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US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

theguardian.com

111–120 of 311 posts

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe this particular judge didn't for whatever reasoning, but judges definitely prevent a prosecutor from introducing evidence based on how it was collected. This is why concepts like "fruit of poisonous tree" and "parallel construction" exist.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment. Sure. So explain the results of Trump v. Cook, which involve exactly that. The same justice, on the same day, issued one opinion that says Congress can't put limits on firing FTC chairs, and another that Congress can put limits on firing Fed board members.

Did you read the opinion? SCOTUS only said a process was broken by a step being missed. Trump can still fire Cook, just has to let Cook have a hearing about it. Nowhere that I see did they say Trump must at all consider what Cook says at said hearing or be bound by it in any way - only that she must be able to get a hearing. This does not seem to contradict his authority to fire her. Just like your job's HR will gladly give you a hearing about terminating you, even if their minds are all made up and nothing you say will change a thing.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The congress cannot create a fourth without an amendment. Sure. So explain the results of Trump v. Cook, which involve exactly that. The same justice, on the same day, issued one opinion that says Congress can't put limits on firing FTC chairs, and another that Congress can put limits on firing Fed board members.

Did you read the opinion? SCOTUS only said a process was broken by a step being missed. Trump can still fire Cook, just has to let Cook have a hearing about it. Nowhere that I see did they say Trump must at all consider what Cook says at said hearing or be bound by it in any way - only that she must be able to get a hearing. This does not seem to contradict his authority to fire her. Just like your job's HR will glad…

Yes, I read both opinions, and am left wondering why "out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference" applied to one and not the other.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#114

Birthright citizenship decision coming tomorrow.

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…

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Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#115

> Chatrie had opted in to an optional Google “location history” feature that documented his location every few minutes. Google removed this feature last year because they were tired of dealing with these warrants. Now (Google says) your devices each store their own location history without centralisation.

Fantastic. One step closer to making holding personal data a liability.

How do you jump to that conclusion? theGoog decided they didn't want to deal with it because it was a hassle not because it was a liability issue. Congress critters would need to get together to make data hoarding a liability and I just don't see that ever happening

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#116
post #16
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

Yes, everyone knows to steal a phone from someone you hate and bring that to the robbery. Right?

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the grocery store has a security camera pointed at the door that records 24/7? Should they not be allowed to do that?

I think they should be allowed to point it at places inside their store , with prominent disclosure to people entering. I don't think they should be allowed to point it at the public sidewalk.

So what if they mount inside pointing outside?

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#118
post #16
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 mean, yeah, I wouldn’t even bring my phone to a legal protest. Or, I’d at least shut it down.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#119
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was your prior assumption that forensic evidence must exist in every case—and that if it doesn’t, then there’s no way to convince a jury of someone’s guilt? As in, as long as I clean up really well afterward, I can pretty much do what I want?

I think you're missing the slippery slope that this goes down. The criminal charges were way too low, given the alleged actions. The state admitted it had absolutely no forensic evidence. The judge was perfectly fine with this and selecting a jury that was OK convicting in this circumstance. This pretty quickly pretty us down a path of "you're guilty of at least one crime since you've been indicted, maybe a more seri…

Does that mean that every single conviction from before the days of forensic evidence is necessarily invalid?

If the argument is that forensic evidence decreases uncertainty, well, it certainly doesn’t eliminate uncertainty.

Convicting anyone of anything is a slippery slope. The only way to be truly sure is to never do it, ever.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'll refer you to article 50 of the constitution of the USSR,

> Article 50. In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations.

https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/Russian/const/77cons02....

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which is to say, "constitutions" as pieces of paper, do not matter. A constitution isnt a document, its literally, how power is constituted by the people.

Paper has no magical power to bring about anything in the world.

One day, decades or centuries or millenia from now -- there will be no USA SC: at one point they will have been arrested, or killed, or retired and not replaced. At once point democracy in the US will fail, and the US will fail, and something else will replace it. Sic transit gloria mundi. So it goes. History goes on.

The world isnt a program, words are not its code. History goes along because power as insittuitionalised by groups of apes, comes and goes.

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