case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The decision is an interesting measure of where Fourth Amendment law may go in the post-Carpenter era.
The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment ruling closed the door on such surveillance of Americans and has implications for reauthorization of the USA Freedom Act next year.
How might a Justice Kavanaugh approach search and seizure cases ?
Carpenter holds, for the first time, that a search can occur without it being a taking of information from any particular place, thing, or person.
Fourth Amendment law is now a "best guess." After Carpenter, nobody really can say what the law is. That's unfortunate.
There is a lot that is extraordinary and groundbreaking in Carpenter, but the case makes only a small and likely necessary resolution of an unsettled question in the law of subpoenas.