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The 4th Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. The police must obtain a warrant from a judge and have a probable cause in order to search or arrest. The warrant states exactly who and what will be searched. This amendment is in action everyday to protect people’s privacy. If it did not exist, the government and police would easily be able to intrude on people’s personal lives.

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The police are searching a citizen, but on his cellphone they find the 4th amendment. This states that no unreasonable searches or seizers can be done, protecting peoples privacy.

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Though the home is protected by the 4th amendment, the police have a warrant from Supreme Court judges, giving them permission to search. This follows the rules of the 4th amendment, where a warrant is needed for a search.

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In this case, Rodney Gant’s vehicle was searched by the Arizona police because he was driving with a suspended license. They found a handgun and bag of cocaine in the vehicle. Gant argued in his trial that the search was done without a warrant and violated the 4th amendment, and the Supreme Court judges agreed with this. The police had handcuffed Gant and put him in the police car during the search. This opposes the judges idea that the vehicle search can be done only if the victim could access the vehicle again to destroy evidence.

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Advocates

Anthony A. Yang Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, for the United States, as amicus curiae, supporting the petitioner

Facts of the case

Rodney Gant was apprehended by Arizona state police on an outstanding warrant for driving with a suspended license. After the officers handcuffed Gant and placed him in their squad car, they went on to search his vehicle, discovering a handgun and a plastic bag of cocaine. At trial, Gant asked the judge to suppress the evidence found in his vehicle because the search had been conducted without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. The judge declined Gant's request, stating that the search was a direct result of Gant's lawful arrest and therefore an exception to the general Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. The court convicted Gant on two counts of cocaine possession.

The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed, holding the search unconstitutional, and the Arizona Supreme Court agreed. The Supreme Court stated that exceptions to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement must be justified by concerns for officer safety or evidence preservation. Because Gant left his vehicle voluntarily, the court explained, the search was not directly linked to the arrest and therefore violated the Fourth Amendment. In seeking certiorari, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard argued that the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling conflicted with the Court's precedent, as well as precedents set forth in various federal and state courts.

Question

Is a search conducted by police officers after handcuffing the defendant and securing the scene a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures?

Conclusion

Yes, under the circumstances of this case. The Supreme Court held that police may search the vehicle of its recent occupant after his arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of the arrest. With Justice John Paul Stevens writing for the majority and joined by Justices Antonin G. Scalia, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court reasoned that "warrantless searches are per se unreasonable" and subject only to a few, very narrow exceptions. Here, Mr. Gant was arrested for a suspended license and the narrow exceptions did not apply to his case.

Justice Scalia wrote separately, concurring. Justice Samuel A. Alito dissented and was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer. He argued that the majority improperly overruled its precedent in New York v. Belton which held that "when a policeman has made a lawful arrest... he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." Justice Stephen G. Breyer also wrote a separate dissenting opinion, where he lamented that the court could not create a new governing rule.
Learn more about the Roberts Court and the Fourth Amendment in Shifting Scales, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.

Cite this page

"Arizona v. Gant." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/2008/07-542. Accessed 22 Nov. 2019.

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A case in which the Court held that police may search a suspect's vehicle after his arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of the arrest.

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4 police officers have been charged for violating the 4th amendment rights of Breonna Taylor, causing her death. The police’s investigation of drug dealers led to Taylor’s house, where she was shot. They had searched her house with a falsified warrant and not enough probable cause, violating her rights. Even after her death, the 4th amendment is in action to bring the polices to justice.

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All four officers indicted worked on the Louisville Metro Police Department's place-based investigation squad.

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician was shot and killed when the place-based investigation unit served a no-knock warrant on her home on March 13, 2020. At the time, Taylor was with her boyfriend, who shot and wounded a police officer he believed was an intruder trying to break in. After he fired, the police fired 22 shots into Taylor's home, with five striking and killing her.

The police had been investigating a pair of drug dealers in the area, and the affidavit signed to obtain the warrant alleged that one of the targets had received a package at Taylor's address.

"Today, after a full and comprehensive investigation, the facts and law have brought us here to these indictments," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said on Thursday. "No stone was left unturned. These indictments reflect the department's commitment to preserving the integrity of the criminal justice system and to protecting the constitutional rights of every American, independent from these criminal charges."

