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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

#181

Post by lowbloodsugar »

Y'all celebrating this like a win, but it's just rubber stamp of dragnets with a few extra steps. Supreme Court could have ruled that geofencing itself was unconstitutional. They did not. Instead:

>In this case, she said, Chatrie and the government have disputed – and the court of appeals did not decide – whether the geofence warrant provided the kind of “‘particularized information’ … based on ‘probable cause to believe that Google had information’ that would help solve a crime.” Therefore, the court sent the case back to the lower court for it to make that determination.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enfo...

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#182

Post by zeroonetwothree »

throw0101d wrote: post #177

IMHO a more important ruling "Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power": > More broadly, Monday’s decision was a major victory for proponents of the “unitary executive” theory – the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and…

This is not the topic of this post, why not submit this separately?

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#183

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

jjk166 wrote: post #160
throwway120385 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, if you're sitting in your living room with a bunch of other people, many of whom know each other, and two people start fighting, you are all witnessing a crime and you can also all identify the two people fighting. It would be ridiculous to require DNA evidence in that situation.

At the same time though, a bunch of people who know each other and the people allegedly involved could very easily share the same incorrect testimony. You wouldn't believe in bigfoot if 5 guys drinking beers swore they saw him while they were camping. Sending someone to prison or worse is much higher stakes. DNA evidence might be too extreme, but I'd expect some sort of evidence to back up a testimony. "What if the w…

It's a nitpick, but testimony under oath is evidence to US courts. All evidence is either testimonial or circumstantial.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#185

Post by cvoss »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #180
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,…

“Had acted in good faith” Seems like there’s no point in having the constitution if a violation of it has no effect.

The effect is going to be on the issuance or not of new warrants going forward in this domain.

The police could not have foreseen this ruling. It was not previously known that such warrants were unconstitutional. Now we know. Now judges are not to issue such warrants.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#186

Post by deathanatos »

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?

The cases covered under the 4A:

> The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

"persons", "papers" and "effects"; just because I am in public does not give the police carte blanche to search me.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#187

Post by deathanatos »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #181

Y'all celebrating this like a win, but it's just rubber stamp of dragnets with a few extra steps. Supreme Court could have ruled that geofencing itself was unconstitutional. They did not. Instead: >In this case, she said, Chatrie and the government have disputed – and the court of appeals did not decide – whether the geofence warrant provided the kind of “‘particularized information’ … based on ‘probable cause to bel…

They didn't rule on it because it is out of scope of the matter before the court. The lower courts first have to make a ruling that can be appealed.

From the ruling:

> The conclusion that a Fourth Amendment search occurred does not resolve this case, because the Fourth Amendment prohibits only searches that are “unreasonable.” When law enforcement officials undertake a search to discover evidence of a crime, the reasonableness standard generally requires that they seek a warrant from “a neutral and detached magistrate,” Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14, who may issue a warrant only when “probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity,” Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 459. The warrant issued here, as described earlier, was an uncommon, multi-step one, and the parties have contested the legality of each stage of the search process it authorized. The Fourth Circuit did not address the questions that unusual warrant raises. Because this is “a court of review, not of first view,” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7, the Court leaves it up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#188

Post by rileymat2 »

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?

We do have semiprivate places in public, for example bathrooms, based on an expectation of privacy. There is no reason that expectation cannot be changed or extended in ways.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#189

Post by deathanatos »

dmfdmf wrote: post #136
ratelimitsteve wrote: post #7

rare scotus W, but i strongly suspect that because this data is "owned" by someone other than the people that generated it that said owners will simply choose to voluntarily cooperate with government inquiries 100% of the time. You can suppress information if the government unconstitutionally compels google to turn it over, but I don't believe that you as a defendant could push to exclude evidence if it was willingly…

Yes, this is the same argument used when the Biden admin during covid pressured the media companies to cancel people and news they did not like for "misinformation" instead of calling it censorship. This and LEOs buying data from Big Corp is just end-running the 1st and 4th amendments which is ultimately fascism.

The Biden administration both asked nicely for actual, factually incorrect information to be corrected by sites and pressured sites. They were taken to court over both, and they prevailed on the former and lost on the latter: the administration (any administration) is permitted to ask a site for a correction, and it is then truly at the site's discretion. They are not permitted to pressure them.

Re: US Supreme Court rules geofence warrants require constitutional protections

#190

Post by stinkbeetle »

kube-system wrote: post #87
jotux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I think you might be confusing what the issue is.

As we see in this case, the (likely) person in this case was actually found from the relatively small number of people who fit this criteria, so police were (likely) right to suspect these people.

The issue is not who the police may or may not suspect. it is about reasonable expectation of privacy. If they had obtained this exact same list of people who were near that bank for that time by a means that did not violate their reasonable expectation of privacy, then the evidence couldn't be challenged on that basis.

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