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| | | In 2020, the Washington Post revealed that a data broker company shared billions of phone location records with the District of Columbia government for coronavirus tracking. It obviously shows that during the pandemic, the data brokers are exploiting the situation to sell people’s private information to the government. | |
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< | The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Though often applied in the criminal procedure context, in Ontario v. Quon, 560 U. S. 746, 755 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that “the Fourth Amendment's protection extends beyond the sphere of criminal investigations ”. In Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534 (1967), the court opined that “administrative search”, such as housing inspections, must comply with the Fourth Amendment . In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), court also recognized electronic surveillance as “search” under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, it is possible that the digital contact tracing or surveillance be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment context, if the government requires mandatory reporting of cell site location information, or buying the data from brokers. | >
> | The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Though often applied in the criminal procedure context, in Ontario v. Quon, 560 U. S. 746, 755 (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that “the Fourth Amendment's protection extends beyond the sphere of criminal investigations ”. In Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U. S. 523, 534 (1967), the court opined that “administrative search”, such as housing inspections, must comply with the Fourth Amendment .
Yes, and hence my point that no one is compelled to use tracking software. Your Texas paranoids may have some facts to prove, but I don't possess a smartphone, and until that's unlawful we can say that the absence of a constitutional level of consent is going to be hard to prove.
The law of administrative searches in the Supreme Court has changed somewhat since 1967. You need to look a little more comprehensively than Googling will do for you.
In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), court also recognized electronic surveillance as “search” under the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, it is possible that the digital contact tracing or surveillance be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment context, if the government requires mandatory reporting of cell site location information, or buying the data from brokers.
Those two factual settings are obviously nowhere near. How do you show that the latter raises any 4th Amendment question?
| | | In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court held that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell-site location information. In Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 2217 (2018), the court points out that “much like GPS tracking of a vehicle, cell phone location information is detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled…”, and “given the unique nature of cell phone location records, the fact that the information is held by a third party does not by itself overcome the user’s claim to Fourth Amendment protection.” An individual’s location history reveals much about who they are. Although in Carpenter v. United States, the court only addressed the issue of the CLSI tracking method, other means of location monitoring, such as GPS cell phone tracking or bluetooth-enabled tracing, also cause the same danger of privacy invasion mentioned in this case. | |
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> | But, as I pointed out
last draft, there would be time to argue about warrantless access
to such information if there were any cases of warrantless access.
There aren't any. Is the point of this essay to conclude without
facts that there are no circumstances under which warrantless
access would be constitutional? (Your purchase of data case is then relevant.) What validity is there to the argument against a straw man proclaiming that all warrantless access is constitutionally unproblematic?
Legal clarity, as I said last time, was the key to improvement. This draft gets about halfway there.
| | | Furthermore, in Commonwealth v. Almonor, 120 N.E.3d 1183, 1195 (Mass. 2019), the court also acknowledged that “manipulating our phones for the purpose of identifying and tracking our personal location presents an even greater intrusion”, and therefore forbade warrantless access to real-time cellphone location data.
Therefore, if the government requires mandatory reporting of cell site location information, or buying the data from brokers, it is also within the Fourth Amendment’s ambit and the same protection shall also be applied. |
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