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John W. Liles II
LEPSL 530
June3, 2019
Duane Voss
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In the Supreme Court case, Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206, the court was
asked to decide whether the acquisition of Carpenters cell-site location information (CSLI) by
the government was a violation of the defendants Fourth Amendment rights. Another question
also was; when the government accesses cell phone records to track the past movements of the
user, which is stored by cell phone providers, does the user have an expectation of privacy?
Chief Justice Robert presented the majority opinion, where the court ruled the user does have an
privacy expectation, and the government must have probable cause to request the records
Before the Carpenter case, law enforcement lawfully gained access to CSLI records
through the Stored Communications Act, which required the government to have a reasonable
belief the records were relevant to ongoing investigations. In this case, Carpenter was involved
in multiple robberies and had several co-conspirators pointing to him as the leader. Chief Justice
Roberts explained the courts' majority opinion and sites similarities to United States v. Jones,
565 U.S.400, 132 S. Ct. 945, 181 L. E.d.2d.91 as established case law involving GPS
monitoring. He says the similarities to that case include the court's decision as establishing the
acknowledges, since you are out in the public, an expectation of privacy is diminished.
However, since cell phones are a normal part of most peoples daily lives, tracking one's
movement through CSLI does not mean a person should lose their expectation of privacy.
Therefore, when acquiring a person's location by obtaining CSLI data from the third party cell
phone carrier, as stated by Justice Roberts, "the Act is not a permissible mechanism for accessing
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historical cell-site records. Before compelling a wireless carrier to turn over a subscriber's cell-
site location information, the government's obligation is a familiar one: get a warrant" (p.5).
I do not agree with Chief Justice Roberts's opinion and favor the dissenting opinion
offered by Chief Justice Kennedy. The majority opinion fails to acknowledge that ownership
and possession of a cell phone is a choice. Each individual in possession of a cell wants it to
work, which is why several carriers go to such lengths to provide multiple cell sites to their
customers. If someone truly wanted to assert their expectation of privacy, they could choose not
to carry their cell phone, and certainly not while committing a crime. Also, for law enforcement
to obtain these records, there remains a mechanism already in place with the Stored
Communications Act. Collecting CSLI data is not the same as pulling back the curtains of a
home and looking inside and collecting the data is non-intrusive. It merely captures approximate
locations of the person and the time they were in that area. Finally, Justice Kennedy rightfully
points out that “CSLI, is no different from the many other kinds of business records the
government has a lawful right to obtain by compulsory process" (p.20). Therefore I support the
Reference
Supreme Court Of The United States, Carpenter V. United States. (Argued; June 22, 2018)
No.16-402