Lonestar1776 at Illegal Checkpoint 80 Miles Inside Border - Standing UP Pushing Back! pt 2/2
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially...
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I Don #39;t Care About The Contitution, Take Your Fourth Amendment And Shove It The Hills Hotel
I Don #39;t Care About The Contitution, Take Your Fourth Amendment And Shove It The Hills Hotel FACEBOOK- https://www.facebook.com/TheJunkYardNews READ THE STORY...
By: Tom C
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I Don't Care About The Contitution, Take Your Fourth Amendment And Shove It The Hills Hotel - Video
BANGOR, Pa. -
The Bangor teachers union says no to random drug testing.
A year ago the school board passed the ground breaking measure, but it can't be implemented without union approval.
The Bangor Area School District would have been the first in the state with a random drug testing policy for teachers and staff, but union officials say the policy would violate their Fourth Amendment rights.
The school board passed a random drug testing policy for teachers and staff back in 2013, but the measure still needed approval from the union before being implemented.
Last night the union voted no.
I wasnt totally surprised," said Bangor school board president, Pamela Colton. "I understand the trepidation trying to implement something like this. It would be groundbreaking. No other school district in Pennsylvania randomly drug tests their staff.
The board passed the measure at the urging of the community.
In 2009 Bangor High School teacher Gina Riso died from an overdose at the apartment of Brad Washburn, a former Bangor wrestling coach.
In a statement, union officials say drug testing is not wrong as a pre-employment requirement.
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The Fourth Amendment Rights
A video my partner and I made for a government video project in high school. Our video is on the fourth amendment which is "no illegal search and seizures." ...
By: MrDrumboy21 .
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(PRWEB) May 22, 2014
Heath D. Harte, an attorney-at-law with over twenty-five years of experience, released a statement today commenting on the proper collection of DNA and protecting a persons fourth amendment rights.
According to the case People v. Walker (New York, 104040)*, the Appellate Division, Third Department suppressed a DNA sample linking the suspect to the victim. The court found the police unauthorized to collect DNA from the alleged suspect, Paul Walker Jr., under the no-knock warrant they carried out on April 2010.
This was a matter of the courts upholding a persons fourth amendment rights. A no knock warrant is issued when the police believe a suspect can destroy evidence in between the time of identifying themselves and entering the premises. In this case, a suspects DNA cannot be destroyed and the court found that his fourth amendment rights were violated, stated Heath D. Harte.
According to court documents, Justice John Lahtinen explained that a founding principle of due process guarantees that if no pressing circumstances exist, the suspect has the right to be heard before the suspects constitutional right to be left alone is overlooked.
All parties involved, especially the police, need to respect due process. To ensure a fair trial and a tight case, the investigation needs to be thorough and carried out with dignity. The suppression of DNA from this case will prove to be an interesting in the outcome of the case, continued Harte.
For more information about the Law Offices of Heath D. Harte please visit: http://www.HarteLawOffice.com
About the Law Offices of Heath D. Harte With over 25 years of experience, the Law Offices of Heath D. Harte is a full service law firm concentrating in criminal law, personal injury law, estate planning, and real estate. While traditional in service and style, with smart use of experience and leveraging state of the art technology to streamline services, the firm cuts out excessive overhead usually associated with law firms. Lower overhead means that the firm can offer the same service one expects from a prestigious law firm, like the Law Offices of Heath D. Harte, at lower, more affordable costs to clients. The firms ultimate goal is to provide aggressive, reliable and effective legal representation at an affordable price. The firm also offers creative fee structures to accommodate clients needs, especially in todays economic climate.
Contact To learn more about The Law Offices of Heath D. Harte locations and services, please contact: The Law Offices of Heath D. Harte 1700 Bedford Street, Suite 102 Stamford, CT 06905 Office: (203) 724-9555 questions(at)hartelawoffice(dot)com http://www.HarteLawOffice.com
http://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-third-department/2014/104040.html
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New York Attorney Heath D. Harte Releases a Statement on Fourth Amendment Rights
Judge Says NSA Phone Surveillance Likely Unconstitutional
A federal judge says the NSA #39;s practice of collecting phone records en masse violates the Fourth Amendment.
