Privacy

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Chatrie v. United States (geofence warrants) (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 4 weeks ago by FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We don't get a lot of privacy wins. Ya know? I'll take whatever we can get.

I linked the wiki page for this court case. As of me typing now, page hasn't been updated with the court decision. Prob will be soon. If you want the rawdog court document, it's here.

TLDR. SCOTUS just decided that geofence warrants require 4th amendment protection. For the non-USA peeps, 4A is protection against gov searches without a warrant granted with probable cause. The court decided that since everyone now carries a smartphone everywhere, and loc data is highly personal, police geofence requests require a judicial warrant. In the same way one is required for the police to search your home.

Before anybody goes off about how "this doesn't matter"... This does not restrict commercial data collection. Even so, it does matter. It is a step in a good direction, and will have real world impacts. It might even change the landscape around Flocks. Another positive step happened a while ago, in Carpenter vs the United States, about historical cell site location data.

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[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, it's indeed a win.

But how strong of a win when due process is optional now?

[–] FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

But how strong of a win when due process is optional now?

There was actually another thread posted about this case a couple hours after mine here that got a lot more traction. I need to work on my clickbait skills, haha. WAY more discussion over there.

But if you want my $0.02 about that. IMO we absolutely have probs now with due process being ignored sometimes. Various high profile cases. That's a big prob and we have issues to fix. But due process is still here in general, and is still being upheld in endless cases by endless judges in endless courtrooms. They don't make the headlines, b/c "everything was OK" isn't much of a headline. It's still the norm, I'd say.

Both things can be true at once, that we have bad problems, AND due process still works most of the time. Lots of cases are thrown out due to 4A violations, and a shitton of cases were won recently against 1A violations. Arguably, this very case, and Carpenter v. United States, both helped strengthen 4A protections. Will that play out perfectly in every case every time? No, I doubt it. But it does set a tone. It does give the lower courts ammo to use.

Anyway, we coulda had a much worse outcome. With this court, it's a crap shoot how anything goes.