CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

In Chatrie v. United States (U.S. Supreme Court Slip Opinion of June 29, 2026), the Court held that the customers of cell phone service providers have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the data retained by their providers that reveals the location of the customer’s cell phone near the scene of a recent crime, and that also reveals the customer’s identity. Accordingly, the Court ruled that a search warrant compliant with the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is necessary whenever governmental law enforcement agents seek access to that data and information from a cell phone service carrier. Search warrants seeking this kind of data are sometimes called “geofence” warrants.

The Fourth Amendment reads as follows:

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.

That language prohibits “unreasonable searches” by law enforcement officers. Courts today regard most searches that intrude upon a person’s “reasonable expectations of privacy” to be “unreasonable searches” if they are conducted without a search warrant that complies with the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for warrants.

The problem here is the fact that neither the Fourth Amendment’s text, nor its various contexts in the law or in history, say anything about “reasonable expectations of privacy.” What they actually say calls only for the protection of “persons,” and the protection of their property rights (i.e., “their . . . houses, papers, and effects”) against unwarranted intrusions, i.e., trespassing, by agents of the federal government.[1] Search warrants, like a “geofence” search warrant seeking cell phone service provider data,  to uncover publicly available information, such as a person’s public whereabouts and identity, do not serve that purpose. And people planning to commit a crime, or who are in the process of actually committing a crime, do not have a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in hiding their efforts from the police. The Court’s decision here relied on caselaw precedents that misread the actual words of the United States Constitution, and that therefore should not be followed.[2] Nevertheless, until overruled by a later Supreme Court case, the holding and ruling of this case becomes a part of our Constitutional Law.

/s/ Dan D. Rhea

[1] The 14^th Amendment expanded the scope of the first eight Amendments in the Bill of Rights to include protections against state governments.

[2] “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby . . . .” U.S. Const., Section VI, second sentence.