By: Devran Hakan
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Judge Says NSA Phone Surveillance Likely Unconstitutional - Video
Motorists who were detained at an Aurora intersection nearly two years ago while officers attempted to locate and apprehend an on-the-run bank robber have sued the city for violating their Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure.
The suit was filed Friday in federal district court on behalf of 14 plaintiffs, some of whom were approached at gunpoint by police at the intersection of Iliff Avenue and Buckley Road, handcuffed and made to wait for two hours while the scene was cleared.
"They had no probable cause to pat my clients down and then handcuff them when they found that they had no weapons," said David Lane, the attorney representing the group. "This was overreaching."
He said police should have used more precise location tracking technology to pinpoint the location of Christian Paetsch, the man eventually convicted and imprisoned in the robbery of a Wells Fargo branch June 2, 2012. Hidden in the stolen money was a GPS tracking device that brought officers to the busy intersection but was unable to provide vehicle-by-vehicle location information.
To surround 19 cars stopped at a light and detain 28 occupants in those vehicles in an attempt to find a robbery suspect violated the motorists' Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure and excessive force, Lane said.
"(Police) brandished ballistic shields and pointed assault rifles directly at innocent citizens, including children under 10 years old," the lawsuit reads. "Officers with police dogs were at the ready. No one was free to leave."
Outgoing Police Chief Dan Oates said Saturday that U.S. District Judge William J. Martinez had already ruled that prosecutors could use evidence that officers gathered during the massive traffic stop, even though the judge acknowledged that "invasiveness" was the "most troubling" aspect of the officers' actions.
"My officers took a very dangerous person off the street, and he's in jail today," Oates said. "And nobody got hurt."
The chief, who will leave May 30 to head the Miami Beach, Fla., police force, said the court to date has held that his officers acted reasonably given the circumstances.
Oates and several Aurora police officers are also named in the suit.
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Motorists sue Aurora, police in 2012 traffic stop after bank robbery
The consequences of eliminating Fourth Amendment protections for all international communication with foreigners
Reuters
The U.S. government concedes that it needs a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls between Americans, or to read the body of their emails to one another. Everyone agrees that these communications are protected by the Fourth Amendment. But the government also argues that Fourth Amendment protections don't apply when an American calls or writes to a foreigner in another country.
Let's say, for example, that the head of the NAACP writes an email to a veteran of the South African civil-rights struggle asking for advice about an anti-racism campaign; or that Hillary Clinton fields a call from a friend in Australia whose daughter was raped; or that Jeb Bush uses Skype to discuss with David Cameron whether he should seek the 2016 presidential nomination for the Republican Party. Under the Obama administration's logic, these Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to these conversations, and it is lawful and legitimate for the NSA to eavesdrop on, record, and store everything that is said.
The arguments Team Obama uses to justify these conclusions are sweeping and worrisome, as the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer capturesin his analysis of the relevant legal briefs:
... the government contends that Americans who make phone calls or send emails to people abroad have a diminished expectation of privacy because the people with whom they are communicatingnon-Americans abroad, that isare not protected by the Constitution. The government also argues that Americans' privacy rights are further diminished in this context because the NSA has a "paramount" interest in examining information that crosses international borders.
... the government even argues that Americans can't reasonably expect that their international communications will be private from the NSA when the intelligence services of so many other countries ... might be monitoring those communications, too. The government's argument is not simply that the NSA has broad authority to monitor Americans' international communications. The US government is arguing that the NSA's authority is unlimited in this respect. If the government is right, nothing in the Constitution bars the NSA from monitoring a phone call between a journalist in New York City and his source in London. For that matter, nothing bars the NSA from monitoring every call and email between Americans in the United States and their non-American friends, relatives, and colleagues overseas.