Garland said one of the charges alleges that Meany, Jaynes and Goodlett all knew that the affidavit used to obtain the warrant contained false information. Specifically, he alleged that Jaynes and Goodlett knew the target of the warrant had not received packages at Taylor's address.

"We allege that Ms. Taylor's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when defendants Joshua Jaynes, Kyle Meany and Kelly Goodlett sought a warrant to search Ms. Taylor's home knowing that the officers lacked probable cause for the search," Garland said.

Clarke later said that Jaynes and Meany worked together to draft and approve the false affidavit that was used to justify the warrant. In doing so, the Justice Department alleges, they willfully deprived the 26-year-old Taylor of her rights against unlawful search and seizure.

"The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution ensures that people are subject to searches only when there is probable cause supporting a search warrant," Clarke said. "Falsified warrants create unnecessary hazards for the public and for the police who rely on facts that fellow officers report in carrying out their public duties."

Hankison, whom the Police Department fired in June 2020, is charged with the use of excessive force that violated Taylor's civil rights, the rights of her guest and the rights of her neighbors.

"Without a lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force, defendant Hankison traveled away from Ms. Taylor's doorway to the side of the building and fired 10 shots into Breonna Taylor's apartment through a bedroom window and a sliding glass door that were both covered with blinds and curtains," Clarke said.

"Community safety dictates that police officers use their weapons only when necessary to defend their own lives or the lives of others and, even then, that they must do so with great care and caution," Clarke said.

Hankison was previously charged with felony endangerment in the state of Kentucky but was acquitted in March.

Jaynes' lawyer, Thomas Clay, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges. Stew Mathews, who represented Hankison in his state trials, said it remained to be determined whether he would represent him for the federal charges.

It is not known whether Meany and Goodlett have retained counsel, though Mathews said he assumed they had.

Taylor's killing received renewed focus in May 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by an officer in Minneapolis and racial reckonings across the country.

Her death also raised issues with the use of no-knock warrants, which the mayor of Louisville indefinitely suspended in May 2020.

"Breonna Taylor should be alive today," Garland said on Thursday. "The Justice Department is committed to defending and protecting the civil rights of every person in this country. That was this department's founding purpose, and it remains our urgent mission."

Separately, Clarke said a Justice Department team was conducting a civil investigation into whether the Louisville Metro Police Department is currently "engaging in a pattern of law enforcement misconduct." Clarke said that probe includes looking into the department's use of excessive force, as well as any improper searches or seizures and racial profiling.

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Feds charge 4 officers with violating Breonna Taylor's rights

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All four officers indicted worked on the Louisville Metro Police Department's place-based investigation squad. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician was shot and killed when the place-based investigation unit served a no-knock warrant on her home on March 13, 2020.

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In this case, Tera McArther alerted two police officers that her husband, Charles McArther, was hiding marijuana in their trailer. The police asked Charles for permission to search, but after being denied, they went to get a warrant. The police did not allow Charles to enter the trailer until the warrant was obtained, and found him guilty after the search. The Supreme Court judges voted that the police did not violate the 4th amendment because keeping Charles outside would have prevented the loss of evidence, and they also obtained a warrant for the search.

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Do officers, with probable cause to believe that a man had hidden marijuana in his home, who subsequently prevent that man from entering the home for about two hours while they obtain a search warrant, violate the Fourth Amendment?

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An FBI analyst used a senator’s name to search the government surveillance database without a warrant. There was the idea that the FBI was just doing a better job, but the search was decided as improper by the foreign intelligence surveillance court. It violated the 4th amendment, being warrantless. This lead to new guidelines and reforms being created on surveillance tools, as these problems constantly arise.

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Congress must decide by the end of the year how and whether to extend the surveillance program. Among the changes lawmakers are now weighing are new limits to how the FBI can search for U.S. persons swept up by the program. The improper search that ODNI disclosed on Friday may further roil that debate.

According to the newly declassified court document, in June 2022, an FBI analyst conducted four searches of information collected under the warrantless surveillance program "using the last names of a U.S. Senator and a state senator." In both cases, the analyst had information showing that the two lawmakers were being targeted by a foreign intelligence service.

A senior FBI official stressed that "none of these individuals were surveilled" and the FBI "did not collect any information on them" in response to the search. The analyst ran an unapproved search "against our databases to retrieve any information that was already lawfully collected," the official added.

