“Big Brother is watching you” is no longer a fictional admonition. Everywhere you go, your location is recorded by phone technology, license plate readers, Uber and Lyft transactions, and cameras.
Privacy? Forget about it. Your location history is in the hands of many tech companies. Can the police and other government agencies force tech companies to share that information about you? The U.S. Supreme Court took up that question on Monday. The court’s decision could have a widespread impact on your privacy.
If your location history puts you within a 1-mile radius of a bank robbery with hundreds of other people, you could become a suspect, swept up in the wide net cast to find the perpetrator.
Many people find the growing surveillance creepy, but law enforcement is using this technology – called geofencing – to solve crimes rapidly, including some that would go unsolved.
During Monday’s oral arguments in Chatrie v. United States, the justices tackled this tradeoff between privacy and effective crimefighting, and how the U.S. Constitution, written over two centuries ago, can be interpreted to safeguard your rights in the age of Big Brother.
In 2019, a gunman robbed the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia. Stumped, the police secured a “geofence warrant” instructing Google to produce location history records for every digital device within a 17.5-acre circle around the crime scene for a two-hour timeframe. Then the police asked Google for the identity of three device users, including the man ultimately charged with the crime, Okello Chatrie.
Chatrie claims his Fourth Amendment right to be protected from “unreasonable” government search was violated when police used geofencing and compelled Google to disclose his location history.
The case is making for strange bedfellows, bringing together the often left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union and the more conservative Institute for Justice and CATO Institute. They argue that when a judge issues a warrant allowing law enforcement to pore over hundreds of thousands of location records implicating hundreds or thousands of people in order to narrow down a list of possible suspects, that is the modern version of the “general warrant,” which British customs officials 250 years ago used to burst into every home in a town to look for smuggled goods; the Fourth Amendment banned these generalized searches.
But during Monday’s session, that argument made little headway, as Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh cited statements on geofencing’s usefulness for law enforcement. Most of the Justices will likely uphold the bank robber’s conviction. Law enforcement has to get a warrant to use geofencing — and much of the discussion focused on whether the standards for granting warrants need to be stricter.
The justices anticipated how geofencing could be abused by the government. “What’s to prevent the government from using this to find out the identities of everybody at a particular church, a particular political organization?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked.
The court will announce its ruling in June, and the implications will reach far beyond cellphone technology. Google actually has phased out storing location data and announced that it will no longer comply with geo-warrants. Alito wondered aloud why the court was even hearing the case. But many other tech companies collect location data.
Flock Safety, a license plate reading company, has cameras in more than 5,000 communities and provides reports to 4,800 law enforcement agencies in 49 states.
License plate readers, according to Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon, allow for much faster arrest of car thieves and more successful prosecutions in court.
But the ACLU objects that extensive tracking of every person’s whereabouts via license plate readers amounts to an invasion of privacy. The ACLU is calling for “clear regulations to keep the government from tracking our movements on a massive scale.”
As usual in politics, there’s a fair share of hypocrisy. Several Democratic-led cities in New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas are terminating their contracts with Flock Safety because it has cooperated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They apparently think it’s OK to arrest American-born criminals using geo-searches, but not illegals. Ridiculous. The Denver City Council unanimously voted to terminate Flock Safety, but the city’s mayor, Mike Johnston, saw the light, calling it a useful crime-fighting tool.
One takeaway from Monday’s hearing: Wherever you go, assume you are creating a digital and photographic record of your own movements. Privacy is a thing of the past. The issue now is using these technologies to fight crime without empowering the government to crush our personal liberties.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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Tough issue, I want my privacy and I don’t want criminals to get away with their offenses. However, with a possible future hostile government in control of the nation, this would be another step for persecution to come against the innocent law-abiding citizens who can’t voice their opinions freely.
I guess license plate readers, take me out of being protected from constant surveillance, while I thought I was relatively safe, in the fact that I don’t have the common umbilical cell phone connection. Yeah … I am one of those 1% of the population that can walk, drive, have conversations, breathe, and function, without staring at, and having at the ready a cellphone life line.
No … I am not living in the middle ages … I do own a cell phone. I carry it with me when ever I go on extended trips, to have a lifeline to assistance if ever I were to break down on the road (though I also carry a portable CB radio).
I just don’t have a need to be available when anyone wants to post something on social media, they urgently need me to see, of a farting cat. I don’t feel the need to be available the second someone has a question, and thinks I might have the answer. I existed perfectly fine, when phones had a stretch coiled cord, (mine never stretching two or three rooms in length). I also don’t need a government I trust very little … keeping tabs of what I am doing day and night.
I was late on the band wagon of cell phones, as initially you bought minutes, that would be used whether you made the call or someone called you. “Why should I pay for them wanting to talk to me?” Now it is more fair, and with a plan that fits my needs only $15 a month … I can use it for emergencies, and mostly keep my movements government / concerned business free.
Can you imagine the resources needed to spy on everyday people going about their business? We already have a form of this when your phone is tracking your browser visits and someone or something is wispering, trying to sell you something that you just happened to mention or looked at? George W. Bush after 911 started that ball rolling and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping instead it’s rolling faster.
We have so many laws. Laws, laws, laws, laws, laws. But when someone is arrested, why is it that THEY seem to have MORE laws on THEIR side?
Strange, that.
I value my privacy over law enforcement invading it. I vote No for geofencing. You can do your job without it. Stop being Lazy.