All I'd add is that the Obama administration's encroachments on the Fourth Amendment disparately affect naturalized citizens of the United States, almost all of whom still have friends or family members living in their countries of origin. When I call my parents, email my sister, or text my best friend, my private communications are theoretically protected by the Bill of Rights. In contrast, immigrants contacting loved ones often do so with the expectation that every word they say or write can be legally recorded and stored forever on a server somewhere.
Xenophobia is one factor driving this double-standard. It does real harm to immigrants whose speech is chilled, as is clear to anyone who has made an effort to speak with them.
Yet there has been little backlash against the Obama administration for affording zero constitutional protections to Americans engaged in speech with foreigners, and little sympathy for the innocent Americans, many of them immigrants, who are hurt by the approach Obama and many in Congress endorse.
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Seize the Rojo
This is a short film project for one of my cousin #39;s Finals for school. The film is based on the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Hope everyone had fun with this project! I did! Nice...
By: Kevin Medrano
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Jaikumar Vijayan | May 15, 2014
A federal appeals court this week ruled that a woman's Fourth Amendment rights may have been violated when San Francisco police arrested her after an automated license plate reader mistakenly identified her car as stolen.
A federal appeals court this week ruled that a woman's Fourth Amendment rights may have been violated when San Francisco police arrested her after an automated license plate reader mistakenly identified her car as stolen. The decision provides fodder to privacy advocates calling for restrictions on the use of the technology.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District Tuesday reversed a district court ruling saying the police made the arrest in good faith. A three-judge panel at the appellate court held that a reasonable jury could indeed find that the woman's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure had been violated. The case was remanded back to the district court.
The case involves Denise Green, 47, who was stopped, handcuffed and detained briefly by multiple police officers with drawn guns, on a March night in 2009.
The incident was triggered when Green's car passed a police cruiser whose ALPR mistakenly determined that the vehicle was stolen. According to the appellate court's description of the incident, the photograph taken by the ALPR was blurry and illegible because of darkness.
The police officer operating the license plate reader radioed in a description of Green's vehicle and provided the incorrect license plate number from the ALPR read to dispatch. He did not confirm the tag number visually.
Dispatch quickly identified the plate as belonging to a stolen vehicle prompting a sequence of events that ended with Green being stopped by multiple police cars, handcuffed at gunpoint and detained while officers searched her car and person before letting her go.
Green filed a lawsuit against San Francisco Police Department, the city, county and the police officer in charge of the incident contending Fourth Amendment violations as well as unreasonable use of force and other charges. She asked the court for a summary judgment on her claims.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rejected Green's motion and agreed with the SFPD's assertion that they had acted under reasonable suspicion.
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A federal magistrate in San Jose has rejected a bid by prosecutors to search an unidentified target's Google e-mail account, criticizing the "seize first, search second" request as overbroad and unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
U.S. Magistrate Paul Grewal could have simply denied the request in a stark order without preamble or explanation.
Instead, Grewal waxed poetic, beginning his seven-page ruling Friday by painting a portrait of how each day he "joins the teeming masses of the Bay Area on Highway 101 or 280," marked by "lengthy queues" at exits in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Cupertino. "The Technorati are, in short, everywhere" in Silicon Valley, from the "humble downtown San Jose taqueria" to the "overpriced Palo Alto cafe," he said.
Grewal said he was hammering home a point, that "too few understand, or even suspect, the essential role played by many of these workers and their employers in facilitating most government access to private citizens' data."
The magistrate said he had reviewed an application by the government to search the Gmail account of a person suspected of stealing government funds.
The judge noted that "no defendant yet exists, as no case has yet been filed. There are no hearings, no witnesses, no briefs and no debate. Instead, a magistrate judge is left to predict what would or would not be reasonable in executing the warrant without any hard, ripe facts. This is hardly a recipe for success."
Although Grewal said he did find probable cause to believe that the Gmail account in question in fact contained evidence of theft, "what of all the data associated with the account which supplies no such evidence whatsoever?"
Grewal blasted the request as overreaching under the Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches. He said federal officials failed to provide any date restriction, other than to say the alleged crimes began in 2010.
"Nor has the government made any kind of commitment to return or destroy evidence that is not relevant to its investigation," Grewal wrote.
