
Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant to Track Your Cellphone - gok
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/22/605007387/supreme-court-rules-police-need-warrant-to-get-location-information-from-cell-to
======
Animats
They didn't go so far as to overrule _Smith_ , the ""pen register" decision,
where the court held that dial digits are a "business record" of the telephone
company. That 1979 decision mentions the pen register's "limited capabilities"
\- the device was just not suitable for bulk surveillance. This decision
mentions _Smith_ , but the court didn't overrule it.

I own a "pen register". Recently bought it on eBay and restored it. It's a
brass clockwork device on a cast-iron base in a wooden box. It prints dashes
on a paper tape when connected to a dial phone line. It's extremely simple -
one electromagnet and a wind-up mechanism, wound with a huge brass key, to
advance the tape. A dial pulse starts the clockwork, a lever pushes the paper
tape into an ink roller for each dial pulse, and when the input hasn't changed
for four seconds, the clockwork stops. The timing mechanism is similar to
Edison's stock ticker from the 1880s. Weighs about 15 pounds. It's a nice
looking piece of machinery.

That's what cops had to use for most of the 20th century. Telcos themselves
did not log call data except for long distance calls. Electromechanical
switches had no large data storage devices. A pen register had to be
physically connected to a single phone line, usually in a telephone central
office. Someone had to check on it frequently and wind it. No way could those
things be used for bulk surveillance. Hence the court's holding as to its
"limited capabilities".

The legal system has trouble with scale. Today, every transaction a phone has
with the switch is logged to a hard drive for nearly zero cost. Data logged
per call has increased by many orders of magnitude since the days of the pen
register and the _Smith_ decision. But the court has not seen fit to overrule
_Smith_. Yet.

~~~
tinus_hn
If they did not log call data, how did they charge it? Or did they only offer
unlimited plans?

~~~
subway
Local calls have been unlimited on landlines in most US markets for a very
long time.

~~~
DrScump
Not so long at all. Into this century in California, at least, your Pacific
Bell local calling area was something like 8 miles, and your "free" area was
the collection of prefixes for which the nearest point for each prefix was
within that distance.

San Jose, for example, had 3 calling regions. Anywhere in Sunnyvale to SJ1 or
SJ2 was local, but SJ3 wasn't.

I set up message broadcast systems for groups (such that a 100-second message
could be broadcast to a database of contacts, loadable from a CSV file). I
wrote a program to parcel out which calls were local from each point. 2
parallel systems, one in Sunnyvale and another in SJ3, could cover from Menlo
Park to southern Fremont to Monte Sereno to almost San Martin with no calling
charges to over 700 recipients.

~~~
subway
I'm not sure how this doesn't qualify as unlimited local calling?

The situation in rural KY on GTE in the early 90s was quite similar -- I even
remember using 3-way calling to bridge an aunt who lived a county in one
direction with a grandmother a county in the other direction. For us, either
was a local call, but for the aunt and grandmother to directly call each other
was long distance.

~~~
DrScump

      I'm not sure how this doesn't qualify as unlimited local calling?
    

It just depends on how one defines "local". Nowadays, people assume your
entire country at a minimum. 15 years ago, it was 10 miles or so. It was the
mobile era and its inherent independence of landline tariffs that changed
things. For three generations, Ma Bell subsidized local calling and
infrastructure with long distance charges; the MCI court case and the
subsequent breakup of Ma Bell blew that apart.

------
lvspiff
ROBERTS, C. J., GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN agreed.

KENNEDY THOMAS ALITO and GORSUCH dissented.

The mix of the court on this particular issue is amazing to me. Roberts is
turning out to be one of the most balanced judges since Kennedy in terms of
hearing a case of merits and not just ideology. Bush did something right
bringing on that guy.

