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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

#81

Post by sidewndr46 »

bee_rider wrote: post #33
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,…

It is a little confusing, they ruled that the search was not legitimate, but this didn’t end up helping the defendant? I’m definitely missing an important nuance here but I’m not sure what it is…

The judge doesn't care if the law was violated in collecting evidence.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#82

Post by TheJoeMan »

petcat wrote: post #74
arlattimore wrote: post #70

If it is reasonable to have your privacy in a public place, does this mean that products like Flock which indiscriminately violate your privacy would now require a warrant for law enforcement to access (currently they do not)?

> If it is reasonable to have your privacy in a public place I don't think it's reasonable to have privacy in a public place. All other arguments follow from there. What do you think should be "private" when you step outside your home?

If I run into someone at the grocery store, I can remember "oh I saw them yesterday" if the Police interview me. If I start writing down/logging every time I saw that person at the grocery store and plotting it out, I would consider that "crossing the line".

A Flock camera that receives BOLO's for known-criminals and immediately flags captures in real-time is different than tracking every person going everywhere with a history.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#83

Post by derektank »

arlattimore wrote: post #70

If it is reasonable to have your privacy in a public place, does this mean that products like Flock which indiscriminately violate your privacy would now require a warrant for law enforcement to access (currently they do not)?

Where does the ruling discuss public places? The article quotes the ruling as saying, “An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location.” I don’t think a ruling about private records held by a private entity like google or a phone company naturally extends to surveillance of public places.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#84

Post by einpoklum »

> Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google “location history” feature that documented his location every few minutes.

If he had not opted in to that, only the NSA and intelligence-industrial complex would have had access to his Google location history, while with that option, regular police had enough political clout to demand it. They might lose that ability (although even that is not entirely clear), but the under-the-table mass surveillance of everybody will continue just like before.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#85

Post by sidewndr46 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #69
ceejayoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's implausible that an Echo would have an internal list of trusted Bluetooth devices and their last date of connectivity.

The original claim is: > all the bluetooth MAC addresses that was seen by the Echo device in the home around the time of the murders which is just not how this stuff works. I'd believe it if, say, debug-level logs were being recorded locally. But that would be an incredibly stupid way to burn through your flash storage. But that's besides the point. A record of the last date of connectivity for trusted devices is an…

I don't think that is ever admitted into the public record or presented to a jury. An expert reviews it and prevents the conclusions. In the even that you had the knowledge to review it yourself, you're excluded from the jury as jurors aren't allowed to question means and methods.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#86

Post by hackthemack »

alexpotato wrote: post #52

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_B…

When news broke about the affair, I remembered, 6 months prior, watching an episode of the Daily Show where Jon Stewart interviewed Paula Broadwell and they even made jokes about if her husband was jealous of her spending so much time interviewing David Petraeus.

https://archive.org/details/COM_20120127_020000_The_Daily_Sh...

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#87

Post by kube-system »

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?

A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by cornfields? sure.

A one hour period and 150 meter radius of a bank surrounded by high-rises and public transit? no.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#88

Post by dlcarrier »

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.

Hopeful they used the MAC address to find the phone, then tracked the phone itself, because an IMEI and ICCID are pretty difficult to clone, but a Bluetooth MAC address is trivially easy.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#89

Post by dmitrygr »

mjburgess wrote: post #68
wyldberry wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious: What does it mean for a Chief Justice to be in control of their court, and of course, for them to be out of control?

The CJ decides who writes the opinion of the majority if in the majority, and the dissent if in the dissent. Its the job of the CJ to bring sides together in clear oppositions, and "horse trade" between bits and pieces of a decision so that its clear where a majority/minority lie. The CJ's foremost political role is to ensure the judicial branch of government is seen as a politically legitimate institution which wiel…

> They govern by consent of the other branches, and that's trivial to take away

That is entirely not at all what the us constitution says

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#90

Post by dmitrygr »

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 .

> can't setup genuinely independent agencies

The US constitution lays out three AND ONLY three branches of government. The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment. If they create an agency in the executive branch, by definition it reports to the head of the executive.

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