"This unrestricted right to retain and use every bit Google coughs up undermines the entire effort the application otherwise makes to limit the obvious impact under the plain view doctrine of providing such unfettered government access," he wrote.
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Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request
Is Big Brother Listening? Applying the Fourth Amendment in an Electronic Age
Maryland State National History Day 2014 Noah Pritt, Spencer Paire, Emily McGovern and Priya Stepp.
By: NHD Videos
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Is Big Brother Listening? Applying the Fourth Amendment in an Electronic Age - Video
LAS VEGAS -- Could police be playing favorites when it comes to getting search warrants signed by local magistrates? An I-Team investigation shows one judge has signed nearly twice as many warrants this year, as any other judge.
The Fourth Amendment prevents police from entering your home or seizing your property without obtaining a warrant signed by an impartial magistrate.
But one expert the I-Team spoke with questions whether judges with strong ties to law enforcement can truly be impartial. Why do certain judges sign lots of warrants for police, while other sign hardly any.
Law enforcement officers went to Las Vegas Justice Court for search warrants more than 2,000 times last year. Each warrant has to be signed by a judge whose job it is to impartially review the facts before approving it. But can a judge who's married to a police officer be impartial when signing warrants for that officer's department?
A judge has to be neutral and detached and somebody who is married to a police office is not neutral and detached. Period, said John Wesley Hall, a Fourth Amendment expert.
Hall is a lawyer who runs a Fourth Amendment blog and wrote reference books on search and seizure law. He is referring to Judge Melanie Andress-Tobiasson who is married to a career Metro officer who retired last summer. When the I-Team asked Las Vegas Justice Court for numbers on how many warrants were signed by each magistrate Andress-Tobiassons name was at the top of the list.
She signed the greatest number of warrants by a margin of nearly 2 to 1 over the judge with the next highest figure.
I-Team reporter Glen Meek: Do you think the fact that your husband was a career Metro officer tends to prompt police to call you more often for a search warrant?
Tobiasson: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I can tell you, though he's retired now probably most of the officers on the department don't even know my husband.
If police seek certain judges for warrants and not others it can create the appearance of judge shopping. It's not illegal, but it can make the process seem unfair and begs the question of why police should favor some judges over others.
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'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, 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.'
To pass muster under the Fourth Amendment, detention must be 'reasonable. ' See U.S. v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 542-44 ('85) (analyzing constitutionality of length of traveler's border detention under Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard); Caban, 728 F.2d at 75 (considering whether duration of border detention without a hearing was reasonable).
In the context of a criminal arrest, a detention of longer than 48 hours without a probable cause determination violates the Fourth Amendment as a matter of law in the absence of a demonstrated emergency or other extraordinary circumstance. See County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 670 ('91). However, the Supreme Court arrived at this rule by considering the time it takes to complete administrative steps typically incident to arrest. See id.
Unreasonable Searches And Seizures.
Non-consensual extraction of blood implicates Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 16 ('89) ('this physical intrusion, penetrating beneath the skin, infringes [a reasonable] expectation of privacy'); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 67 ('66) (compulsory blood test 'plainly involves the broadly conceived reach of a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment').' '[f]or the Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all searches and seizures, but only those that are unreasonable.' Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619; accord Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, No. 95-590, 1995 WL 373274, at *3 (June 26,'95) ('the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a governmental search is `reasonableness''). A search's reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment generally depends on whether the search was made pursuant to a warrant issued upon probable cause. U.S. v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 ('83).
Even in the law enforcement context, the State may interfere with an individual's Fourth Amendment interests with less than probable cause and without a warrant if the intrusion is only minimal and is justified by law enforcement purposes. E.g., Michigan State Police Dept v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450 ('90); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 ('68).
The gathering of fingerprint evidence from 'free persons' constitutes a sufficiently significant interference with individual expectations of privacy that law enforcement officials are required to demonstrate that they have probable cause, or at least an articulable suspicion, to believe that the person committed a criminal offense and that the fingerprinting will establish or negate the person's connection to the offense. See Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811, 813-18 ('85); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726-28 ('69).