~~~
marnett
While this is an important decision, Chief Roberts' time to prove his balance
and foresight as a justice was with Citizens United. His court's legacy died
with that decision. If it weren't for the archaic archival privacy rules
around Justice Sutter's dissent after his retirement we would all be able to
read an insider's proclamation of the court's mockery and decline of the
institution.

~~~
snowwrestler
Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the
Supreme Court.

If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in the
way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories critical of
presidential candidates within 90 days of the election.

Why? Because the NY Times is a corporation. If the Supreme Court held that
corporations don't have standing to claim First Amendment protections, then
the NY Times wouldn't be protected either.

~~~
anarazel
> Citizens United has got to be one of the most misunderstood decisions of the
> Supreme Court.

> If Citizens United loses that case, then there would be little standing in
> the way of, for example, prohibiting the NY Times from running stories
> critical of presidential candidates within 90 days of the election.

They could have decided the case on much narrower grounds. They could have
returned it as improvidently granted. The majority wouldn't have had to
conclude that "this Court now concludes that independent expenditures,
including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the
appearance of corruption".

I do think there were interesting 1A claims in play, and I don't know how to
handle those well. But the decision as written is just naive.

~~~
snowwrestler
The court had to rule that way to protect the First Amendment. Otherwise
you're reasoning that it's "corrupt" to say something nice about someone out
loud, just because that person might hear you and decide to be nice to you.
Again: recall that The NY Times spends a lot of money to say things out loud
every day.

~~~
anarazel
As I said, I don't know the right answer about the 1A claim. I suspect a
factually narrower ruling would have entirely been possible.

But they _definitely_ could have ruled exactly the same way without making the
insane "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption"
comment.

That's just entirely absurd, and I think it's fairly obvious that it factually
is wrong.

Nor did they have to rule the way they did in speechnow vs FEC, which is
largely the case that people think about when talking about Citizens United.

~~~
snowwrestler
Imagine a law that says "you're free to speak, and spend money speaking, but
if you mention an elected official, you might get prosecuted for corruption."
How is that free speech?

~~~
anarazel
How about reacting to what I actually wrote?

~~~
snowwrestler
I am. I'm trying to illustrate why that opinion of the court is not actually
absurd or insane.

You might not like its implications, but there are other, worse, implications
if merely speaking about a subject (e.g. a candidate) can be considered a form
of corruption.

~~~
rectang
If money is speech, then how are any constraints on campaign spending
possible? But the Supreme Court has maintained some constraints, so it's a
practical judgment call, balancing free speech against the potential for
corruption. They didn't have to draw the line where they did in Citizens
United.

~~~
rayiner
Of course there can be restrictions on campaign spending ( _i.e._ classical
bribery). Free speech has never been a defense to crimes like bribery, fraud,
etc., that incidentally involve speech. But the situation in _Citizens United_
came nowhere close to that. It was core political speech. The money wasn't a
campaign donation, it was used to create and distribute a political movie
about a candidate. If the Supreme Court didn't draw the line there, it would
have obliterated the line.

~~~
rectang
Citizens United was 5-4, yet it was a sweeping decision that obliterated
several decades of election law and bent political advertising expenditures to
match the accelerating inequality of wealth distribution in the US. The world
would not have ended if, as was originally expected, the court had made a more
narrow ruling.

------
icebraining
Gorsuch dissent is interesting. His position seems to be that the court's
decision is not strong enough in its defense against these searches, not that
he disagrees that a warrant is needed.

~~~
SauciestGNU
That makes me wonder why he didn't sign on and write a concurring opinion
then.

~~~
icebraining
I'm no laywer, let alone qualified to interpret the SCOTUS, but from what I
can tell he disagrees with the whole approach taken, which relies on the
"expectation of privacy" test defined in the _Katz_ case, whereas he believes
that the court should go back to the Fourth Amendment text itself and review
the data (such as the phone's location) under it. Specifically, he seems to be
saying that just because the data is currently held by a third-party, that
doesn't mean it's not the person's "papers" and as such fully defended from
unreasonable searches.

~~~
ajross
That's true, but it fails to mention that there is a very specific partisan
reason republican justices won't get behind a privacy finding. Gorsuch isn't
standing for abstract principle here, he's refusing to stand on the same
ground the found for Roe.

