Interesting Supreme Court Case - Geofencing
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The case began in 2019, when a man armed with a gun entered a federal credit union in the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs. The robber gave the teller a note demanding money and made off with nearly $200,000. When the investigation into the robbery stalled, law enforcement officials served a “geofence warrant” on Google, which directed the tech company to provide location data for cellphone users who were near the bank at the time of the robbery.
Google provided information to law enforcement officials in three steps. Google first gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts – but not the names of the accounts’ owners – linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Based on that list, the government next asked Google for more information about nine accounts that were in the area during a two-hour period. Third and finally, a detective asked for, and received, the names and information for three accounts – one of which was Chatrie’s.
Based on the location data, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to search two residences linked to Chatrie, where they found almost $100,000 of the stolen cash, a gun, and demand notes.
Chatrie was charged with (among other things) bank robbery. He argued that prosecutors should not be allowed to use the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant against him because the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
To me, this is a situation that the writers of the US constitution could never ever ever imagined. So for those who say that the constitution needs to be interpreted as the writers wanted makes no sense.
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Orin Kerr, probably the most prominent living 4th amendment scholar, was live tweeting the orals the other morning. As he put it 'for the dozen or so people who are interested'. lol. I wasn't interested enough to follow the live tweet but I'm interested enough in how the 4th amendment intersects with modern technology to follow Orin Kerr.
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The case began in 2019, when a man armed with a gun entered a federal credit union in the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs. The robber gave the teller a note demanding money and made off with nearly $200,000. When the investigation into the robbery stalled, law enforcement officials served a “geofence warrant” on Google, which directed the tech company to provide location data for cellphone users who were near the bank at the time of the robbery.
Google provided information to law enforcement officials in three steps. Google first gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts – but not the names of the accounts’ owners – linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Based on that list, the government next asked Google for more information about nine accounts that were in the area during a two-hour period. Third and finally, a detective asked for, and received, the names and information for three accounts – one of which was Chatrie’s.
Based on the location data, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to search two residences linked to Chatrie, where they found almost $100,000 of the stolen cash, a gun, and demand notes.
Chatrie was charged with (among other things) bank robbery. He argued that prosecutors should not be allowed to use the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant against him because the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
To me, this is a situation that the writers of the US constitution could never ever ever imagined. So for those who say that the constitution needs to be interpreted as the writers wanted makes no sense.
To me, this is a situation that the writers of the US constitution could never ever ever imagined. So for those who say that the constitution needs to be interpreted as the writers wanted makes no sense..
Good point and there are many, I’m sure who feel the same about 2nd Amendment “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”. There is no way that the framers could have envisioned readily available breechloading firearms with semi-automatic and automatic actions firing centre fire smokeless powder rounds at high velocities.
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To me, this is a situation that the writers of the US constitution could never ever ever imagined. So for those who say that the constitution needs to be interpreted as the writers wanted makes no sense..
Good point and there are many, I’m sure who feel the same about 2nd Amendment “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”. There is no way that the framers could have envisioned readily available breechloading firearms with semi-automatic and automatic actions firing centre fire smokeless powder rounds at high velocities.
To me, this is a situation that the writers of the US constitution could never ever ever imagined. So for those who say that the constitution needs to be interpreted as the writers wanted makes no sense..
Good point and there are many, I’m sure who feel the same about 2nd Amendment “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”. There is no way that the framers could have envisioned readily available breechloading firearms with semi-automatic and automatic actions firing centre fire smokeless powder rounds at high velocities.
I agree 100%. I (and I believe you) have made that argument before. Lets get us on the US Supreme Court.
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