But the database searches nonetheless violated the FBI's policy on multiple fronts, according to the court document.

The analyst in question, whom the court did not name, failed to get pre-approval from the deputy director that is required for searches that use "sensitive query terms," such as the names of public officials or candidates. More broadly, the analyst's searches did not fully meet the FBI's search standards that it considers when determining if a search is "likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime," the court found.

The senior FBI official, during a press call Friday afternoon after the opinion was released, said that while the searches did meet two of the three components the FBI considers - including having a factual basis for believing that it was reasonably likely the search would retrieve such information - it didn't meet a third component requiring that a search also be "reasonably tailored" to do so without "unnecessarily retrieving" other surveillance-collected data.

The senior FBI official added that if the analyst's queries had been sent for pre-approval in accordance with the policy, "they would not have been approved."

The court document does not disclose the identity of the U.S. senator whose name was searched for. Asked if it was a current U.S. senator, the senior FBI official told reporters that the person in question was in office as of June 2022 when the analyst's search was run. (Seven senators have left Congress since then.)

The FBI did discuss the search with the U.S. senator but did not directly disclose the violation to the state senator, the bureau official said.

In addition, the foreign intelligence surveillance court opinion released on Friday disclosed that the FBI conducted an improper search for a state judge via that person's social security number in the surveillance database, which took place in October.

It also isn't the first time the court has disclosed that an FBI analyst improperly searched warrantless surveillance data for a member of Congress.

A footnote in a recently declassified report about the use of surveillance program authority between December 2019 and May 2020 said that an FBI intelligence analyst queried surveillance databases using only the name of a U.S. House member. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), who is now leading the House Intelligence Committee's discussions on reforming the program, subsequently said he believes he is that lawmaker in question.

Since 2021, the FBI and Justice Department have worked to impose new guidelines and internal reforms aimed at preventing improper use of the surveillance tool. For example, the tone of the April order is significantly different from a 2021 surveillance court order also declassified by the ODNI on Friday.

In that 2021 order, the court calls the FBI's surveillance program problems "substantial and persistent." It adds that failing to correct those issues would "call into question," among other things, the ability of the court to find that the FBI's surveillance procedures are "consistent with statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements."

By comparison, in the April order, the surveillance court noted "recent indications that the FBI is improving its implementation of Section 702 querying requirements." (Section 702 is the statutory provision of surveillance law that created the program.)

Among the FBI's reforms noted by the court: requiring additional documentation of search compliance; changing internal search settings; requiring additional approval for "batch" queries, additional mandatory and annual training, and additional review of searches. FBI Director Christopher Wray has also touted the creation of an Office of Internal Audit that he said is focused specifically on warrantless surveillance.

Wray sent a letter separately to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday touting the reforms, as well as how the program is used against an array of national security threats, as he made the pitch for reauthorization.

"We are committed to holding ourselves accountable and we are eager to discuss with Members how these reforms can be enshrined as part of Section 702's reauthorization. We also welcome discussing with Congress additional reforms and evaluating how these reforms can be implemented without diminishing Section 702's vital intelligence value," Wray wrote in the letter.

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FBI analyst improperly searched surveillance data for U.S. senator's name

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The disclosure, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, may further roil Congress' debate over continuing the warrantless program.

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In the everyday lives in school, the 4th amendment also applies. The court cases show students being searched for drugs and other harmful substances, leading to the argument that their 4th amendment rights were violated. But it is also the school’s responsibility to maintain a safe environment for other students. When brought to the Supreme Court, their decision was that searches can be done with reasonable suspicion.

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The Judicial Learning Center | An online companion to the Judicial Learning Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

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The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom from . This means that law enforcement agents need probable cause, and a in most cases, to search your person or belongings. If there is no probable cause and you are searched illegally, any evidence collected from the search will be excluded from evidence at trial. This has come to be called the Exclusionary Rule.

Probable Cause - There must be enough evidence that a reasonable person would believe a crime was committed. This evidence is presented to a judge who must agree before authorizing the search by granting a warrant.

The purpose of the 4 th Amendment is to protect people from being abused by a powerful government. There are strict rules that government agents must follow to search you and seize evidence.

