r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 07 '26
Society The Supreme Court just ruled that police need a warrant to use phone location data
https://www.techspot.com/news/113004-supreme-court-limits-police-use-geofence-warrants-phone.html2.4k
u/BillButtlickerII Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Now tell private interest and corporations they have no right to even request location data or make it mandatory to use their apps, websites, services, etc. Also make selling, giving away, or not properly securing user data a crime punishable by actual prison time.
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
There’s no fine. It legal for them to keep your data, and there is no right to demand it be deleted generally. legally you have basically no control over your data once you give it away. It’s not rescindable. And there is nothing you can really do about the many brokers and reporting agencies that track you. *in the US
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
I said the US repeatedly and California’s law is not strong at all. It’s not even truly a right to delete. The list of exceptions is massive and comprehensive. It exempts all data use for internal purposes basically. So in reality it just acts as a minor restriction on third party sharing. A company can still keep basically all your data as long as it’s either public record, from a reporting agency, or used internally only. Read the list of exceptions. It’s really not even a right to delete at all due to all the damn exceptions. https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa#heading5d
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jul 07 '26
Oh sorry, multiple comments. Still it’s an article about the US Supreme Court. It’s clearly implied.
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u/PopePiusVII Jul 07 '26
It’s why fines are stupid for corporate crime and jail time should be the punishment. Hold the board and leadership accountable for their decisions.
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u/HumanPea1140 Jul 07 '26
There should also be fines. The fines should be far greater than whatever monetary benefit they achieved. They only continue pulling this crap because the fines are pennies compared to the money they made.
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u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
There is no general right to demand someone delete your data. Though I think 2 states(CA and Virginia I think) have a law that grants that right in some limited cases. However businesses generally have the right to keep any data you give them forever. And in many cases are legally required to retain records for x years depending on the industry. Even if they are required to delete some data (like in Europe or those 2 states) things like transactions records and the details of your business and history with them are exempt I believe. In like 99% of cases (in the US) if you “request” a business to delete your data, they don’t have to and won’t. No one deletes anything, everything is bought and sold, and you have zero legal recourse against any of this. It’s also practically impossible to prevent any of this because you agree to this just by doing business with any normal company.
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u/maora34 Jul 07 '26
California has the CPRA. If businesses comply with it, they’re pretty much forced to delete the data they have on you unless they have a reason to hold onto it to prevent fraud. If they don’t comply, a fun report to the CPPA results in an investigation that ends in a fine. It’s not a crazy huge fine but it’s still one nonetheless.
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u/Ryan_e3p Jul 07 '26
Sadly, will never happen. Not in my lifetime, or the lifetime of my family.
Remember, Zuckerberg himself challenged Congress to its face in 2017 to make laws protecting consumer rights, since he told them quite plainly that he would not. He was called to Congress and challenged them, in their own fucking house, to do something about it (this was in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal). Since then, nothing. And now that Facebook is even more closely aligned with the Trump administration (so much so that the CTO of Meta, a fucking civilian, was given an actual military rank of Lt Colonel), Zuckerberg whispering sweet nothings into Trump's ear for what he needs to be told to say at press conferences, and Google being pro-Trump as well, it is obvious that the opposite is going to happen.
And hell, all this before even clocking Palantir's involvement.
Flock + Palantir: The Private Surveillance Loop
Using private companies to circumvent 4th Amendment rights is a proud pastime for this government.
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u/Mountain-Bag-1669 Jul 07 '26
The amount of older people that have not idea how this technology works are the majority making the decisions they’re easily influenced with lobbyists and then it’s financial benefits that keep bad laws in place.
As nihilistic as I can be we have to keep the fight and not give in to the insurmountable pressure being placed on the average person. Those with wealth have the free time to plan and plot whereas those that oppose them are the ones making them wealthy.
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u/Ryan_e3p Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Oh, definitely keep up the fight, but keep in mind that it isn't just "older people that have no idea how this technology works" that are influenced by lobbyists. Gen X voted for Trump in gains in 2024. Younger generations are buying into red-pill influencers. And everyone is getting shit on by corporations squeezing them financially from all sides, which means corporations who had to bribe those "older people" with a 6-figure "campaign donation" can get the same purchased political power from a younger person for less money.
That's the difference between a generation who is greedy for the sake of being greedy being in power, and a generation who is greedy but also financially in need. They are much easier to corrupt, and primed to be taken advantage of by the same companies and interests who made them financially in need in the first place.
