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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

#51

Post by bilbo0s »

WillAdams wrote: post #22
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 re…

In fairness, I mean, if the people collecting the data sell it on the open market, then you can't realistically expect it to be private.

The only solution in that case is to make it illegal to sell the data. And that's never gonna happen in the US.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#52

Post by alexpotato »

I always like to mention how Paula Broadwell was identified as David Petraeus' mistress as it's a good example of how even without a phone you can still be identified.

- FBI had three distinct IPs linked to emails

- They geolocated those back to 3 different hotels

- They pulled the guest list from each of the hotels

- Did a "join" on them and the only guest at all 3 was Broadwell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Broadwell#Petraeus_affai...

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#53

Post by Tangurena2 »

plagiarist wrote: post #37
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,…

> [E]ven if there had been a violation of the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officials had acted in good faith. How is this even remotely a possibility?

Because there are way too many existing precedents where "acting in good faith" was sufficient to overcome the Fruit of the poison tree doctrine.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#54

Post by ceejayoz »

mothballed wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SCOTUS does not enjoy papal infallibility. They fuck up. (Or act maliciously, as when Alito invented the new "history and tradition" test.)

Congress fucks up as well. There's as pretty strong argument that "independence" from the executive power vested in the POTUS and legislative branch puts that power in a place not authorized anywhere in the constitution, and for good reason, as the design of the constitution intends elected office to have direct control over powers of congress and the executive.

Yeah, that's why we have the veto power; as a check on their power.

SCOTUS has now given the executive retroactive uncheckable vetos. Yikes. "Those rules we agreed to, signed into law, and followed for the last 90 years? HAHA PSYCHE SUCKERS!"

Reminder: On the SAME DAY, the SAME JUSTICE issued an opinion that the President can't fire a Federal Reserve member, in Cook, saying it was "out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference". You're asserting consistency that simply does not exist; the Court is starting with the desired ruling and working backwards from there.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#55

Post by awkwardpotato »

Cider9986 wrote: post #50
catapart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And this hypocritical bench has had a pattern of ruling sensibly on minor issues like this just before ruling with torturous rationalizations to strip rights from people on larger issues. Feels like there's about to be some pure bullshit spewing from the right flank of this illegitimate court. I'd dearly love to be wrong about this, but I'm not holding out hope. Until alito and thomas are impeached for unconstit…

There's a 94% chance the EO is struck down on polymarket.

And what are the odds in Vegas? How is the opinion of a bunch of gamblers on polymarket relevant?

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#56

Post by autoexec »

jotux wrote: post #47
autoexec wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>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 Proximity to a crime makes you a suspect even without the phone, right?

Only if it's known that you were ever there in the first place, and people that typically wouldn't ever be considered, like someone who is quietly visiting in the living room of someone who lives nearby, will fall under scrutiny when police are just getting the data of everyone in a certain radius.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#57

Post by galangalalgol »

ceejayoz wrote: post #41
mothballed wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statutes don't supersede the constitution and passing one doesn't create that power.

> Statutes don't supersede the constitution… "We can make rules the President has to follow" does not supersede the Constitution.

It obviously depends on what rules they make. They can't make a rule creating a body of government employees that decide the substance of rules (not just implementation details), and then also has armed officers to enforce those rules, with its own judges to have hearings specific to those rules. Whether you heard ice or atf when you read that, they both fit. I like Gorsuch's opinion. He clearly calls out this danger of a half step of saying the president has complete control of the executive without also ruling the agencies themselves are unconstitutional. Realistically though instantly removing all those agencies would mean chaos. The court can't rule how to fix something, only that the rock brought before them is the wrong rock. The telling bit would be if someone then brings them a case where the removal of the ftc leadership has resulted in the agency not enforcing the laws as written. If they then side with the congress I would give them the benefit of my doubt. But I do also feel like their positions, while correct, are correct only out of the context of their environment.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#59

Post by ceejayoz »

galangalalgol wrote: post #57
ceejayoz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Statutes don't supersede the constitution… "We can make rules the President has to follow" does not supersede the Constitution.

It obviously depends on what rules they make. They can't make a rule creating a body of government employees that decide the substance of rules (not just implementation details), and then also has armed officers to enforce those rules, with its own judges to have hearings specific to those rules. Whether you heard ice or atf when you read that, they both fit. I like Gorsuch's opinion. He clearly calls out this danger…

> It obviously depends on what rules they make.

Today, the Court ruled that Congress can make the Federal Reserve an independent agency, but not the FTC. Same day, same justice!

What are the rules, exactly?

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#60

Post by BeetleB »

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.

Source for this? As I recall, his phone was off when he committed the murders. In fact, they used the evidence that it had been turned off just for the duration of the murders (with some padding) against him.

If you're going to commit a crime, don't suddenly turn off your phone if you don't have a history of doing so!

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