Carpenter v. United States: A Victory for Privacy

What began as an armed robbery of a Detroit area Radio Shack, ended up as a victory for digital privacy.

Following the 2010 Detroit robbery, six[1] more stores in Michigan and Ohio were targeted[2].
Timothy Ivory Carpenter served as lookout for the robberies, but also digitally directed his co-conspirators from his perch.  In 2014, Carpenter was sentenced to 116 years in prison.

In 2011, Carpenter and his three accomplices were arrested for the robberies, but one of the accomplices confessed and provided the FBI with his cellphone and the numbers for the defendants.  With this information, the FBI was granted court approval to obtain the suspects’ transactional records pursuant to the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §2703.  The relevant part of §2703(d) reads “if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation”. 
 
Carpenter moved to suppress the cell phone records arguing that obtaining the cell phone records was tantamount to a wireless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.  The Fourth Amendment’s purpose “is to safeguard the privilege and security of individuals against invasions by governmental officials.  Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. __ (2018), citing Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967).
 
In Carpenter, the Court balanced the government obtaining the carrier’s cell-site records which revealed the defendant’s whereabouts against the defendant’s own reasonable expectation of privacy.  Explicitly, the Court stated “the question we confront today is how to apply the Fourth Amendment to a new phenomenon: the ability to chronicle a person’s past movements through the record of his cell phone signals”.  Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. __ (2018). 
 
Here, the Court side-stepped precedent[3] and held “that an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements captured through his CSLI (Cell Phone Location Information)” and that the government obtaining this information “was the product of a search”.  This decision is a victory for privacy and an advancement of the Court.  Gone are the days where owning a cell phone is thought to be a luxury.  The cell phone is a part of the individual and their portal to the outside world.  Within the devices, we maintain our important documents and information.  It is the portable home office and for many of us, it is where a fair percentage of our professional lives exist. 
 
It is only natural that the information contained therein and the information it transmits would be an extension of one’s privacy.

[1] https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/detroit/press-releases/2014/cell-phone-store-robber-sentenced-to-116-years

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/us/politics/supreme-court-fourth-amendment-privacy-cellphones.html.  Note the New York Times’ article references eight robberies. 

[3] In United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976) the Court held that the government could subpoena bank records as there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the records kept by a third party in the ordinary course of business.  Further, United States v. Smith, 442 U.S. 735 (1976) the Court held that the recorded dialed out-bound numbers were not tantamount to a search.