Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Text Messages Are Property: Why You Don’T Own Your Text Messages, But It’D Be A Lot Cooler If You Did, Spence M. Howden

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note proceeds as follows: Part II offers a brief overview of what text messages are and what they are not. Part III covers the history of intangible personal property law and reviews the evolution of “cybertrespass” claims. Part IV explores the judiciary and the Fourth Amendment’s failure to protect text messages. Finally, Part V evaluates whether text messages constitute property and the practical implications of this finding.

Cell Phones Are Orwell's Telescreen: The Need For Fourth Amendment Protection In Real-Time Cell Phone Location Information, Matthew Devoy Jones

Cleveland State Law Review

Courts are divided as to whether law enforcement can collect cell phone location information in real-time without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. This Article argues that Carpenter v. United States requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment prior to law enforcement’s collection of real-time cell phone location information. Courts that have required a warrant prior to the government’s collection of real-time cell phone location information have considered the length of surveillance. This should not be a factor. The growing prevalence and usage of cell phones and cell phone technology, the original intent of the Fourth Amendment, and United States …

Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide.* Applying The Fourth Amendment To Connected Cars In The Internet-Of-Things Era, Gregory C. Brown, Jr.

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note will briefly discuss the key components of a Connected Car, identify who collects the data from the Car, and examine the various uses for the data. Part I also explores whether Car owners consent to the collection of their Car’s data. Part II-A will trace the historical development of the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment, which generally permits law-enforcement officers to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle. Part II-B will discuss how the Supreme Court has applied the Fourth Amendment to pre-Internet technologies. Part II-C will discuss two recent Fourth Amendment Supreme …

Warrantless Searches Of Electronic Devices At U.S. Borders: Securing The Nation Or Violating Digital Liberty?, Ahad Khilji

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The steady increase of U.S. citizens traveling with smart phones and other electronic devices has been met with the rise of searches and seizures by CBP officers at U.S borders. Although only less than 0.1% of all travelers may actually be subjected to a search while entering the United States, when comparing the statistics between a six month period in 2016 with the same period in 2017, electronic device searches have almost doubled from 8,383 to 14,993. Approximately one million travelers to the U.S. are inspected by the CBP every day. Out of this population, nearly 2,500 electronic devices are …

The Exclusionary Rule In The Age Of Blue Data, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In Herring v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts reframed the Supreme Court’s understanding of the exclusionary rule: “As laid out in our cases, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence.” The open question remains: how can defendants demonstrate sufficient recurring or systemic negligence to warrant exclusion? The Supreme Court has never answered the question, although the absence of systemic or recurring problems has figured prominently in two recent exclusionary rule decisions. Without the ability to document recurring failures, or patterns of police misconduct, courts can dismiss …

The Value Of Deviance: Understanding Contextual Privacy, Timothy Casey

Faculty Scholarship

Recent decisions by the Supreme Court in Carpenter v. United States and the Illinois Supreme Court in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation signal a shift in the traditional understanding of what exactly is protected by a privacy interest. Carpenter distinguished between a police officer’s observation of a suspect’s location and a perpetual catalogue of a person’s movements obtained through cell site location information (CSLI). The pervasive and vast quantity of information from CSLI exposed a protected privacy interest. In Rosenbach, the Illinois Supreme Court found the unique and personal quality of biometric information meant that consent and disclosure requirements …

Evolving Autonomous Vehicle Technology And The Erosion Of Privacy, Raquel Toral

University of Miami Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chilling: The Constitutional Implications Of Body-Worn Cameras And Facial Recognition Technology At Public Protests, Julian R. Murphy

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In recent years body-worn cameras have been championed by community groups, scholars, and the courts as a potential check on police misconduct. Such has been the enthusiasm for body-worn cameras that, in a relatively short time, they have been rolled out to police departments across the country. Perhaps because of the optimism surrounding these devices there has been little consideration of the Fourth Amendment issues they pose, especially when they are coupled with facial recognition technology (FRT). There is one particular context in which police use of FRT equipped body-worn cameras is especially concerning: public protests. This Comment constitutes the …

