Narrow Ruling For Privacy At SCOTUS In Carpenter

The Supreme Court ruled, at the end of June, that seizing cell-site location information—data that tracks cell phone users' movements—constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. Speaking for a 5-4 majority in Carpenter v. United States, Chief Justice Roberts addressed questions surrounding law enforcement's warrantless seizure of over 12,000 cell site location points pinged by the defendant's phone, which allowed for nearly minute-by-minute tracking of his past movements. At the time, police needed only to prove that the data was reasonably relevant to their investigations. In its opinion the Court will now require that a warrant be obtained with a showing of probable cause – a higher burden of proof than previously required –, and an individualized suspicion that the data's owner committed a crime in order to access cell-site records.