Why worry about this type of technology. How many people have ring video or something similar set up inside and outside homes and yards etc that 24/7 capture film of their visitors or neighbors coming or going. I don’t think your friends or visitors demand you turn those off? Once you step outside your door you give up this personal privacy thing, you are out in the open and in public, no privacy guaranteed there. If that’s what you desire, guess you could just never go outside. This will happen or get here sooner or later and stating invasion of our rights or privacy to me just doesn’t work. With the internet and other technology already in use, and has been for years, privacy truly doesn’t exist even now. Our country and the world are filled with people thinking they have a right to do whatever they want, say whatever, physically hurt or damage with no concern for others or consequences of their actions, this may be something we need to literally help alleviate some of that and may be of benefit. If you think this would be an invasion of your privacy, or Big Brother may use your information in a negative manner, seriously, you really need to stop using the internet. Even with all the so called security we may have on our computer(s) the internet is the largest of anything now and probably ever will be for invasion of our privacy. I’m not concerned about this as many others are not because we all are and have been for years using the internet. And if Big Brother hasn’t come after you yet don’t think you’re that big of a “thing” for them to be concerned about.
This article is painting a broad stroke. Getting the devices in the area of a crime is one thing. You get no information as to who it belongs to and is protected by an advance algorithm. LE would have to secure another warrant with specific facts as to why they want specific devices unmasked. It is not as easy as hey let me know who was in this area and is defineitely not a general sweeping warrant.
Add to that the fact that AI can make any video evidence needed, you could become a bank robber regardless. Especially with all the grainy surveillance that still seems to be so prevalent.
Funny they didn’t argue this when they went after the J6ers and the pathetic fbi used all kinds of tech to trace them down. I’m not a criminal or doing nefarious actions so I don’t have a problem with it. Besides if it helps bring back a kidnapped child/adult or solves a crime let it be.
While I tend to be a privacy absolutist of sorts, I fully recognize that once I leave my home my privacy ceases to exist. Ring cameras (of which I own one), ADT cameras, public cameras in cities, license plate readers, phone tracking, etc., etc., have effectively made it impossible to go anywhere surreptitiously without great effort. Nevertheless, my ONLY concern about this information is if it is handled properly–through legal means such as a warrant issued by a judge for SPECIFIC information around the scene of a crime. It is the unethical and unlawful (and possibly evil) misuse of the information that scares me.
I want criminals caught but sometimes it can go to far. All you have to do is look at Jan 6.
Phones were tracked and people were arrested for being in that location. It can make you
uneasy if you’re constantly thinking about it.
As with all ‘laws’ on surveillance matters, there need to be definitive-spelled out rules governing compliance and use. And those rules should ensure destruction of what is not needed for a particular case or cases within a specific area and for a specific time frame.
I still feel badly about what Edward Snowden’s life became when he blew US gov’t surveillance out of the dark into bright light.
I basically know the dangers of carrying around a cell phone. What I didn’t sign up for is my neighbors having ring cameras pointed at my house 24 hours a day. If anything should be limited it’s these doorbell type cameras that can spy on the neighbors’ comings and goings. It’d be ok if they only saw your own front porch but to track the neighbors’ homes and yards is invasive and double creepy.
Nothing like being treated like a criminal or a potential criminal. Of course they will tell you, you need to give up some of your privacy and freedom to catch the bad guys. With the lack of serious punishment going on, is it worth it? Criminals and illegals seem to have more rights than law abiding legal citizens. Eventually it will be a surveillance state using that as the excuse.
Newer cares are like Big Brother on four wheels! It collects and sells your date and the “kill switch” will determine if you are impaired. Don’t gargle with a mouthwash with alcohol in it. It won’t let you drive. Maybe your car is “self driving” but s sensor will tell you to get your eyes back on the road and on and n it goes.
Well, I sort of figure, if you have nothing to hide, why worry about it…This technology could also save your life one day.
This ‘surveillance’ doesn’t sound like a problem to me. It’s being used by businesses everyday trying to sell you stuff. And besides, the criminals will use to steal your money, look at all the scammers. Now if they could just use it to keep people from running red lights.
ACLU always stands up for crooks but with Cato opining it makes one think!
Well, this is definitely a new wrinkle for law enforcement. I really am undecided about this, cell phones have become so addictive, people have them, even in church. People, this is the best way big brother can find you.
And people still believe it’s a free country.
It’s also easy to frame someone by taking their phone with you
Phone follows me wherever, all else is fixed cameras etc
When you update your state ID to the “Real ID” you are consenting to government use of the facial recognition information from the photo they just took of you.
Someone is obviously getting paid to ‘watch’ the movements of all the people. However I have to condone the ability to catch a criminal closer to the crime, although I do not want my whereabouts in the hands of a hostile government!
Any article about the surveillance state should address Israel’s role. Most of this surveillance technology has been either developed by Israel or field tested in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel draws up Kill Lists using this technology, monitors phones, track movements, etc., of the Palestinians that they oppress. The facial recognition used by China to track and oppress their Uyghur population was bought from Israel.
The Supreme Court has been ruling against the people for 231 years. Why would they switch sides now? They won’t because they’re unaccountable. Nine despots in black robes who hate the people having any liberty of any kind. The Supreme Court has done everything possible to put an end to free citizens and make the people subjects of the government. Popular sovereignty is anathema both to the courts and the government in general