Contrary to popular belief, the right to is not specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Over the years, the courts have interpreted the 4 th Amendment, along with other Amendments such as the 9 th, to protect privacy in many situations.

Do you have the same rights at school?

While you don't shed your Constitutional rights when you go to school, they must be balanced with the rights of your classmates, as well as the responsibility of the school to provide a safe environment and a quality education.

Consider these questions as you study the case histories that follow:

Am I protected from unreasonable search and seizure at school?

Does the school need probable cause to search me or my belongings? Does the school need a warrant?

What can my school search, and when?

Weeks v. United States, 1914

Police officers in Kansas City, Missouri went to the house of Mr. Fremont Weeks and used his hidden key to enter and search his home. While there, they took papers, letters, books, and other items. They did not have a search warrant. These items were used in court to find Mr. Weeks guilty of sending lottery tickets through the U.S. mail.

If probable cause is not used to get a search warrant, is the resulting warrantless search a violation of the 4 th Amendment?

Mr. Weeks was found guilty in a criminal jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The guilty verdict was based on the evidence collected from his home. Mr. Weeks then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

What do you think the Supreme Court Decided?

The judgment of the district court was reversed. The evidence collected during the illegal search was in violation of the 4 th Amendment and was thus inadmissible at the trial. In a criminal investigation, in order for a search to be legal, there must be probable cause. The probable cause must be used to gain a search warrant. If not, the search will be illegal and evidence collected as a result of the search can't be used in court. The Weeks decision was the birth of a new legal doctrine - The Exclusionary Rule.

" If letters and private documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the Fourth Amendment, declaring his right to be secure against such searches and seizures, is of no value, and....might as well be stricken from the Constitution. The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established be years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in... the fundamental law of the land." by author of opinion, Justice William R. Day

New Jersey v. T.L.O., 1985

A female student was searched at school, and the evidence collected was used by the state in her delinquency trial in juvenile court. T.L.O. are the initials of the 14-year old girl who was caught smoking in the bathroom at school. Later, in the assistant vice principal's office, she denied smoking. The assistant vice principal demanded her purse, and found a pack of cigarettes, rolling papers, marijuana, a pipe, plastic bags, a large amount of money, and a list of students who owed her money. The evidence was used by the New Jersey Juvenile Court to find her guilty of delinquency.

Does a warrantless search of a high school student by a school official violate the 4 th Amendment?

New Jersey Juvenile Court admitted the evidence and found her guilty of delinquency. She appealed, and the New Jersey Appellate Court affirmed that the evidence was legal and thus admissible. She appealed again, and the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, saying the search was unreasonable and the evidence must be suppressed. The state of New Jersey then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

What do you think the Supreme Court Decided?

Students do have 4 th Amendment rights at school, but they are balanced with the school's responsibility to maintain a safe and educational environment. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the New Jersey Supreme Court, holding that school officials can search a student if they have reasonable suspicion. School officials do not need to have probable cause or obtain a search warrant. Reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than the probable cause required for police searches of the public at large.

" Schoolchildren have legitimate expectations of privacy.... But striking the balance between schoolchildren's legitimate expectations of privacy and the school's equally legitimate need to maintain an environment in which learning can take place requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject. " by author of opinion, Justice Byron White.

Vernonia School District v. Acton, 1995

A school district adopted a policy authorizing random drug testing of student athletes.

There was a known drug problem in the school district. Student athletes were among the drug users and dealers. Along with the drug problem came serious student behavior issues. By 1989, disciplinary actions had reached 'epic proportions,' motivating the district to introduce the Student Athlete Drug Policy. James Acton, a 7 th grader, refused the testing, and his parents refused to consent to the testing. Because of this, he was not allowed to participate in football. He sued the school district for violating his rights.

Does random drug testing of a public school student by a school official violate the 4 th Amendment?

The U.S. District Court of Oregon agreed with the school district. Mr. Acton appealed to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reversed, saying the drug testing policy violated the constitutional rights of students. The school district then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

What do you think the Supreme Court Decided?

The drug testing policy is reasonable and does not violate the 4 th Amendment rights of the students. Students do have rights at school, but those rights must be balanced with the school's responsibility to provide a safe environment.