Cybersurveillance Intrusions And An Evolving Katz Privacy Test, Margaret Hu

Scholarly Articles

To contextualize why a new approach to the Fourth Amendment is essential, this Article describes two emerging cybersurveillance tools. The first Cybersurveillance tool, Geofeedia, has been deployed by state and local law enforcement. Geofeedia uses a process known as "geofencing" to draw a virtual barrier around a particular geographic region, and then identifies and tracks public social media posts within that region for predictive policing purposes. The second tool, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), is under development by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FAST is another predictive policing tool that analyzes physiological and behavioral signals with the …

Game Of Drones: Rolling The Dice With Unmanned Aerial Vehicles And Privacy, Rebecca L. Scharf

Scholarly Works

This Article offers a practical three-part test for courts and law enforcement to utilize when faced with drone and privacy issues. Specifically addressing the question: how should courts analyze the Fourth Amendment’s protection against ‘unreasonable searches’ in the context of drones?

The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence produced an intricate framework to address issues arising out of the intersection of technology and privacy interests. In prominent decisions, including United States v. Katz, California v. Ciraolo, Kyllo v. United States, and most notably, United States v. Jones, the Court focused on whether the use of a single …

Katz V. United States: Back To The Future?, Michael Vitiello

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Outer Limits: Imsi-Catchers, Technology, And The Future Of The Fourth Amendment, Ryan C. Chapman

Pepperdine Law Review

Recent advances in technology are posing new challenges for a legal system based on decades-old precedent. Nowhere is this more apparent than in law enforcement’s warrantless use of IMSI Catchers. These devices mimic a cell phone tower, and when the device is activated, cell phones will naturally connect to them. Law enforcement officers can use those intercepted cell phone signals to track a suspect’s movements in real time with startling accuracy. Scholarly commentary on these devices has largely concluded that their use requires a warrant. This Comment engages in a close examination of Fourth Amendment precedent and argues that, as …

Civil Liberty Or National Security: The Battle Over Iphone Encryption, Karen Lowell

Georgia State University Law Review

On June 5, 2013, Edward Snowden released what would be the first of many documents exposing the vast breadth of electronic surveillance the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) had been conducting on millions of United States citizens. Although the federal agencies had legal authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to collect metadata from companies such as Verizon, many Americans considered this data collection to be a massive invasion of privacy.

Equipped with the knowledge of sweeping domestic surveillance programs, citizens and technology firms fighting for strong privacy and security protection, have started …

Game Of Phones: The Fourth Amendment Implications Of Real-Time Cell Phone Tracking, Cal Cumpstone

Cleveland State Law Review

With the help of technological advancements, law enforcement can now hijack a targeted individual’s cell phone to ping and track the phone’s exact location in real time. Based upon previous rulings, this new tracking process has apparently fallen into a "grey area" of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. However, real-time cell phone tracking should be a search in terms of the Fourth Amendment and, therefore, require a warrant. Real-time cell phone tracking infringes on an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy, violates the trespass doctrine as a trespass to chattels, and violates the Kyllo standard by using technology not in general public use …

Carpenter V. United States: Brief Of Scholars Of Criminal Procedure And Privacy As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Amici curiae are forty-two scholars engaged in significant research and/or teaching on criminal procedure and privacy law. This brief addresses issues that are within amici’s particular areas of scholarly expertise. They have a shared interest in clarifying the law of privacy in the digital era, and believe that a review of scholarly literature on the topic is helpful to answering the question in this case. This brief is co-authored by Harry Sandick, Kathrina Szymborski, & Jared Buszin of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.Carpenter v. United States presents an opportunity to reconsider the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. Cell …

The Fourth Amendment In A Digital World, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Fourth Amendment doctrines created in the 1970s and 1980s no longer reflect how the world works. The formal legal distinctions on which they rely—(a) private versus public space, (b) personal information versus third party data, (c) content versus non-content, and (d) domestic versus international—are failing to protect the privacy interests at stake. Simultaneously, reduced resource constraints are accelerating the loss of rights. The doctrine has yet to catch up with the world in which we live. A necessary first step for the Court is to reconsider the theoretical underpinning of the Fourth Amendment, to allow for the evolution of a …

Cellphones, Stingrays, And Searches! An Inquiry Into The Legality Of Cellular Location Information, Jeremy H. D'Amico

