Why the Supreme Court’s Chatrie case could change the meaning of privacy in America

Source Domain: therecord.media

The Supreme Court is currently weighing a case that could reshape how law enforcement works with technology firms to identify potential suspects. In the next few weeks, the court is expected to rule on whether or not so-called geofence warrants are legal under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets requirements for issuing warrants.

Lawyer Adam Unikowsky argued the case last month on behalf of petitioner Okello Chatrie, who was charged with robbery after law enforcement obtained a geofence warrant directed at Google. Under such warrants, tech companies are asked to give law enforcement the location history of people in a certain area so they can identify unknown suspects, and Google has said it has been served with geofence warrants covering exceptionally large areas across multiple days.

The case is the first involving digital privacy to hit the Supreme Court since 2018 and could have major implications for other types of police tools that involve large amounts of data. Unikowsky spoke with Recorded Future News about why he believes geofence searches are problematic, how people do not understand what they are consenting to and why the way the court rules could have a dramatic impact on Americans’ right to privacy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Recorded Future News: The Chatrie case is the first digital privacy case, as well as the first Fourth Amendment case, to hit the Supreme Court since a decision in 2018 that limited police use of historical cell-site location data. Why do you see the Chatrie case as important?

Adam Unikowsky: The Supreme Court hasn’t heard a case about digital privacy in several years, and the Carpenter case — which you referred to from 2018 — left a lot of questions unanswered. It left questions about what constitutes a search that requires a warrant unanswered and it also left questions unanswered about exactly what types of warrants could be issued.

The…

Source