~~~
zaroth
Roe standing on _expectation of privacy_ seems to be a similarly poor analogy.

The real missing piece goes back to the same fear the framers had when
enacting the Bill of Rights in the first place — namely that by enumerating
some rights it would inadvertantly serve to exclude those unenumerated but
equally inalienable rights, such as right to self-determination and ownership
of one’s own body.

~~~
Zimahl
With respect to _Roe v Wade_ , the expectation of privacy has already been
established with your doctor. Since there are legitimate, non-trivial reasons
for abortion, and that's a decision between a person and their doctor, the
gov't can't ask why someone may need that abortion. Therefore, the gov't is
unable to discern between reasons for an abortion, and therefore can't
restrict them (up to a reasonable point, which was set non-arbitrarily around
24 weeks). You have a right to patient confidentiality. The gov't has no more
of a say in whether you should have appendix surgery than whether you should
have an abortion.

However, this doesn't establish a right to abortion. The justices clearly
state that it is not a right by saying it's not covered under the 9th.

~~~
zaroth
Thank you for that. Not to get too off topic, but I will need to read more
about the reasoning behind the RvW decision.

It sounds to be threading one hell of a needle as a justification to keep
government out of elective abortion. I mean, we have databases which track
every narcotic prescription written which law enforcement (including the DEA)
can access _without a warrant_.

~~~
Zimahl
It's really not a fine line. Narcotic dissemination is a major problem and
there are justifiable reasons for tracking them, but I don't believe that
tracking forces an individual to justify a decision between their doctor and
themselves to the gov't. The justices did say there could be justifiable
reasons limitations on abortions as well, just that it is very difficult to
enumerate because politicians are not doctors.

~~~
zaroth
> I don't believe that tracking forces an individual to justify a decision
> between their doctor and themselves to the gov't.

That appears to be exactly what it’s doing though!

~~~
Mtinie
Practically, while you can share your prescription medications with another
person, abortions are not transferable.

The registry is not supposed to about who has a prescription, but rather, who
has more than their legitimate share of prescriptions. It’s also supposed to
be used to identify over-prescribing doctors.

------
Someone1234
I'd just like to raise a point that isn't discussed enough:

Requiring a warrant is an extremely low bar to pass. Yet somehow law
enforcement has been moving away from even that cursory glance since 9/11\. We
keep seeing these arguments about how burdensome warrants are, but judges
routinely rubber stamp every warrant request that comes across their desk.

The reality is that this has nothing to do with "warrant Vs. no-warrant"
that's just the headline, when crimes are suspected warrants are trivial to
get. The fight really being had here is "warrant Vs. routine monitoring."

That's what law enforcement want from this: If you know someone that knows
someone that might have committed a crime, they want to invade your privacy
"just in case." As I said, if you were directly tied to it a warrant is easy,
they want to expand the scope of monitoring.

~~~
Spooky23
Warrant means an audit trail and coordination with a prosecutor and the
judiciary.

That's a good thing, as it creates a virtuous cycle. There is accountability
and more transparency, vs an internal process where the whims of an official,
or a failure to have adequate controls inevitably leads to problems.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Warrant means an audit trail and coordination with a prosecutor and the
judiciary. ... There is accountability and more transparency"_

Who's actually auditing these people and holding them accountable?

When was the last time someone lost their job because they issued too many
warrants, or were too lax in issuing them?

Is a warrant more than just a rubber stamp?

 _" Supreme Court asks surveillance state to wear a fig leaf"_ might be a more
accurate title.

~~~
pm90
It is my opinion that just having to ask a judge for a warrant makes law
enforcement officers do a lot more work than if they could just invade
someone's privacy as a matter of due course. I don't think I've heard of any
judges getting fired for issuing too many warrants, but judges occupy a
special place in our society: they are people learned enough in the law of the
land that we invest in them the power to adjudicate disputes. The assumption
is that the judges hold themselves to a higher standard.

------
jeffdavis
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf)

For those who have not read a supreme court opinion before, I recommend it.
They are written in plain english and understandable by laypersons, and
usually very well written.

