The Fourth Amendment, Technology, and a Right to Privacy

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Case Study #1: Carroll v. United States (1925)

Case Study #2:Olmstead v. United States (1928)

Case Study #3:Katz v. United States (1967)

Case Study #4:United States v. Knotts (1983)

Case Study #5:Florida v. Riley (1989)

Case Study #6:Kyllo v. United States (2001)

Case Study #7:City of Ontario v. Quon (2010)

Case Study #8:United States v. Jones (2012)

What types of technology?

… Cell phones differ in both a quantitative and a qualitative sense from other objects that might be kept ion an arrestee’s person. The term “cell phone” is itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone. They could just as easily be called cameras, video players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions, maps, or newspapers. … Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life.” The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information and less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant.

Riley v. California