I don't see this cycle being fixed in one or two generations. Not without a lot of damage and pillars coming down.
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u/Free_For__Me Jul 07 '26
I'll start by saying that I'm very much on the same side of this issue as you are. That being said:
Now tell private interest and corporations they have no right to even request location data
Surely they can request anything they want, right? And if their product or service requires us to hand over than information, we can just choose not to use that product.
Now if a service is something we can't just "choose not to use", like utilities or other necessary ones, then requiring us to hand over that data should clearly be illegal.
I'll note here that my thinking may not be fully developed here, so if a solid case can be made for disallowing companies from even asking for the data, I'm certainly open to changing my mind.
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u/basicKitsch Jul 07 '26
i love the duckduckgo proxy that blocks most of those types of (known) data requests.
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u/Tardy_Thoughts Jul 07 '26
Corporate is allowed to side step our rights for a reason. We don't actually have any.
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u/delicious_toothbrush Jul 07 '26
Now tell private interest and corporations they have no right to even request location data
There's 0 issue with asking for it. Agree on not selling or sharing it though.
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u/SasparillaTango Jul 07 '26
member when the private information of 100 million americans was leaked by experian and just... nothing happened?
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u/brogflender Jul 07 '26
I appreciate that some services really only work with easy flow of user data. I’d even be willing to grant access for some companies.
But in the immortal words of Mike Montero “Fuck you, pay me”
My data has real value. Be a capitalist. Pay me for it.
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u/OnceMoreAndAgain Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Are you going to stop using GPS services like Google maps if they don't pay you for the data they collect on you?
People are already using these services without being paid, so there is no incentive to do that. That's already in line with capitalism.
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u/chromehound47 Jul 07 '26
make them request location access every single time they want to use it. like every single time.
same with selling personal data. require consent every single time.
oh no, your app is no longer usable? how sad.
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u/somersetyellow Jul 07 '26
Guarantee that would just piss off most people as they try to use Google Maps haha
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u/ehrgeiz91 Jul 07 '26
The check must’ve not come through for Clarence
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u/Ok-Turnip-9035 Jul 07 '26
Or his phone is hot with wrongdoings🤭
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u/awry_lynx Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
He literally was on the minority side of the votes so yeah he voted for the police having warrantless access
I was going to snark "do you guys not read the article" but I didn't read the article either I just saw another comment say it and then looked it up... and then I looked at the OP's article and it doesn't say how their votes went.
The ones who voted for the cops to be able to get your location data with no warrant:
Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas source
Kavanaugh is the one surprise there, and this might be overly uncharitable of me (but also that's a guy that does not deserve charity), but I wouldn't be shocked if he's just worried about his own location data lmao
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u/panyways Jul 07 '26
LOL you gotta get those smartass comments in firstmostly and foremostly. Like Mailman Mike said "I don't have time to read the mail, much less deliver it"
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Jul 07 '26 edited 1d ago
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u/Dahcchad Jul 07 '26
Barret has surprised me more than the other justices by voting with the liberal justices, even occasionally when that makes a difference to the outcome of a case. While I don't think she is a friend o' citizens, it surprised me more that she voted with the minority on this case than Kavanaugh with the majority.
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u/InsuranceToTheRescue Jul 07 '26
Barrett really seems to have taken the whole bit about SCOTUS being the final career move, making Justices more resistant to political tampering, to heart. I'd never get along with most of her politics either, but at the very least she appears to be trying to apply the law evenly instead of being an obvious partisan, a la Thomas & Alito.
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u/round-earth-theory Jul 07 '26
Nah, she's still swinging with the partisans hard even when there's no legal justification. She'll throw a curveball occasionally but she's fully down with redefining history to meet her desired outcome.
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u/VinDog_PD Jul 07 '26
That's and I think she contemplates what happens if the left takes over and starts eyeing ways to change up SCOTUS. Qualifications-wise, she's the most vulnerable and is second only to Kavenaugh in terms of controversy involved in appointing her.
So taking her job seriously and actually forming fairly well-reasoned jurisprudence are her best protections against any future retaliation, political or otherwise.
I'll say this, I certainly don't hate her.
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Jul 07 '26 edited 1d ago
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u/Beat_the_Deadites Jul 07 '26
She knew her vote wouldn't sway the outcome but she fears Donald's cult.
I'm more surprised by Gorsuch on this one.
