Carpenter v. United States

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Virginia detectives violated the Fourth Amendment by using a geofence warrant to collect cellphone location data from Google to solve a 2019 bank robbery. The majority held that accessing Google's location database constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, citing prior precedent in Carpenter v. United States. The case involved Okello Chatrie, whose data was swept up in the search, and highlighted concerns about government access to sensitive location information.

The Supreme Court is set to rule on the legality of geofence warrants, which allow law enforcement to obtain bulk digital data from device users in a specific time and location. The case, Chatrie v. United States, centers on whether these warrants violate the Fourth Amendment, with privacy advocates and civil liberties groups supporting the petitioner against the government's argument.

This policy brief from The Federalist Society examines Justice Gorsuch's perspective on Fourth Amendment protections in relation to the Carpenter v. United States Supreme Court decision. The analysis explores how Gorsuch's constitutional interpretation addresses digital privacy and government surveillance issues.