~~~
throw7
Gorsuch's dissent is straightforward english and lays out his thoughts and
what he thinks is also a possible way forward. I only skimmed through the
prior dissents and decision though.

~~~
jeffdavis
Although my initial reaction was to strongly agree with the decision, I find
the dissents much more interesting and Gorsuch's analysis compelling.

This case may have made a mess of things. Maybe the right answer here is for
Congress to clarify what the digital equivalent of a safe deposit box is.

------
craigc
While I am happy about this ruling, I feel like it does not go far enough at
protecting our privacy. Call me cynical if you want, but there are two things
that are causes for concern for me.

1\. The article says “Roberts noted that the decision also allows for
warrantless cell-tower location information searches in emergencies and for
national security purposes.”

This leaves the door open for any agency to claim that any historic GPS data
was obtained for “national security purposes”.

This is troublesome because if the government is abusing their power there is
no way to hold them accountable since they do not have to explain the specific
reasons for accessing the data if doing so will “compromise national
security”. It is a bit of a loophole in my opinion.

2\. Another article ([https://www.cnet.com/news/supreme-court-says-warrant-
necessa...](https://www.cnet.com/news/supreme-court-says-warrant-necessary-
for-phone-location-data/)) mentioned “While the decision sets a ruling for
historical GPS data, the Supreme Court said it does not apply to security
cameras, business records or real-time location tracking.”

This means that any other data can still be obtained without a warrant under
the CLOUD act which passed just a couple months ago.

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-
deflect...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflected-
cloud-act-passes)

~~~
anarazel
> 1\. The article says “Roberts noted that the decision also allows for
> warrantless cell-tower location information searches in emergencies and for
> national security purposes.”

FWIW, that's not how I read Robert's opinion. He said that this decision
didn't decide those (at least partially because it wasn't the question
presented).

> This means that any other data can still be obtained without a warrant under
> the CLOUD act which passed just a couple months ago.

Isn't the stored communications act much more meaningful than CLOUD here?

------
fein
This NPR article was incredibly light on details. Here's the full record:
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf)

~~~
jcranmer
The full record is a 120-page decision, including 4 separate dissenting
opinions, that came out less than an hour ago.

Do you really expect a full digestion of the opinion in that time frame?

~~~
fein
I'd expect a bit more from a news company that makes the claims on
journalistic prowess NPR does, like a brief summary on what grounds the judges
wrote their dissents.

Took me all of 5 minutes to ctrl+f through the doc and find each record.

To save you some time, the issue seemed to be that the individual does not
create, maintain, or store the records in question, so the 4th amendment does
not apply in this instance.

~~~
ceejayoz
NPR's standard of understanding before putting it in the article is likely a
little higher than having a reporter skim and a Ctrl+F, especially in the era
of "fake news" accusations.

~~~
jessriedel
If you actually have a writer who is already familiar with the legal aspects
of the case, you can put out insightful analysis very quickly (cf.
SCOTUSblog). Instead, we live in a world where the NPR journalist (Nina
Totenberg) has just about every legal journalism award you can receive but
doesn't have a law degree and is most famous for legal soap-opera material
(e.g., revealing which supreme court justice had smoked marijuana).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Totenberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Totenberg)

The reason there's no analysis here is because there isn't a market for it.

~~~
ceejayoz
The "legal soap-opera material" demonstrated his background check had missed
something, and wound up in the nominee withdrawing his nomination. Single-
handedly torpedoing a SCOTUS nomination seems like pretty meaningful
reporting.

Expecting journalists to have second degrees in law isn't a reasonable
standard, if for no other reason than the financial burden it'd inflict on an
already fairly low paid profession. (Hell, many _lawyers_ struggle with their
law school loans.) Chances are she's cultivated plenty of legal minds to help
with analysis - perhaps even one or more of the justices themselves.