Nevertheless, everyday 'booking' procedures routinely require even the merely accused to provide fingerprint identification, regardless of whether investigation of the crime involves fingerprint evidence. See Smith v. U.S., 324 F.2d 879, 882 (D.C. Cir.'63) (Burger, J.) ('it is elementary that a person in lawful custody may be required to submit to . . . fingerprinting . . . as part of the routine identification processes'); Napolitano v. U.S., 340 F.2d 313, 314 (1st Cir.'65) ('Taking fingerprints [prior to bail] is universally standard procedure, and no violation of constitutional rights.'). Thus, in the fingerprinting context, there exists a constitutionally significant distinction between the gathering of fingerprints from free persons to determine their guilt of an unsolved criminal offense and the gathering of fingerprints for identification purposes from persons within the lawful custody of the state.
Although the drawing of blood from free persons generally requires a warrant supported by probable cause to believe that a person has committed a criminal offense and that his blood will reveal evidence relevant to that offense, see Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 768-71; U.S. v. Chapel, ___ F.3d ___, slip op. at 5753-54 (9th Cir.'95) (en banc), the absence of such a warrant does not a fortiori establish a violation of the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights.
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Smartphones and the Fourth Amendment
A speech for Mr. Nye #39;s class.
By: Craig Terrell
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Larry Downing/Reuters
When asked about polarization between justices, Ginsburg said that liberals who criticize the conservative Scalia forget that he "is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court." The Fourth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Here is an excerpt from that interview:
WSJ: How deeply polarized is the court?
GINSBURG: [Justice Antonin] Scalia is often criticized by people who would not be labeled conservative. Liberals dont count his Fourth Amendment cases or the confrontation clause cases. He is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court.
WSJ: Not more pro-Fourth Amendment than you.
GINSBURG: No. But weve been together in all the confrontation cases and many of the Fourth Amendment cases. For example, that wonderful, wonderful one with the GPS, and the dog sniff cases.
The "GPS case" was United States v. Jones, in which both justices sided with the courts 2012 ruling that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they attached a GPS device to track a vehicle. In the Florida v. Jardines case, Ginsburg and Scalia both sided with the courts 2013 ruling that police officers use of a drug-sniffing dog at a persons front porch constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.
In both of those cases, it was Scalia who delivered the Supreme Courts opinion.
There are other recent examples where Scalia has demonstrated pro-Fourth Amendment opinions, as the Los Angeles Times has reported. That includes Scalias opposition to the Supreme Courts majority opinion that permits police to use anonymous tips to stop cars on highways. And in 2013, he fiercely dissented to the Courts ruling that police can routinely swab for DNA from arrested people.
Recently, the Supreme Court has considered whether police can search the digital contents of cellphones without warrants. In reporting on this case, a number of news outlets noted that Scalia has become a champion of the Fourth Amendment.
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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Comes To The Defense Of Scalia
By Brandon Stoneburg
@b_stoneburg on Twitter
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently gave its opinion on the fourth amendment as it pertains to drivers in the Keystone State. Police will no longer need a warrant to search a vehicle; it can be done based solely on probable cause.
Local police chiefs said while the policy is new, not much will change in how officers handle traffic stops and searches.
"There are no grave changes here because you still need probable cause, which is key," Penn Township Police Chief Jim Laughlin said. "Nobody is going to arbitrarily pull a vehicle over and search it."
There were already exceptions to warrant laws, Southwestern Regional Police Chief Gregory Bean said. For example, an officer didn't need a warrant to search a vehicle if illegal items were visible and there was probable cause, which Laughlin described as an officer using his senses to see or smell contraband, drugs or weapons.
A search could also be performed if the driver admits to being in possession of something illegal.
"If you have probable cause and articulate it, you can do an immediate search instead of holding the car and waiting for a warrant," Laughlin said. "Before, if you thought there was probable cause, but were denied access by the car operator, you would've had to wait."
A safeguard is still in place against any potential illegal searches. If the police officer fails to show or explain probable cause, the defendant could challenge it and the evidence could be thrown out, York County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tim Barker said.