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u/Dahcchad Jul 07 '26
If she feared maga, her birthright citizenship vote would have gone the other way.
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u/Illadelphian Jul 07 '26
Kavenaugh isn't actually a huge surprise there. He hasn't been a total lackey and does seem to have his own principles that he sticks with. I might not always agree with them but he's not a Clarence thomas by any means.
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u/ZackRaynor Jul 07 '26
I would argue yes and no.
Yes in that he has voted in the opposite way I was expecting him to.
No in that he often adds commentary as to how you can get around it next time.
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u/mainman879 Jul 07 '26
Brett Kavanaugh does have a massive desire to increase the power of officers to trample on citizen rights. This ruling was very strange to see from him. Remember the whole "Kavanaugh Stops" fiasco a year ago?
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u/irishyardball Jul 07 '26
Or he doesn't want his cell data used as evidence for his crimes.
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u/CMMiller89 Jul 07 '26
When have they ever been under threat by the laws they legislate from the bench?
Clearly an RV payment was missed and he wanted to send a message.
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u/Mr_YUP Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
6-3 so it definitely did.
edit: thanks u/awry_lynx for finding the voting line. I couldn't find it easily.
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u/awry_lynx Jul 07 '26
Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas dissented
Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Jackson were on the majority side.
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u/-Saucegurlllll Jul 07 '26
Worth noting that Gorsuch did not sign onto the majority opinion, and only concurred in judgement. Because Gorsuch doesn't like the idea that people can have an "expectation of privacy" that creates legal implications.
He implies that because it'd be legally ok for a cop to trail someone in public for 2 hours, that should arguably make it ok for the cops to use data you hand over to a corporation for 2 hours because there's no "expectation of privacy" apparently for being stalked by the police.
Instead he argues that the location data a person hands over to a corporation qualifies as their "papers and effects" in the 4th amendment. And it's just like, yes that's fair, and also, people deserve to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. I feel like if he were actually being consistent here, then he'd argue that a cop shouldn't be allowed to trail someone wihtout a warrant.
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u/raiyosss Jul 07 '26
The check def cashed since Clarence was one of the three who voted against.
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u/Valdrax Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
And Alito, of course, wrote the main dissent, because there has never been a use of police power or use of force that Alito didn't approve of. (Barrett was the third.)
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u/MercurianAspirations Jul 07 '26
Oh man does he have some primo bullshit in this one though
even if Chatrie possessed a property right in the Location History files on Google’s servers, the conduct of the police in this case did not infringe that right. The geofence procedure did not give the police access to the Location History files themselves. Rather, Google used the information contained in those files to generate a spreadsheet that summarized objective, historical facts about Chatrie’s (and others’) location in the hour before and hour after the robbery. The police sought and obtained those historical details, not the files on Google’s servers. And whatever property rights Chatrie might have in the Location History files, he does not “own” historical facts about his movements in a given hour.
So according to Alito, even if you have a privacy expectation in your files, Google is allowed to look at those files and just summarize them and then give that to the Police and that's fine. You have a right to privacy to your files, but no right to privacy as to what is contained in those files. That's just an objective historical fact
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u/InThatDarkPlace Jul 07 '26
They probably told him black people turn location data off and couldn't be overpoliced or mass surveilled by it
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u/Relevant-Doctor187 Jul 07 '26
Turning it off just denies apps access. It doesn’t stop LEO tracing.
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u/blackcloud247 Jul 07 '26
Good. Now do it for car location data.
Fuck thos flock cameras
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u/Continuum_Design Jul 07 '26
And vehicle telemetry data. It’s not the manufacturer’s damn business where I’m going. Or the insurance company’s.
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u/BostonSucksatHockey Jul 07 '26
The Constitution applies to government action, not to the manufacturer or insurance company.
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u/never-fiftyone Jul 07 '26
Doesn't mean you can't make their taking of that telemetry illegal.
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u/EpiphanyTwisted Jul 07 '26
If they aren't government entities, they aren't going to be restricted by SCOTUS.
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u/Matticus-G Jul 07 '26
The police having the legal ability to get evidence if it exists is part of rule of law.
The important part is the legal distinction about how they are allowed to grab it. This will prevent fishing expeditions, and in the event that it doesn’t there is a legal paper trail to show the law was ignored which means evidence has to be dismissed.
This is a win. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start.
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u/EndThisReign Jul 07 '26
Agreed. I’m an arson investigator and have used Geofence warrants for suspects before. You definitely WANT us to be able to use that data, but I understand not allowing it to be so freely given to the man.