~~~
jessriedel
You misinterpret. First, the point isn't that marijuana use isn't important,
the point is that this class of reporting is orthogonal to legal analysis. It
would be as if the most famous professional football players were fantastic
comedians but never played ball in college. Second, a law degree is a
reasonable (albeit imperfect) standard if legal analysis is desired; that it
would be hard for journalists to obtain this just tells us there's no market
in it. (That is, people with legal training are not rewarded.) Law degrees are
also super expensive to obtain for people who just want to do legal aid, but
such lawyers need the training nonetheless because they actually have to
understand the law to do their job. Legal journalists do not.

------
ipsin
From the decision: "This decision is narrow. It ... does not address other
business records that might incidentally reveal location information" and "We
hold only that a warrant is required in the rare case where the suspect has a
legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party."

Looking side-eyed at the definition of "legitimate privacy interest", because
I would think that any request for almost any business records of a person
would involve it.

------
jeffdavis
Why isn't there some kind of "privileged access" test? If the third party
gives the information to anyone upon request, it should be considered less
private than if the police need to "ask" for it.

Not in an absolute sense. A concerned citizen might want to be helpful to
police by providing them lots of information, and that shouldn't need a
warrant. But it seems like a pretty strong signal that, if the police are
asking for it, it is more likely to be private.

------
skellera
Does this outlaw stingray use by police? If I am near a suspect and they get
all calls in the area, I would be tracked unlawfully?

~~~
caconym_
I've been skimming but I don't think the data stingrays collect would count as
"business records" since they are actually (AFAIK) intercepted communications.

Of course, I think they should be subject to the same restrictions and
oversight. It's encouraging that the SCOTUS seems to be recognizing (to some
degree) the relatively new and uniquely horrific potential of unchecked
electronic surveillance.

------
zaroth
I wish they had gone further. In the modern age the concept of data hosted or
stored with a “third party” is no longer useful in its entirety.

It’s questionable to me that where the bits are stored is even a relevant
component of a multi-prong test, let alone an overriding factor.

The way the bits are accessed is certainly relevant but the location of the
network attached hard-drive should have absolutely zero bearing.

This would have squared up well with the issue of offshore data warrants which
got punted off the docket after new legislation was enacted to provide a
compromise solution to that specific issue.

In any case, a great step in the right direction.

~~~
anarazel
> I wish they had gone further. In the modern age the concept of data hosted
> or stored with a “third party” is no longer useful in its entirety.

ISTM that that's much more a task for the legislative branch than SCOTUS. Now
congress is also defunct to a significant degree, but there's some limits to
what you can infer from the constitution...

> The way the bits are accessed is certainly relevant but the location of the
> network attached hard-drive should have absolutely zero bearing.

Hm, but that's not really the question, is it? Email _contents_ , and likely
online storage contents, already has a warrant requirement.

------
kodablah
I haven't read the opinion, but what I need to know is what is meant by
"obtaining"? I really hope it was made clear that it is even getting the data,
not just looking at it or accessing it. This is a crucial difference. More
importantly, it could put legal burdens on companies to ask for a warrant
before providing this information.