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Local police: Updated vehicle-search law still requires probable cause
Pennsylvania drivers once had a choice when faced with a police request to search their cars: Consent or make officers get a warrant.
But the state Supreme Court has ruled police in Pennsylvania no longer need warrants to search private vehicles if they suspect evidence of a crime inside.
The decision broadens the power of police to search cars without a judge first deciding whether they have a valid reason to do so. The practice was previously allowed only when officers could show the evidence might be destroyed or moved if they waited.
It also brings Pennsylvania into line with a majority of states that have adopted a federal exception to the Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless searches when it comes to vehicles a legal doctrine that grew out of the Prohibition-era war on bootleggers.
Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, who wrote Tuesday's 4-2 majority opinion, said the change is needed to remedy decades of "fractured jurisprudence" that have left police and prosecutors with little guidance.
Pennsylvania courts had largely followed federal courts, allowing warrantless vehicle searches until 1995. That year the state Supreme Court reversed itself in a series of decisions that warrantless searches of cars were illegal if the officers had time to get a judge's approval.
"Accordingly, it remains difficult, if not impossible, for police officers in the field to determine how [the state Supreme Court] would rule in motor vehicle search-and-seizure cases, the circumstances of which are almost endlessly variable," wrote McCaffery, a former Philadelphia police officer.
Chief Justice Ronald D. Castile and Justice J. Michael Eakin joined McCaffery's opinion. Justice Thomas G. Saylor filed his own opinion, saying that although he had reservations, he joined McCaffery "for the sake of certainty and consistency."
In a strongly worded dissent joined by Justice Max Baer, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd said the majority "eviscerated the strong privacy protections" the state Constitution provides motorists and "heedlessly contravenes over 225 years of unyielding protection against unreasonable search and seizure which our people have enjoyed as their birthright."
The decision stems from a Philadelphia drug case in which Sheim Gary was stopped Jan. 15, 2010, by police who believed the tint of his sport utility vehicle's windows was too dark. The officers smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and when the police asked, Gary admitted he had some weed.
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Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules police don't need warrants to search cars
What the final clause of the Fourth Amendment means in interpreting the government's rights
An NSA facility in Utah (Reuters)
A secret opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recently released to the public is a reminder that the NSA is still conducting mass surveillance on millions of Americans, even if that fact has faded from the headlines. This would seem to violate the Fourth Amendment if you read its plain text. So how is it that FISA-court judges keep signing off on these sweeping orders?
They base their rulings on Smith v. Maryland, a case the Supreme Court decided decades ago. Before we examine the glaring flaw in the jurisprudence of the FISA-court judges applying it to mass surveillance, here's a brief refresher on that case.
Smith began with a 1976 house robbery. After the break-in, the victim started getting obscene phone calls from a man identifying himself as the robber.
On one occasion, the caller asked that she step out on her front porch; she did so, and saw the 1975 Monte Carlo she had earlier described to police moving slowly past her home. On March 16, police spotted a man who met McDonoughs description driving a 1975 Monte Carlo in her neighborhood. By tracing the license plate number, police learned that the car was registered in the name of petitioner, Michael Lee Smith. The next day, the telephone company, at police request, installed a pen register at its central offices to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioners home. The police did not get a warrant or court order before having the pen register installed. The register revealed that on March 17 a call was placed from petitioners home to McDonoughs phone. On the basis of this and other evidence, the police obtained a warrant to search petitioners residence.
The Supreme Court ruled that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy for numbers dialed from his house because a third party, the telephone company, kept a record of all calls dialed, as is commonly understood by phone users. The NSA argues that, per this precedent, they can obtain the call records of every American, even if the vast majority of us are suspected of no wrongdoing.
Georgetown Professor Randy Barnett explains why judges relying on Smith to legitimize mass surveillance are actually going far beyond the precedent that the Supreme Court established. A key difference between what the Court allowed in Smith and what the NSA is doing: Particularity.
Recall the text of the Fourth Amendment, and especially the part that I've rendered in bold:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, 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.
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