Carpenter v. U.S

 

When the US Supreme Court Justices return from holiday break this month they are expected to rule on the case of Carpenter v. U.S. At issue is "whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cellphone records revealing the location and movements of a cellphone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment."

 

Timothy Carpenter argues that his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure were violated when the government obtained his cell phone location records from MetroPCS and Sprint without a warrant. The government argues that it has the right to obtain this type of cell-phone record without a warrant under the 1986 Stored Communications Act, that allows this type of data to be searched if the government can show reasonable grounds to believe it will be relevant to a criminal investigation. The government further argues that Carpenter lacks a legitimate expectation of privacy because he voluntarily turned his location information over to a third party when he signed up for cell service.

 

Over a dozen companies are urging the US Supreme Court to rule that Fourth Amendment protections apply to the cellphone location data. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Verizon, and other technology and telecom companies have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that the phone data should not be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant or court order.  

 

The decision in this case is likely to have broad and long-term effects on the privacy rights of Americans. It is my belief that we do have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our digital data. As Justice Roberts said in Riley v. California "Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans "the privacies of life". The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought."