Posted on 06/22/2018 7:49:55 AM PDT by TexasGurl24
Cell phones perform their wide and growing variety of functions by continuously connecting to a set of radio antennas called “cell sites.” Each time a phone connects to a cell site, it generates a time-stamped record known as cell-site location information (CSLI). Wireless carriers collect and store this information for their own business purposes. Here, after the FBI identified the cell phone numbers of several robbery suspects, prosecutors were granted court orders to obtain the suspects’ cell phone records under the Stored Communications Act. Wireless carriers produced CSLI for petitioner Timothy Carpenter’s phone, and the Government was able to obtain 12,898 location points cataloging Carpenter’s movements over 127 days—an average of 101 data points per day. Carpenter moved to suppress the data, arguing that the Government’s seizure of the records without obtaining a warrant supported by probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment. The District Court denied the motion, and prosecutors used the records at trial to show that Carpenter’s phone was near four of the robbery locations at the time those robberies occurred. Carpenter was convicted. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that Carpenter lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location information collected by the FBI because he had shared that information with his wireless carriers.
Held: 1. The Government’s acquisition of Carpenter’s cell-site records was a Fourth Amendment search. Pp. 4–18.
(a) The Fourth Amendment protects not only property interests but certain expectations of privacy as well. Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 351. Thus, when an individual “seeks to preserve something as private,” and his expectation of privacy is “one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable,” official intrusion into that sphere generally qualifies as a search and requires a warrant supported by probable cause. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 740 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). The analysis regarding which expectations of privacy are entitled to protection is informed by historical understandings “of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when [the Fourth Amendment] was adopted.” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149. These Founding-era understandings continue to inform this Court when applying the Fourth Amendment to innovations in surveillance tools. See, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27. Pp. 4–7.
(b) The digital data at issue—personal location information maintained by a third party—does not fit neatly under existing precedents but lies at the intersection of two lines of cases. One set addresses a person’s expectation of privacy in his physical location and movements. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400 (five Justices concluding that privacy concerns would be raised by GPS tracking). The other addresses a person’s expectation of privacy in information voluntarily turned over to third parties. See United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435 (no expectation of privacy in financial records held by a bank), and Smith, 442 U. S. 735 (no expectation of privacy in records of dialed telephone numbers conveyed to telephone company). Pp. 7–10.
(c) Tracking a person’s past movements through CSLI partakes of many of the qualities of GPS monitoring considered in Jones—it is detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled. At the same time, however, the fact that the individual continuously reveals his location to his wireless carrier implicates the third-party principle of Smith and Miller. Given the unique nature of cell-site records, this Court declines to extend Smith and Miller to cover them. Pp. 10–18.
(1) A majority of the Court has already recognized that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements. Allowing government access to cell-site records—which “hold for many Americans the ‘privacies of life,’ ” Riley v. California, 573 U. S. ___, ___—contravenes that expectation. In fact, historical cell-site records present even greater privacy concerns than the GPS monitoring considered in Jones: They give the Government near perfect surveillance and allow it to travel back in time to retrace a person’s whereabouts, subject only to the five-year retention policies of most wireless carriers. The Government contends that CSLI data is less precise than GPS information, but it thought the data accurate enough here to highlight it during closing argument in Carpenter’s trial. At any rate, the rule the Court adopts “must take account of more sophisticated systems that are already in use or in development,” Kyllo, 533 U. S., at 36, and the accuracy of CSLI is rapidly approaching GPS-level precision. Pp. 12–15.
(2) The Government contends that the third-party doctrine governs this case, because cell-site records, like the records in Smith and Miller, are “business records,” created and maintained by wireless carriers. But there is a world of difference between the limited types of personal information addressed in Smith and Miller and the exhaustive chronicle of location information casually collected by wireless carriers. The third-party doctrine partly stems from the notion that an individual has a reduced expectation of privacy in information knowingly shared with another. Smith and Miller, however, did not rely solely on the act of sharing. They also considered “the nature of the particular documents sought” and limitations on any “legitimate ‘expectation of privacy’ concerning their contents.” Miller, 425 U. S., at 442. In mechanically applying the third-party doctrine to this case the Government fails to appreciate the lack of comparable limitations on the revealing nature of CSLI. Nor does the second rationale for the third-party doctrine— voluntary exposure—hold up when it comes to CSLI. Cell phone location information is not truly “shared” as the term is normally understood. First, cell phones and the services they provide are “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life” that carrying one is indispensable to participation in modern society. Riley, 573 U. S., at ___. Second, a cell phone logs a cell-site record by dint of its operation, without any affirmative act on the user’s part beyond powering up. Pp. 15–17.