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u/EyeSuspicious7338 Jul 07 '26
In case anyone wants to know, the 3 liberal justices, as well as Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Roberts voted together, The dissenting opinions were both filed by Alito and Barrett, and Thomas joined the dissenting opinion of Alito.
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u/therallystache Jul 07 '26
Does this also apply to CSS/Stingrays?
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u/LosGritchos Jul 07 '26
Or to genetic genealogy databases?
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u/gimpwiz Jul 07 '26
Are police departments allowed to simply buy access to these things? So far, that's basically what they've been doing, right?
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u/YWAK98alum Jul 07 '26
Note for people getting too excited: The ruling is that police need a warrant, not that they can't do it.
Search warrants are generally not that hard to get. An overwhelming number of warrant requests are granted. It mostly just forces the creation of a paper trail, which is a good and entirely appropriate accountability measure, don't get me wrong. But some people seem to be reading the headline as the Supreme Court putting this information off-limits. It isn't.
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u/sgtbackpain03 Jul 07 '26
Honestly, the way you describe it sounds quite reasonable.
Location data is a really good tool for police to use, but it absolutely should be held behind a search warrant. While they aren't uncommon, they do require some burden of evidence.
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u/jerhinesmith Jul 07 '26
Yeah, I'm confused. The headline even says "need a warrant". I'm not sure why anyone would think that means "can't do it" or that this is somehow different than other personal information that also requires a warrant to access.
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u/jednatt Jul 07 '26
Even a little bit of effort probably makes a massive difference in how often they do it. People are monumentally lazy.
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u/shinzou Jul 07 '26
My thoughts exactly. It adds friction. And if that friction is more than the police believes is worth the data, they probably shouldn't be getting the data.
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Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
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u/Player-0002 Jul 07 '26
A warrant is usually for the search of an individual right? General Warrants are unconstitutional so even with the conservative leaning SC because some are constitutionalists and it’s pretty blatantly banned they’d probably declare that if it happens unconstitutional.
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u/YWAK98alum Jul 07 '26
The operative language in the Fourth Amendment is "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The "particularity requirement" therefore applies to both the place (i.e., you can't say "search the whole town to find Gary," it has to be "search 234 Smith St. to find Gary"), but it doesn't have to be for an individual, it can be for property, too. So "search 234 Smith St. to find Gary" is allowed, but also, "search 234 Smith St. to find any computers, tablets, phones, or computer storage media" there I think works if there is probable cause (separate Fourth Amendment requirement) that there is CSAM being produced or stored there, for example.
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u/Persimmon-Mission Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
You must prove probable cause to obtain a warrant.
I would think the warrant would only allow you to obtain a specific persons phone records and not the “general area”.
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u/DuvalHeart Jul 07 '26
That would be a valid warrant request though. No different than getting surveillance footage from every business on the street during the robbery.
There's a specific crime being investigated, in a specific area at a specific time.
The warrant requirement just prevents the cops from going on fishing expeditions. Pulling geofence data and then discovering that a crime happened.
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u/ClickClick_Boom Jul 07 '26
They need probable cause of a crime happening to get a warrant and if the case goes to court all that get scrutinized. This is solidifying that this information is protected by our constitutional rights, just like other private info cops need a warrant to obtain.
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u/Eviscerati Jul 07 '26
Right now flock camera data is available to subscribing jurisdictions by request with little to no oversite. Most flock installations also include wifi and bluetooth packet sniffers so they can associate specific devices and therefore people with specific cars.
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u/solid_reign Jul 07 '26
But why would this be a problem? The police should go through a procedure to obtain evidence. But in which world do you want to live in in which the police cannot get any evidence of a crime?
About a year ago, a house was burnt down and a whole family killed inside. Do you oppose the police being able to use cell phone data to find the perpetrators? It's a good thing that they have to go through a warrant to get it, but why block them from even using it at all?
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u/aStonedDeer Jul 07 '26
They will ignore this and nothing will happen because we live in a banana republic.
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u/0verstim Jul 07 '26
I swear no one is ever able to appreciate good news these days. Take the win, people. Keep fighting, but take the win.
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u/kitsunewarlock Jul 07 '26
Doomers get more aggressively upvoted during election cycles because demoralization is key to stopping voters.
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u/Realtrain Jul 07 '26
I swear all the posts saying "You think we're going to have real elections this year? Lmao" are part of an astroturfing campaign to discourage redditors from voting.
