Carpenter v. United States
585 U. S. ____ (2018)
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Rule of Law:
The government's acquisition of historical cell-site location information (CSLI) is a search under the Fourth Amendment, and thus generally requires a warrant supported by probable cause.
Facts:
- In 2011, police investigated a series of armed robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio.
- Police arrested four suspects, and one of them confessed, identifying Timothy Carpenter as an accomplice and providing Carpenter's cell phone number.
- The FBI used the confessing suspect's call logs to identify additional accomplices.
- As a standard business practice, Carpenter's wireless carriers, MetroPCS and Sprint, collected and stored historical records of his cell-site location information (CSLI).
- CSLI is generated each time a phone connects to a cell site, creating a time-stamped record of the phone's general location.
- This process occurs automatically whenever the phone is powered on and connected to the network, without any affirmative action by the user.
Procedural Posture:
- The government applied to federal magistrate judges for court orders to obtain Timothy Carpenter's CSLI under the Stored Communications Act.
- The magistrate judges issued the orders based on the Act's standard, which requires 'reasonable grounds' to believe the records are relevant to an investigation, a standard lower than probable cause.
- Carpenter was charged with robbery and firearm offenses in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
- Prior to trial, Carpenter moved to suppress the CSLI, arguing its acquisition without a warrant supported by probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment.
- The District Court denied the motion to suppress.
- Following a trial, Carpenter was convicted.
- Carpenter (appellant) appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, arguing the denial of his suppression motion was an error.
- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding that Carpenter lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in his CSLI under the third-party doctrine.
- The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the Sixth Circuit's decision.
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Issue:
Does the government's warrantless acquisition of at least seven days of historical cell-site location information, records created and held by a third-party wireless carrier, violate a person's reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Roberts
Yes, the government's warrantless acquisition of historical CSLI violates the Fourth Amendment. An individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of their physical movements as captured through CSLI. The court reasoned that society has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements, and long-term CSLI provides an intimate window into a person's life, revealing their associations and whereabouts in a way that is qualitatively different from older forms of third-party records. The Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine from Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller, arguing that CSLI is not truly 'voluntarily' shared in the same way as dialed numbers or bank records, as cell phones are indispensable to modern life and log location data automatically. Accessing 127 days of data created a near-perfect surveillance log, far exceeding the limited intrusion considered in prior cases and infringing upon the privacy against government intrusion that the Fourth Amendment was adopted to protect.
Dissenting - Justice Kennedy
No, the government's acquisition of CSLI did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Cell-site records are business records created, owned, and controlled by the wireless carriers, not the customer. Under the established third-party doctrine of Smith and Miller, individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in information they voluntarily turn over to a third party. The Court's decision creates an unprincipled and unworkable line between CSLI and other business records like financial or telephone logs, which are often more revealing. Furthermore, the acquisition was made pursuant to a court order under the Stored Communications Act, which provides a layer of judicial oversight that mitigates concerns about dragnet surveillance.
Dissenting - Justice Thomas
No, the acquisition was constitutional. The Fourth Amendment protects a person's right to be secure in 'their' persons, houses, papers, and effects. The CSLI records are the property of the wireless carriers, not Carpenter, so the government did not search Carpenter's property. The 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test from Katz v. United States has no basis in the text or history of the Fourth Amendment and invites judges to make policy judgments rather than apply law. The Court should abandon the Katz test and return to a property-based framework.
Dissenting - Justice Alito
No, the acquisition was constitutional. This decision fractures two fundamental pillars of Fourth Amendment law. First, it ignores the distinction between an actual physical search and a court order to produce documents (like a subpoena), which requires a lesser standard than probable cause. Treating an order to produce records as a full-blown search is a revolutionary and unworkable change. Second, the Court wrongly allows a defendant to object to the search of a third party’s property, which contravenes the personal nature of Fourth Amendment rights.
Dissenting - Justice Gorsuch
No, the acquisition was constitutional under current precedent, but the underlying precedents are flawed. Both the Katz 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test and the Smith/Miller third-party doctrine are unworkable in the digital age. Instead of creating a new, complicated balancing test, the Court should return to a more traditional Fourth Amendment approach based on property law concepts like bailment and positive law. Under such an analysis, it is possible a person's CSLI could qualify as their 'papers' or 'effects.' However, Carpenter forfeited this argument by focusing exclusively on the Katz test.
Analysis:
This decision significantly curtails the third-party doctrine, which previously held that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily shared with others. The Court established that the sheer volume, comprehensiveness, and sensitivity of digital data collected by third parties can warrant Fourth Amendment protection, especially when the 'sharing' is a practical necessity of modern life rather than a truly voluntary act. This ruling creates a new precedent for how privacy is analyzed in the digital age, suggesting that other forms of sensitive, long-term digital records held by third parties may also require a warrant for government access. It forces a re-evaluation of surveillance techniques that rely on data generated by technologies that are now ubiquitous.