" In the present case, ...this evil is being visited not just upon individuals at large, but upon children for whom it has undertaken a special responsibility of care and direction. ...It must not be lost sight of that this program is directed more narrowly to drug use by school athletes, where the risk of immediate physical harm to the drug user or those with whom he is playing his sport is particularly high. Apart from psychological effects, which include impairment of judgment, slow reaction time, and a lessening of the perception of pain, the particular drugs screened by the District's Policy have been demonstrated to pose substantial physical risks to athletes. " by author of opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia.

Safford Unified School District v. Redding, 2009

Savana Redding was a 13-year-old student. A male student reported that another girl, Marissa Glines, had given him a prescription-strength ibuprofen pill. A search of Marissa's day planner and pockets revealed more of the pills and some weapons. Marissa then reported the day planner belonged to Savana, and that Savana had given her the pills. Savana was then searched - a search which included not only her backpack and pockets, but also inside her undergarments. She sued the school district for violating her rights.

Does a strip search of a public school student by a school official violate the 4 th Amendment?

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona agreed with the school district that there was no violation of the 4 th Amendment. Ms. Redding appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit en banc agreed with her claim that her 4 th Amendment rights had been violated. The school district then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

What do you think the Supreme Court Decided?

The strip search by school officials in this case was not legal. It was unreasonable considering the nature of the offense and the facts of the case.

" Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear, we hold that the search did violate the Constitution. In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable. " by author of opinion, Justice David Souter

Your 4th Amendment Rights

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4th Amendment Landmark Cases | The Judicial Learning Center

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The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom from . This means that law enforcement agents need probable cause , and a in most cases, to search your person or belongings. If there is no probable cause and you are searched illegally, any evidence collected from the search will be excluded from evidence at trial.

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With technology getting more and more advanced, its wondered how the 4th amendment applies to the data in devices. In the case of Carpenter V United States, the Supreme Court judges decided that a warrant is needed for permission to get location information. This also applies to other forms of technology, protecting people’s rights from both physical and digital searches.

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The Fourth Amendment stands for the principle that the government generally may not search its people or seize their belongings without appropriate process and oversight. Today, we are at a jurisprudential inflection point as courts grapple with when and how the Fourth Amendment should apply to the data generated by technologies like cell phones, smart cars, and wearable devices. These technologies - which we rely on for enhanced communication, transportation, and entertainment - create detailed records about our private lives, potentially revealing not only where we have been but also our political viewpoints, consumer preferences, people with whom we have interacted, and more. The resulting trove of information is immensely valuable to law enforcement for use in investigations and prosecutions, and much of it is currently available without a warrant.

This paper describes how the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States has the potential to usher in a new era of Fourth Amendment law. In Carpenter, the Court considered how the Fourth Amendment applies to location data generated when cell phones connect to nearby cell towers. The Court ultimately held that when the government demanded seven days of location information from defendant Timothy Carpenter's cell phone provider without a warrant, it violated the Fourth Amendment. The decision sits at the intersection of two lines of cases: those that examine location tracking technologies, like beepers or the Global Positioning System (GPS), and those that discuss what expectation of privacy is reasonable for information disclosed to third parties, like banks or phone companies. In reaching its conclusion that a warrant was required, the Court upended existing precedent, ruling for the first time that location information maintained by a third party was protected by the Fourth Amendment.

In exploring the Court's decision in Carpenter and its application to data from a variety of technologies - such as GPS, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), and wearables - this paper argues that it is incumbent on courts to preserve the balance of power between the people and the government as enshrined in the Fourth Amendment, which was intended to "place obstacles in the way of a too permeating police surveillance." Moreover, in determining the scope of the Constitution's protections for data generated by digital technologies, courts should weigh the five factors considered in Carpenter: the intimacy and comprehensiveness of the data, the expense of obtaining it, the retrospective window that it offers to law enforcement, and whether it was truly shared voluntarily with a third party. Section I is an overview of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Section II discusses the Carpenter decision and its takeaways. Section III applies Carpenter to various surveillance technologies and looks ahead at how Fourth Amendment jurisprudence might continue to develop in the digital age.

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The Fourth Amendment stands for the principle that the government generally may not search its people or seize their belongings without appropriate process and oversight. Today, we are at a jurisprudential inflection point as courts grapple with when and how the Fourth Amendment should apply to the data generated by technologies like cell phones, smart cars, and wearable devices.