Comment Re:They aren't the problem (Score 1) 55
Yes. Chatrie v. United States (No. 25-112), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6â"3 that law enforcement's use of a Google geofence warrant to acquire a person's historical cellphone location data constitutes a "search" under the Fourth Amendment.
That was a ruling on a search which required a warrant, and the ruling states that the district court itself found that the warrant was invalid as it violated the suspect's fourth amendment rights. It would seem to apply except that these are warrantless requests. It also specifically references Carpenter v. United States' determination that such a request as in Chatrie is able to look into the past, which makes possible surveillance which was formerly impossible and was therefore unexpected when the relevant laws were written, but the flock requests we're discussing are for recent information. It remains to be seen whether this court would apply the same logic to these similar but different specific uses.