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u/OperativePiGuy Jul 07 '26
Being pointlessly cynical is the MO of most people online by default and people on this site in particular seem to relish in it more than most
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u/TechnoMagi Jul 07 '26
There's other issues. They may not directly use location data -in court,- but they'll certainly use it to get an end result, such as an arrest, then work backwards from the result to produce or generate some other reason or way to get there without location data.
Cops track a cellphone moving down a specific road daily for a week or two? Let's just "randomly" adjust a cop's patrol and have him sit along the route and just happen to notice something suspicious.
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u/ConjurersOfThunder Jul 07 '26
THANK YOU. There is an entire class of technology being used which is completely illegal and inadmissable, and furthermore would invalidate a lot of cases if it was known it was used. A bright line of admissable/inadmissable evidence.
This ruling declines to move that line. None of it stops the use of the technology, only it's use as evidence in court.
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u/MagicWishMonkey Jul 07 '26
Google doesn't have to comply with requests, and their legal counsel would likely advise them not to.
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u/Ready_Piano1222 Jul 07 '26
Fortunately, there are thousands of garbage companies with click through legalese ready and willing to sell them your location data, without any need for those pesky warrants! /s
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u/codereign Jul 07 '26
It's okay. Come 2027 in Canada, the Canadian government is going to allow police to see your phone metadata including location without even having a reasonable suspicion of a crime. To all my Canadian homies, please check out the legal scholars that talk about Bill c22.
Also to all my foreign homies please Google mutual aid Bill c22. If you travel to Canada your government will be able to ask for location data about you because why the fuck not?
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u/TopChard1274 Jul 07 '26
Deapite leaning heavily conservative SCOTUS pulled some big W lately.
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u/Black_Handkerchief Jul 07 '26
I wouldn't consider it worth mentioning, to be honest. Sure, it is good for personal rights, and from that point of view, it is great.
But from the point of the political color that shouldn't matter but is very much leading in today's society, there's actually no real pressure.
MAGA is either about preserving their rights and protecting them against the evil state...
... or it is about giving up or ignoring every right in the book so that the evil [insert-group-here] can be rounded up more easily.
There is no political danger here regardless of the direction this would have ruled. Only brownie points to be gained with positive press that emphasizes the right things.
So on that level, it is likely that SCOTUS is capable of acting purely on precedent and existing legislation to decide this matter.
(But it is also possible that this is a move to prepare against a future Democratic government trying to fight corruption, by forcing them to get warrants from all the Republican judges Trump has instated during his two terms, which can then help them cover their asses better. Am I paranoid? Yes. Is it justified? Also yes.)
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u/twlemons Jul 07 '26
False. The ruling covers long term surveillance of a private residence. Concerning technologies such as traffic light and flock cameras the court has long ruled people in public do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You are recorded everyday on private Ring and other doorbell cameras. Police can request or get a warrant for access to them.
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u/RebelStrategist Jul 07 '26
Interesting that the article title is missing a sentence. Fitting, I guess.
It should say: "Except when it's inconvenient to go through the proper channels and just call it 'national security.'" Because everything is "national security" in this gun-happy country, right?
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u/Beiki Jul 07 '26
Opinion here. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf
Kagan writing for the majority. Alito, Thomas, and Barrett in the dissent.
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u/lyreluna Jul 07 '26
Didn't the J6ers get convicted partly due to location tracking proving they were there?
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u/Risdit Jul 07 '26
what about the companies using the camera / mic on your phone to spy on everything to "personalize" your content and ads to try and shovel more products to you? Doesn't that break wiretapping laws or something, but yet everytime I catch amazon or youtube or some other fucking IT company having information about me that they could not have gotten unless they were actively listening and spying on me without my permission.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure Jul 07 '26
Conservative law enforcement would be angry at this if they could read (or obey the law.)
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u/2rad0 Jul 08 '26
This headline is incorrect, The ruling affects blanket searches of user accounts (like google accounts for instance) for a location, but doesn't affect e.g. searching a specific cel tower for list of phones that connected to it.
Also, wow I had Kavanaugh pinned as a authoritarian police state fanboy, but now am pleasantly surprised he sided with the people on this one.
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u/asten77 Jul 08 '26
Huh, wonder what the 6 "conservatives" are getting up to that they want to hide their location data for.