(d) This decision is narrow. It does not express a view on matters not before the Court; does not disturb the application of Smith and Miller or call into question conventional surveillance techniques and tools, such as security cameras; does not address other business records that might incidentally reveal location information; and does not consider other collection techniques involving foreign affairs or national security. Pp. 17–18. 2. The Government did not obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring Carpenter’s cell-site records. It acquired those records pursuant to a court order under the Stored Communications Act, which required the Government to show “reasonable grounds” for believing that the records were “relevant and material to an ongoing investigation.” 18 U. S. C. §2703(d). That showing falls well short of the probable cause required for a warrant. Consequently, an order issued under §2703(d) is not a permissible mechanism for accessing historical cell-site records. Not all orders compelling the production of documents will require a showing of probable cause.
A warrant is required only in the rare case where the suspect has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party. And even though the Government will generally need a warrant to access CSLI, case-specific exceptions—e.g., exigent circumstances—may support a warrantless search. Pp. 18–22. 819 F. 3d 880, reversed and remanded.
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined. GORSUCH, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Excellent news!
[ I think I’ll just leave my cell phone at home when I do robberies. ]
It is the perfect alibi!
Well we checked their cell phone records and they were home the whole evening they can;t possibly be the robber, case dismissed!
Can somebody help me out here? Who's the "second party", if not the phone company?
From the Original Post:
The other addresses a person’s expectation of privacy in information voluntarily turned over to third parties. See United States v. Miller, 425 U. S. 435 (no expectation of privacy in financial records held by a bank), and Smith, 442 U. S. 735 (no expectation of privacy in records of dialed telephone numbers conveyed to telephone company). Pp. 7–10.
Looks like in one case, the second party is whomever you did business with through the bank, for instance if you wrote a check or used a debit card to make a legal or illegal purchase and in the other case, the second party is whomever you called, whomever you "dialed up" using the phone company's service.
That’s even better.
It’s getting to where people would find that convincing.
Agreed.
Hopefully someone creates a decent summary of the dissent as it’s disappointing to see the normally conservative justices on that side of the argument.
To get a warrant is only proper and in line with the constitution.
The police need a warrant but the phone company and all the apps on your phone are selling you.
It seems reasonable to me that law enforcement should be required to get a warrant demonstrating probable cause to turn over the these records.
Is there such a thing as "non-historic" data? Like they might have a method of collecting future data?
That’s the thing — I would think that business, not the phone company or the bank, is the third party. Before I made my first phone call (re: Smith vs Maryland), was the phone company already the “third party”? Who was already the second party in that case? They’re not trying to get records from the hundred “third party” people I called, they’re trying to get records from the phone company, whom they’re pretending to be some legally distant “third party”. These are the questions that have been vexing me for quite some time.
This is why Job One is total digital surveillance. It makes policing a whole lot easier.
I disagree. The very fine legal point in the decision here is that you're just turning on your phone, which is what communicates your position data to the cell tower. You didn't "volunteer" that information in the same way that you write something down and send it to the IRS or go to the store and make a purchase.
I hasten to add, as I have posted here, that I think the whole pretense of "volunteering your personal information to a third party" is also BS, and in two different ways, but whether that idea is BS or not was not what decided this case.
Good in some ways, bad in others. It’s a draw.................
“prosecutors were granted court orders to obtain the suspects’ cell phone records”
...
“Carpenter moved to suppress the data, arguing that the Government’s seizure of the records without obtaining a warrant supported by probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment.”
Could someone give a simple explanation of the difference between “a court order to obtain records” and “a warrant”?
“Can somebody help me out here? Who’s the “second party”, if not the phone company”
The person on the other end of your telephone call?
Subpoena vs warrant.
I’m fine with this
Why should the authorities be able to search your private residence car phone anything without a- permission. Or B - a warrant
For us law abiders. It’s not an issue. We’ll just grant permission to clear our name
It’s only law breakers or those with things to hide that are clearly concerned
Yep, there is just too much temptation and potential for abuse of police power these days. If you doubt me, or need any further evidence of corruption of the police power, simply look at the FBI’s despicable attempts to essentially set up and entrap certain low level members of the Trump transition team. Look at how Obama’s UN Ambassador Samantha Power “unmasked” hundreds of Americans in the closing days of the Obama administration. Some officers and prosecutors will do most anything to “make a name” for themselves. No, better to make them get a warrant.
“Is there such a thing as “non-historic” data? Like they might have a method of collecting future data? “
I think they use non-historic data for the climate change studies. At least it seems like much of the data they use doesn’t correlate with history, or the future for that matter.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.