Class blog by Amir Simmons

Case Name & Who was Involved

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-08 13:47:32 UTC

Name: Carpenter v. United States

Involved:

Majority (the party in which more than half of the people agree with the stance) - Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

Dissent (the party in which the opinion is written by an appellate judge or supreme court case that disagree with the majority opinion) - Kennedy, Thomas, Alito

Issue:

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-08 14:04:43 UTC

"In the case petitioner challenges the Government's right to use compulsory process to obtain a now-common kind of business record: cell-site records held by cell phone service providers. The Government acquired the records through an investigative process enacted by Congress."

The argument seems to be if this 'Carpenter Law' goes beyond the 4th amendment. The government wants to have a sense of control over telecommunication providers/ company cell sites, to know your physical location and other information that you would consider private as well.

Constitutional Provisions/ Statues/ Precedents

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-08 14:16:59 UTC

Constitutional provisions- The 27 amendment (the 4th amendment mainly in this case), Bill of rights, respective rights of federal and state governments.

Constitutional statues- "seizure and search of 127 days worth of an individual's cell phone location data was nor a "search" under the fourth amendment."

Constitutional precedents- "the government must obtain a search warrant in order to access historical CSLI records"

Argument for the Petitioner

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-09 03:54:50 UTC

The seizure the government tried to implement, it violated the 4th amendment due to them trying to obtain information without a warrant that is considered private through one's cellphone/ other technology.

Arguments for the Respondent

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-09 12:57:54 UTC

The argument was that the data was acquired in violation of amendment four, and the standards put in the stored communications act. This ultimately had the possibility of not keeping the amendment in place while also breaking the purpose of it in the first place.

Background & Facts

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-10 05:54:30 UTC

The background story begins with four men who were armed robbers in April, 2011. One of the four men eventually confessed, so the FBI took his phone and searched up the numbers of the people he worked with in the robbery and to also look for and obtain records for each phone number and at the time the judges allowed this to happen, amongst other information that the FBI found as well. As they finalize the information search the fourth amendment argued that the FBI needed a warrant to go into those kinds of records. Which points the question at hand.

decided on June 22, 2018
argued on November 29, 2017
granted on June 5, 2017

Petitioner: Timothy Ivory Carpenter

Respondent: United States of America

Advocates for petitioner: Nathan Freed Wessler

Advocates for respondent: Michael R. Dreeben

Decisions and Opinions:

24simmonsa2 — 2024-02-10 05:58:36 UTC

I personally think it can go both ways of course for the safety purpose but also the privacy stance as well, but I think that the government should not have the accessibility to go through ones phone, information, and private things without a warrant and reason to go into one's things. We has people have a right to privacy and according to the fourth amendment as well, nobody should be able to look into something that is personal to us no matter what it may be.