Law Commons^™

The Third Party Doctrine And Physical Location: The Privacy Implications Of Warrantless Acquisition Of Historical Cell Site Location Information, Matthew G. Baker

Catholic University Law Review

The warrantless acquisition of cell site location information (CSLI) by law enforcement implicates serious privacy concerns for all cell phone owners. Through a series of cases in the Circuit Courts of Appeals, the judiciary has declared that there is no expectation of privacy in the historical location of cell phones. The third-party doctrine controls where a cell phone user voluntarily conveys his location to a cell service provider.

This Comment discusses the history of the Fourth Amendment and the development of the expectation of privacy test, the third-party doctrine, and the tracking of vehicles with transponders. This Comment reviews a …

The Private Search Doctrine And The Evolution Of Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence In The Face Of New Technology: A Broad Or Narrow Exception?, Adam A. Bereston

Catholic University Law Review

The advent of new technology has presented courts with unique challenges when analyzing searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Out of necessity, the application of the Fourth Amendment has evolved to address privacy issues stemming from modern technology that could not have been anticipated by the Amendment’s drafters. As part of this evolution, the Supreme Court devised the “private search” doctrine, which upholds the constitutionality of warrantless police searches of items that were previously searched by a private party, so long as the police search does not exceed the scope of the private-party search. However, courts have struggled to …