University of Miami Law Review

Can the Fourth Amendment protect an individual’s right privacy by preventing the disclosure of her location through cell site location information? Does it currently? Should it? Many court opinions answer these questions in both the affirmative and the negative. The rationale underlying each conclusion is disparate. Some rely on statutory regimes, others rely on the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of reasonableness. However, Cell Site Location Information is a technology that requires uniformity in its interpretation. This note investigates the different interpretations of the Fourth Amendment as it relates to Cell Site Location Information. It explains the technology behind Cell …

That ‘70s Show: Why The 11th Circuit Was Wrong To Rely On Cases From The 1970s To Decide A Cell-Phone Tracking Case, David Oscar Markus, Nathan Freed Wessler

University of Miami Law Review

In light of society's increasing reliance on technology, this article explores a critical question – that of the Fourth Amendment’s protection over privacy in the digital age. Specifically, this article addresses how the law currently fails to protect the privacy of one’s cell phone records and its ramifications. By highlighting the antiquated precedent leading up to the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in United States v. Davis, this article calls on the judiciary to find a more appropriate balance for protecting the right to privacy in a modern society.

The Internet Of Things And The Fourth Amendment Of Effects, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

By 2020 there will be billions of “things” connected through the “Internet of Things.” These smart devices built within our homes, cars, smartphones, clothing, and accessories present new possibilities for technological surveillance for law enforcement. This network of smart devices also poses a new challenge for a Fourth Amendment built around “effects.” The constitutional language protecting “persons, houses, papers, and effects” from unreasonable searches and seizures must confront this change. This article addresses how a Fourth Amendment built on old-fashioned “effects” can address a new world when things are no longer just inactive, static objects, but objects that create and …

Small Data Surveillance V. Big Data Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article highlights some of the critical distinctions between small data surveillance and big data cybersurveillance as methods of intelligence gathering. Specifically, in the intelligence context, it appears that “collect-it-all” tools in a big data world can now potentially facilitate the construction, by the intelligence community, of other individuals' digital avatars. The digital avatar can be understood as a virtual representation of our digital selves and may serve as a potential proxy for an actual person. This construction may be enabled through processes such as the data fusion of biometric and biographic data, or the digital data fusion of the …

Dna Storage Banks: The Importance Of Preserving Dna Evidence To Allow For Transparency And The Preservation Of Justice, Cristina Martin

Chicago-Kent Law Review

What is the duty to preserve information in today’s society? In order for humanity to evolve, change and flourish in the future, society needs to preserve its information from the past. In the criminal justice field, preservation of evidence has special significance. DNA evidence in particular has become a helpful aid for innocent defendants who have been improperly imprisoned. Over the past twenty years, the number of exonerations of imprisoned criminal defendants has increased dramatically. With the advancement of technology, old, previously untestable or improperly tested DNA evidence will need to be retested. However, most states do not have proper …

How Privacy Killed Katz: A Tale Of Cognitive Freedom And The Property Of Personhood As Fourth Amendment Norm, Christian M. Halliburton

Akron Law Review

With each passing day, new technologies push the horizons of official government investigative and surveillance activity deeper and deeper into the mind and consciousness of the surveilled subject. While law enforcement agencies have always relied on observing the behavior and activity of suspicious targets, and there has been little judicial ink spent preserving the confidentiality of such observable activity, the law has been slow to respond to rapid increases in the capacity or scope of official observation that the advance of technologically sophisticated surveillance techniques helped facilitate. The sampling of techniques at the center of this Article allow the operators …

Coming To A Car Dealership Near You: Standardizing Event Data Recorder Technology Use In Automobiles, Kara Ryan

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Event Data Recorders are receiving more attention as owners of automobiles have begun to realize that their driving histories are recorded. Event Data Recorders are the “black boxes” in automobiles that are installed in the vast majority of vehicles currently on the road. In the majority of states, the restrictions on what information can be retrieved from Event Data Recorders and used by police officers, advertising firms, and insurance companies remains a gray area. State laws governing Event Data Recorder technology greatly fluctuates by jurisdiction. If Event Data Recorder information falls into the wrong hands, the possession of the data …

The Snowden Effect: The Conflict In A Free Society, Who Values Privacy Versus Who Values Security?, Matthew C. Blake

