Criminal courts routinely struggle with the definition of
what a Fourth Amendment “reasonable expectation of privacy” means in the digital
age. Yet, legislators at the local level remain silent, refusing to strengthen
privacy protections from growing government surveillance, according to Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Law Professor, UDC David A. Clarke
School of Law.
The highest profile example of this puzzle will reach the
U.S. Supreme Court today, when a lawyer for Timothy Carpenter — a convicted armed robber — will argue
to protect the Fourth Amendment for all Americans. The constitutional issue is
whether police need a probable cause warrant to request historic cell-site data
from cell phone companies to prove that Mr. Carpenter robbed (ironically
enough) a series of cell phone stores.
Mr. Carpenter argued that the demand for 127 days of cell location
data was a search for Fourth Amendment purposes. The government, in
opposition, argued that Mr. Carpenter had no expectation of privacy
in the data shared with third parties, and thus no Fourth Amendment protection
in the records that connected him to the robberies.
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1 comment:
I honestly think its scary how much surveillance there is and the limited privacy of the everyday person. I believe the police should have probable cause to warrant for this type of information. If there is probable cause, in which there is enough evidence that this person is tied to the crime, then I feel like it is okay. Though, there has to be a line drawn somewhere as to what is and what is not appropriate to search.
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