Also: "the decision also allows for warrantless cell-tower location
information searches [...] for national-security purposes." Sigh.

~~~
djsumdog
and for 911 calls. So in theory, if there's a case involving a 911 call, that
location information can be used without a warrant.

------
forapurpose
The NY Times coverage says it's very limited. Roberts wrote:

 _“We hold only that a warrant is required in the rare case where the suspect
has a legitimate privacy interest in records held by a third party "_

IIRC the current 4th amendment interpretation, 'third party doctrine' says
that is a rare situation. However, Roberts also wrote:

 _“While the third-party doctrine applies to telephone numbers and bank
records, it is not clear whether its logic extends to the qualitatively
different category of cell-site records,” he wrote. “After all, when Smith was
decided in 1979, few could have imagined a society in which a phone goes
wherever its owner goes, conveying to the wireless carrier not just dialed
digits, but a detailed and comprehensive record of the person’s movements.”_

 _“When the government tracks the location of a cell phone,” the chief justice
wrote, “it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had attached an ankle
monitor to the phone’s user.”_

Also, this seemingly ignorant comment from Kennedy (i.e., it seems a
meaningless distinction), though he's not quoted and a brief summary so it is
prone to misunderstanding:

 _In dissent, Justice Kennedy wrote that GPS devices provide much more precise
location information than do cell towers._

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/supreme-
court...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court-
warrants-cell-phone-privacy.html)

------
scarface74
How much does that help in practice? The judicial branch has a history of
taking the police's word without too much push back on the flimsiest of
evidence.

~~~
mchannon
By requiring warrants, they're involving the judicial branch.

Before, government investigators were dealing directly with the communications
providers and bypassing judicial oversight.

~~~
scarface74
The judicial branch is just going to rubber stamp anything that the police say
they want.

~~~
mchannon
Yes, but now the police have to do the work of asking, which is better than
nothing.

~~~
squozzer
AND a judge has to put their name on it. Granted, IDs of judges are kept
secret for certain courts, BUT nothing stays secret forever, e.g. Stasi
records in the former DDR.

------
JumpCrisscross
"As technology has enhanced the Government’s capacity to encroach upon areas
normally guarded from inquisitive eyes, this Court has sought to 'assure[ ]
preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when
the Fourth Amendment was adopted.' _Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 34
(2001)._ "

This is a sensibly balanced way of thinking about the Fourth Amendment.

------
pcarolan
Does anyone know if and how this would affect cellphone companies who sell
location data to data brokers?

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-verizon-location-
data-...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-verizon-location-
data-20180619-story.html)

You practically can't opt of this or are often unaware given the complexity of
an average app's TOS.

~~~
JoblessWonder
The decision seems to be pretty narrowly focused on law enforcement and rules
of evidence, so it shouldn't stop practice from continuing.

~~~
econochoice
How would this affect law enforcements ability to use data they bought from
telcos?

~~~
JoblessWonder
IANAL, but the way I read it they would not be able to use that data without a
warrant, which will likely mean that law enforcement will no longer be paying
for a third party when they could just use the warrant to get it directly from
the telcos. (Unless the telcos don't have historical data but a third party
does? Either way, a warrant would be required to gather that data without
risking jeopardizing the entire case.)

------
March_f6
Third-party doctrine has been on borrowed time since at least Jones with
Sotomayor's concurrence. Carpenter paves the way for moving the legal
understanding of privacy beyond narrow property talk and the ill-suited third-
party doctrine.

------
jscipione
So does this Supreme Court ruling mean that when the Oakland Police and FBI
used a Stingray to locate an attempted murder suspect without a warrant their
actions were illegal? We must hold the FBI accountable for their violation of
the 4th Amendment.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/fbi-didnt-
need-w...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/fbi-didnt-need-warrant-
for-stingray-in-attempted-murder-case-doj-says/)

------
USANEEDSHELP
There should be another ruling. 3 letter agencies should also need a warrant
to track cell phones too.

Basically, this ruling means nothing in the grand scheme of things. We are
being tracked without our permission & the police can probably get as much
info from the US government agencies by just asking for it.

------
cremp
I listen to the local police radio a bit, and if the caller is on a cell
phone; they usually have the location of said phone.

