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US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

theguardian.com

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Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#21

Post by galangalalgol »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #14
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #4

Of course Alito and Thomas would have allowed the government unlimited power. I am bit surprised to see Barret in the minority of this one.

As per the current conservative trend of allowing authoritarianism through technicality, the majority of Alito's dissent is just that the Court shouldn't rule on this at all because it won't help the defendant's case much specifically.

With the exception of citizens vs united, I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. I don't see how all this turns out well for normal people, but if it does, I think congress will have to be much stronger than it was within the federal government, and the federal government will have to be much weaker than it was. The structural problems are that the federal government doesn't want to be weaker, and congress people don't want to be stronger, because they have no term limits, so they don't want the power to rock the boat.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#22

Post by WillAdams »

jimbob45 wrote: post #6

What if they purchase the information from a company peddling it rather than compelling cell phone companies to hand it over?

For an example of what can be done with such purchased data, one project at a previous employer was:

- identifying all cell phone #s which would regularly appear w/in a certain radius of any State Police Barracks

- disambiguating that from people who lived/worked nearby and/or who met certain criteria

- determining the income and certain other criteria of the remaining numbers

- identifying the home address of the remaining cell #s which met the final criteria and mailing a franchise offer to those cell #s with the assumption that it would be targeting State Police Troopers

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#23

Post by ceejayoz »

galangalalgol wrote: post #21
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the current conservative trend of allowing authoritarianism through technicality, the majority of Alito's dissent is just that the Court shouldn't rule on this at all because it won't help the defendant's case much specifically.

With the exception of citizens vs united, I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. I don't see how all this turns out well for normal people, but if it does, I think congress will have to be much stronger than it was within the federal government, and the federal government will have to be much weaker than it was. The structural problems are…

> I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job.

They have repeatedly reduced Congressional powers, including today, where they basically said Congress can't setup genuinely independent agencies (in Slaughter). Or when they kneecapped the VRA.

Some of them likely subscribe privately to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#24

Post by newaccountman2 »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #13
thewebguyd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly when it comes to tech, she usually goes along party lines but she's been surprisingly independent in other areas. When it comes to the 4th she does heavily prioritize the sanctity of the home and property rights.

I have a pet theory that it’s difficult for her to convince the far right wing of the court to let her write the majority opinion, and that’s part of what is fueling these uncharacteristic or “independent” moments.

I am pretty sure the Chief Justice chooses who writes the opinion when he (or, one day, she) is in the majority, and if that's right, then Roberts is the only one she would have to convince

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#25

Post by atroon »

puppycodes wrote: post #3

Excellent, I wonder how this might impact things like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48467712

It will offer this company and those similar to it the ability to increase shareholder value by selling amalgamated information to law enforcement.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#26

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

petcat wrote: post #16
js2 wrote: post #10

From https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enfo... Additional details: > The information that Google provided to law enforcement officials came in three tranches. First, Google gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts (but without the names attached to those accounts) linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Second,…

I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. I believe this is similar to how they nabbed the Washington State University murderer. The feds compelled Amazon to give them all the bluetooth MAC addresses that was seen by the Echo device in the home around the time of the murders and were able to correlate it to other devices their suspect's phone had been visible to.

Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe this data is persisted, unless they tore open the device to extract logs.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#27

Post by ocdtrekkie »

galangalalgol wrote: post #21
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the current conservative trend of allowing authoritarianism through technicality, the majority of Alito's dissent is just that the Court shouldn't rule on this at all because it won't help the defendant's case much specifically.

With the exception of citizens vs united, I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. I don't see how all this turns out well for normal people, but if it does, I think congress will have to be much stronger than it was within the federal government, and the federal government will have to be much weaker than it was. The structural problems are…

I agree in general, but this is also why I say allowing authoritarianism through technicality. They know by punting to Congress, a body that is completely paralyzed, what the practical outcome of that ruling is.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#28

Post by ceejayoz »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #26
petcat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. I believe this is similar to how they nabbed the Washington State University murderer. The feds compelled Amazon to give them all the bluetooth MAC addresses that was seen by the Echo device in the home around the time of the murders and were able to correlate it to other devices their suspect's phone had been visible to.

Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe this data is persisted, unless they tore open the device to extract logs.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/amazon-releases-echo-dat...

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#29

Post by mothballed »

ceejayoz wrote: post #23
galangalalgol wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of citizens vs united, I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. I don't see how all this turns out well for normal people, but if it does, I think congress will have to be much stronger than it was within the federal government, and the federal government will have to be much weaker than it was. The structural problems are…

> I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. They have repeatedly reduced Congressional powers, including today, where they basically said Congress can't setup genuinely independent agencies (in Slaughter). Or when they kneecapped the VRA. Some of them likely subscribe privately to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory .

Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive. It doesn't stop congress from directly exercising that power instead. It just says you can't play the fuck-fuck game where you pretend to create an agency in the executive branch but actually violate the constitution by trying to create a new branch.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#30

Post by autoexec »

petcat wrote: post #16
js2 wrote: post #10

From https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enfo... Additional details: > The information that Google provided to law enforcement officials came in three tranches. First, Google gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts (but without the names attached to those accounts) linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Second,…

I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery. I believe this is similar to how they nabbed the Washington State University murderer. The feds compelled Amazon to give them all the bluetooth MAC addresses that was seen by the Echo device in the home around the time of the murders and were able to correlate it to other devices their suspect's phone had been visible to.

> I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery.

You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect and force you spend a bunch of money defending yourself. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike...

Hopefully rulings like this make that scenario a little less likely to happen, but it doesn't stop it entirely, it just means that the police need to spend 15 minutes to get a rubber-stamped warrant before they turn everyone within a few miles of crime into a suspect.

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