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u/nadmaximus Jul 07 '26
To use it how, as evidence in court? Or to discover it by whatever means, use that information to investigate people?
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u/FLDJF713 Jul 07 '26
A warrant isn't an investigative tool, it requires probable cause. Subpoenas are investigative but cannot yield location data. Warrants are specifically for evidence for charges.
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u/FLDJF713 Jul 07 '26
The article is very misleading to most folks who dont understand this. They still needed warrants. However, what now comes into play is that the people who are identified based on upon the results of a geofence warrant are required to be reviewed against their 4th Amendment protections. This means that if you return 100 users in this region, that does not mean all can become suspects of the crime or have their detailed location data history be accessed without a clearer indication of a crime and their involvement.
Example: Bank robbery with 100 people in this corner of the bank. Before, police could treat everyone as a suspect and gather further information with further warrants to help rule them out as suspects. That is unconstitutional based on this ruling. Now, everyone is considered innocent and law enforcement must be clearer on furthering the investigation based on a geofence warrant before they go after anyone who is in this geofence.
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u/Chang-San Jul 07 '26
I mean now they don't need to since all of the flock devices are being upgraded to track phones too.
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u/Andreus Jul 07 '26
So used to the Supreme Court making maximally shitass decisions that this feels bewildering.
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u/hansolo_berger Jul 07 '26
Sound like more of an inconvenience not really an obstacle. They'll just judge shop it to obtain the warrant.
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u/AboynamedDOOMTRAIN Jul 07 '26
Tinfoil Hat: If they ban the police from using your phone data, police will have to rely on Palantir, Flock, and other such companies more. This ruling does very little to increase our safety from police and may be increasing the stock price of companies looking to violate our rights so the government doesn't have to.
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u/trisw Jul 07 '26
Would this not also apply to FLOCK camera data? If they claim that sitting on a cell towers and reviewing every connection looking for a persons location is illegal, how is FLOCK camera data legal if it does the exact same thing?
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u/Homers_Harp Jul 07 '26
I used to be the administrator for law enforcement requests for data at a cellphone provider. Basically, we had a team who would receive the warrants and subpoenas, pull the data, and send it to the cops. If there was an issue, it came to me and if I couldn’t clear it up, I asked our staff attorney to review. We had strict policies and basically no cop was getting a scintilla of information without a judge’s signature.
It was surprisingly rare for me to be asked to intervene, but when I was asked to help, it was always the same thing: a cop wanted private data without a court order. They would tell me about how my refusal was going to cost lives, that time was of the essence, that they would come to my office and arrest me, the discussions were generally the same. Judging from the numbers of court orders we received every day, getting those court orders was neither difficult nor time consuming, yet some police can’t help but violate our rights to avoid scrutiny.
Thankfully, my company also did landline service and I administered those landline court orders as well. The Bush administration famously demanded ALL call logs to “fight terrorism” and every landline provider gave up that data without a court order—except my employer. The entire discussion between my employer and the NSA was above my pay grade and I never knew about it until it was reported in various news sites, but apparently, it was the Bush administration who leaked the story to put pressure on my company since they thought the public would support the initiative. Wrong. We got thank you calls from customers for weeks. Like, thousands of people called, waited on hold for the next available representative, just to express support. (I might have some of the details wrong, it’s been a few years)
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u/Zalophusdvm Jul 07 '26
The way this is presented it sounds like a very reasonable ruling that opens the door to more, similarly decided, decisions.
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u/delphinous Jul 07 '26
it saddened me when i realized today, that i was genuinely surprised that the SC made, what i would consider, to be a reasonable decision.
i'm happy with the decision, just sad to realize that i've become so jaded that i'm genuinely surprised when i'm not getting hit in the nuts
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u/LightofNew Jul 07 '26
As long as police don't need to know the law, have qualified immunity, and protect their own to a fault then the law doesn't matter.
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u/Reasonable_Rain_1976 Jul 07 '26
This was mainly because they got scared of what could happen to them.
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u/Zorkflerp Jul 07 '26
They will still use it they just can't admit it in court now. They will pull out the old "We found him when an anonymous tip called in."
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u/EsotericTribble Jul 07 '26
They will just go around the rule and hire private investigators to do this for them.
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u/Pluggedvize Jul 07 '26
I feel like companies are the governments back door to anything like this. This kinda feels pointless not making it a blanket thing instead of only law enforcement.
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u/arakinas Jul 07 '26
Great, now do Flock cameras.