I might be misreading, but if they need a warrant to track, wouldn't they need
a warrant to get a singular location for an actual 911 emergency?

~~~
cabaalis
Phase 2 location data for 911 calls can be legitimately treated differently as
there is no expectation of privacy necessary when dialing 911 for help.

------
daveheq
Wow, something that makes sense. Fair for the average citizen. I can't believe
it.

------
subtlefart
I would be ok with fishing with CSLI data for crime sprees and other
applications.

The shit part about this is that this ruling is going to be very visible and
people are going to try to make this data useless.

------
fareesh
"Secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" is the text of the
amendment so my guess is this counts as persons? Didn't get a chance to read
the judgement

~~~
jimbofisher1
I believe in another decision they extended the idea that a Phone is becoming
part of a person.

~~~
maxk42
That's silly. A phone is clearly papers.

Paper has become digital.

------
getcrunk
Does this even matter knowing that police can just purchase location data from
carriers like we recently found out (securus) ?

------
ereli1
Can someone explain why a warrant under the federal Stored Communications Act
is easier to obtain?

~~~
advisedwang
The order under the SCA is not a warrent, and doesn't have the same standard
of proof.

Specifically 18 U.S. Code § 2703 means the government can request location
information [1] with a court order as described by (d). The standard for the
court order is "reasonable grounds to believe that the contents ... are
relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation".

reasonable grounds << probable cause

[1] under (c)(1)(D) as the cell location is not ljisted (c)(2)

~~~
ereli1
that's interesting, but one could assume that if some member of a gang points
out the leader of the gang to the police, the court would allow them to employ
surveillance techniques needed to acquire evidence. Wouldn't that kind of
information be sufficient to pass the Probable Cause test?

------
wpdev_63
O like the faceless judges that grant thousands of warrants? There's no
accountability and it's absolutely criminal.
[https://youtu.be/yVwAodrjZMY?t=7m31s](https://youtu.be/yVwAodrjZMY?t=7m31s)

------
s2g
Disgusting that it only passed 5-4.

~~~
dak1
I'm somewhat heartened that 6 Justices were in agreement that cell records
should be protected from warrantless lookups.

Gorsuch appears to have dissented because he disagreed with the rationale of
the decision and felt the 4th Amendment protections should be far stronger.

~~~
benchaney
> Gorsuch appears to have dissented because he disagreed with the rationale of
> the decision and felt the 4th Amendment protections should be far stronger.

In that case why did he write a dissent and not a concurring opinion? Isn't
that what they are for, or have I misunderstood?

~~~
jessaustin
It's my impression that Supreme Court justices write their opinions however
the hell they want... as a practical matter if the votes were going the other
way he probably would have written a "dissenting concurrence" rather than a
"concurring dissent".

------
0x86DD_
The ethical side of this discussion in Law Enforcement is a never-ending
debate.

------
sharemywin
shouldn't that apply to companies too?

~~~
icebraining
No, the Fourth Amendment only applies to the government. You'd need to pass a
new law prohibiting companies from doing the same.

~~~
alex_young
> the Fourth Amendment only applies to the government.

Source? The way I read it there doesn't seem to be any such restriction.

IIRC there weren't corporations in the modern sense when the bill of rights
was written.

~~~
jcranmer
The Constitution is binding only on the government; it is a document that lays
out what the United States federal government, and, in a few cases, what the
states of the United States can and cannot do.

The Bill of Rights is a set of 10 amendments that restrict what the federal
government can do with respect to citizens. The 14th amendment extends those
restrictions from the federal government to include state governments as well.
(Since local governments are considered extensions of the state government's
jurisdiction, it's included as well).

> IIRC there weren't corporations in the modern sense when the bill of rights
> was written.

The Virginia Company is a corporation in the modern sense that is literally
the origin of the United States. Actually, if anything, corporations have
gotten less powerful since the Bill of Rights; we don't have any companies
running countries any more.

------
vermooten
... in the US.

------
malchow
Token HN conservative here. If you ever get curious about the conservative
moment please don't hesitate to email me. There's a lot of interesting debate
going on in the Bay Area, but it's sort of subterranean for obvious reasons.