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The Obama Administration has come under scrutiny by both the public and Congress, since former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden made known the scope of government surveillance programs being utilized by the U.S. government to gather intelligence on domestic citizens. Snowden’s disclosures about the government’s surveillance practices to the mainstream media began in June 2013. I focus on how public opinion towards the government’s surveillance practices and an individual’s reasonable right to privacy has shifted after revelations made by Edward Snowden on the practices of the NSA. Individuals may show support for more government surveillance in the name …

Leveraging Predictive Policing Algorithms To Restore Fourth Amendment Protections In High-Crime Areas In A Post-Wardlow World, Kelly K. Koss

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Rapid technological changes have led to an explosion in Big Data collection and analysis through complex computerized algorithms. Law enforcement has not been immune to these technological developments. Many local police departments are now using highly advanced predictive policing technologies to predict when and where crime will occur in their communities, and to allocate crime-fighting resources based on these predictions.

Although predictive policing technology has an array of the potential uses, the scope of this Note is limited to addressing how the statistical outputs from these technologies can be used to restore eroded Fourth Amendment rights in alleged high-crime areas. …

Big Data And Predictive Reasonable Suspicion, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Fourth Amendment requires “reasonable suspicion” to seize a suspect. As a general matter, the suspicion derives from information a police officer observes or knows. It is individualized to a particular person at a particular place. Most reasonable suspicion cases involve police confronting unknown suspects engaged in observable suspicious activities. Essentially, the reasonable suspicion doctrine is based on “small data” – discrete facts involving limited information and little knowledge about the suspect.But what if this small data is replaced by “big data”? What if police can “know” about the suspect through new networked information sources? Or, what if predictive analytics …

When Enough Is Enough: Location Tracking, Mosaic Theory, And Machine Learning, Steven M. Bellovin, Renée M. Hutchins, Tony Jebara, Sebastian Zimmeck

Faculty Scholarship

Since 1967, when it decided Katz v. United States, the Supreme Court has tied the right to be free of unwanted government scrutiny to the concept of reasonable xpectations of privacy.^[1] An evaluation of reasonable expectations depends, among other factors, upon an assessment of the intrusiveness of government action. When making such assessment historically the Court has considered police conduct with clear temporal, geographic, or substantive limits. However, in an era where new technologies permit the storage and compilation of vast amounts of personal data, things are becoming more complicated. A school of thought known as “mosaic theory” …

Personal Curtilage: Fourth Amendment Security In Public, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Do citizens have any Fourth Amendment protection from sense-enhancing surveillance technologies in public? This article engages a timely question as new surveillance technologies have redefined expectations of privacy in public spaces.This article proposes a new theory of Fourth Amendment security based on the ancient theory of curtilage protection for private property. Curtilage has long been understood as a legal fiction that expands the protection of the home beyond the formal structures of the house. Curtilage recognizes a buffer zone beyond the four corners of the home that deserves protection, even in public, even if accessible to public view. Based on …

Failing Expectations: Fourth Amendment Doctrine In The Era Of Total Surveillance, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Today’s reasonable expectation test and the third-party doctrine have little to nothing to offer by way of privacy protection if users today are at least conflicted about whether transactional noncontent data should be shared with third parties, including law enforcement officials. This uncertainty about how to define public expectation as a descriptive matter has compelled courts to defer to legislatures to find out what public expectation ought to be more as a matter of prudence than doctrine. Courts and others presume that legislatures are far better than courts at defining public expectations about emergent technologies.This Essay argues that the reasonable …

On The 'Considered Analysis' Of Collecting Dna Before Conviction, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

For nearly a decade, DNA-on-arrest laws eluded scrutiny in the courts. For another five years, they withstood a gathering storm of constitutional challenges. In Maryland v. King, however, Maryland's highest court reasoned that usually fingerprints provide everything police need to establish the true identity of an individual before trial and that the state's interest in finding the perpetrators of crimes by trawling databases of DNA profiles is too "generalized" to support "a warrantless, suspicionless search." The U.S. Supreme Court reacted forcefully. Chief Justice Roberts stayed the Maryland judgment, writing that "given the considered analysis of courts on the other side …