~~~
alfredallan1
I’m less liberal than many, but I’m curious how the conservative movement
feels issues like climate change and clean oceans and clean air, or even net
neutrality ought to be dealt with, if not by govt regulation. Or is the line
of thinking that only those rich enough to buy face masks, and have climate
controlled mansions with private beaches may enjoy those things.. Maybe this
is entirely orthogonal to this thread, so maybe there could be a separate HN
thread just for this discussion? I welcome your suggestion and am wholly on
board but I really don’t think individually emailing you is the most
productive method to have, what is in fact, a wide ranging discussion with
multiple participants.

~~~
rory096
>I’m less liberal than many, but I’m curious how the conservative movement
feels issues like climate change and clean oceans and clean air

Generally, via Pigovian taxes that internalize the externality consistently
without creating additional distortions or utilizing arbitrary ad-hoc
regulation — ideally in a revenue-neutral way via dividends.

See, for example, the Trent Lott-John Breaux group announced this week to push
for the Baker-Shultz carbon dividend plan (supported by economists including
former CEA chairs Greg Mankiw and Martin Feldstein and Fed chairs Ben Bernanke
and Janet Yellen).

(It should be noted that the Clean Air Act and the formation of the EPA came
under _Richard Nixon_ , of all people.)

[0] Americans for Carbon Dividends (new group, political):
[http://www.afcd.org](http://www.afcd.org)

[1] Climate Leadership Council (old group, academic):
[https://www.clcouncil.org](https://www.clcouncil.org)

[2] AFCD Article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/carbon-tax-
climat...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/carbon-tax-climate-
change.html)

[3] This year's op-ed on AFCD:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/opinion/climate-change-
fe...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/opinion/climate-change-fee-carbon-
dioxide.html)

[4] Last year's op-ed on CLC (economists):
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/opinion/a-conservative-
ca...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/opinion/a-conservative-case-for-
climate-action.html)

[5] Last year's op-ed on CLC (politicians):
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-conservative-answer-to-
climat...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-conservative-answer-to-climate-
change-1486512334)

~~~
tfehring
If that approach truly had broad support among conservatives, it likely would
have been implemented by now. (I consider myself very liberal and am a strong
supporter of such an approach.) But the reality is that a plurality of US
conservatives still (as of 2015) believe that the impacts of climate change
will never materialize. [https://news.gallup.com/poll/182807/conservative-
republicans...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/182807/conservative-republicans-
alone-global-warming-timing.aspx)

~~~
ecc47
The Baker-Shultz plan was written in February 2018 so it's going to take some
time until it is finally implemented. Also, a lot of hard-core party line
Republicans are old and hold the same beliefs from decades ago. These are the
conservatives who believe that climate change is all a hoax. When they die,
their voices and beliefs will phase out and the voices of the new evolving GOP
will phase in. Just my two cents.

~~~
tfehring
Older Americans are overrepresented among climate change deniers, but not
overwhelmingly so. As of 2014, 44% of climate change deniers are under 50, and
77% are under 65 [0]. So most will still be around for several decades. More
concerning to me are those who will acknowledge the impacts of climate change
but balk at the costs of addressing it, further delaying action. And of
course, even if and when a global consensus is reached that significant action
is needed, that action will take years or decades to take effect.

In the meantime, how many trillions of dollars will we spend to address
relatively immediate impacts such as flooding in coastal regions and changes
in growth patterns for crops? And how many trillions of dollars will we add to
the cost of reversing climate change's effects - if it's even possible to
reverse them at all? Not to mention non-economic consequences like the
disruption of marine ecosystems.

[0] [https://news.gallup.com/poll/168620/one-four-solidly-
skeptic...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/168620/one-four-solidly-skeptical-
global-warming.aspx)

------
rehemiau
Title: which world country are we talking about? Oh, right... ;)

------
tzahola
Wow, this site has the best GDPR-compliance solution I've seen so far!

[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=605007387](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=605007387)

Zero JS, zero CSS, just HTML as it was originally intended. Love it!

~~~
obsurveyor
Look again, there's a bit of javascript in it.

~~~
tzahola
Just to remind you where you’ve came from.

