US supreme court hears whether smartphone location data warrants infringe users’ privacy
The US supreme court is considering whether sprawling warrants for smartphone location data infringe on Americans’ privacy rights and violate the constitution,Justices heard opening arguments in Chatrie v United States on Monday that concerned law enforcement’s reliance on so-called “geofence warrants” in difficult cases,The case was originally brought by Okello Chatrie, whose phone location data helped police in Richmond, Virginia, track him down after he robbed a bank at gunpoint and escaped with $195,000 in 2019,Chatrie pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but his lawyers argue none of the evidence against him should have been admissible in court,A lawyer for the US Department of Justice argued that nearly any actions taken in public while in possession of a smartphone afforded no expectation of privacy.
“An individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in movements that anyone could see, that he has opted to allow a third party to analyze for its own purposes,” the US solicitor general, a high-ranking lawyer for Donald Trump’s administration, has argued in legal filings.Law enforcement is increasingly demanding that tech companies hand over sensitive phone location data on people at or near a site where a suspected crime occurred – anyone who falls within the radius of a virtual “fence”.These geofence warrants, rather than specifying their targets, instead compel tech companies to hand over data to police or the FBI on every electronic device in a particular place at a given time.Privacy advocates and some legal experts view geofence searches as a dragnet that sweeps up innocent bystanders.“Just because you have a cell phone, should you be subjected to all sorts of law enforcement investigations because of crimes that may have happened in your vicinity?” said Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University, who submitted an amicus brief in the case.
These warrants can lead to an individual’s phone location data being shared with the police simply because they “were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or even worse – you weren’t, but your phone thought you were”, Ohm added,Law enforcement officers and prosecutors say these geofence warrants help them solve crimes after reaching dead ends,Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concerns about “the practical consequences of not being able to solve murders”,Chatrie had turned on an optional Google “location history” feature that documented his location every few minutes,The government noted in its legal filings that “only about one-third of active Google account holders actually opted into the location history service”; Chatrie’s lawyers noted in theirs that this amounted to more than 500 million Google users.
After officers interviewed witnesses at the bank Chatrie robbed and reviewed security footage, they had no leads.In a geofence warrant request, law enforcement requested that Google provide phone location data for a 30-minute period before and after the robbery from all cellphones within 150 meters of the bank, bringing in Chatrie’s phone location data but also information on 19 other accounts.The detective on the case asked Google for more data on all of these people, but the tech company pushed back, and eventually he only requested further information on nine people.Towards the end of the investigative process, that number whittled down to three devices; one was Chatrie’s, and the information included an email address with his name.The US government has argued in legal filings that Chatrie chose to allow Google to collect and use his phone location data, and that investigators identified him through a warrant – although the plaintiff’s lawyers have argued this warrant was overly broad.
Google, for its part, has changed some of its geofencing policies since Chatrie was arrested.The tech giant has transferred this location data off its servers and onto people’s phones, so that it can’t comply with geofencing warrants in the same way anymore, said Matthew Tokson, a law professor at the University of Utah.But the government is increasingly trying to obtain this information directly from cell phone providers and other companies, he adds.The case still affects “privacy protections for data stored in cloud services and collected by consumer apps”, the Electronic Privacy Information Center noted in a press release.Privacy advocates warn the implications of this case go far beyond suspected criminals.
“If the government doesn’t need to get a warrant or link something to a crime, it could monitor a protest or an abortion clinic or a gun range or a church or an AA meeting or a doctor’s office,” Tokson says.Some justices were worried about the broader privacy implications, too.If the court rules that a geofence warrant doesn’t constitute a search by law enforcement, “our privacy rights might be completely eviscerated”, Ohm said.“It would lead to a lot of unregulated police activity.” The fourth amendment of the US constitution protects against “unreasonable search and seizure”.
Both Ohm and Tokson got the sense from the judges’ remarks on Monday that at least some justices seemed likely to find these geofence warrants counted as a search, which should bring some relief to privacy advocates,Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested on Monday that she wasn’t convinced by the government’s argument that short-term location information doesn’t reveal much about an individual’s patterns of life,She explained how people take their phones everywhere, from the bathroom, to a cannabis shop to a brothel,“It really doesn’t matter … whether it’s a minute that you’re searching for or six weeks, it’s not the time that’s an issue – it’s whether or not private information in which you have a reasonable expectation of privacy will be sought,” she said,
The Guide #240: My new obsession is the mesmerising world of the Chipmunks at 16rpm
The best album I’ve heard so far this year isn’t from this year at all. It’s from 2015 (though its recordings were made decades before that), and is a collection of sludgy, doomy covers of late-70s punk, new wave and pop perennials: My Sharona, Call Me, Walk Like an Egyptian. The guitars on this mysterious tribute album have had their pitch tuned down to a low, thick squelch, the drum beats are slow and punishingly thudding, and the vocals, while sung in a sweet tenor, have a strange, almost lobotomised quality to them. The weirdest thing of all though is who is performing: Alvin, Simon, Theodore.OK, let’s explain
From Mother Mary to Foo Fighters: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
An idiosyncratic thriller sees Anne Hathaway’s pop icon and Michaela Coel’s fashion designer embark on a psychosexual romance, while Dave Grohl and his boys are back with album number 12Mother MaryOut now Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel play a pop star and a fashion designer embroiled in a psychosexual affair in this A24 drama-slash-thriller from the reliably idiosyncratic director David Lowery. Also starring FKA twigs, Sian Clifford and Hunter Schafer.Rose of NevadaOut now Starring George MacKay and possible future James Bond Callum Turner, this is a sci-fi drama from talented director Mark Jenkin about a boat lost at sea for three decades that mysteriously reappears. Some might suggest it’s advisable to stay away from this clearly uncanny boat, but that would make for a shorter movie.Exit 8Out now Based on the hit video game set in a Japanese metro station passageway, this high-concept horror has its protagonist, The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) trapped in a seemingly inescapable spatial loop, looking for the anomalies that will help him progress through the eerie environment
The play’s the thing – but everyone has their own favourite | Letters
Thank you for Michael Billington’s brilliant and fascinating ranking of Shakespeare’s plays, which will surely give rise to much debate (To see or not to see? Every single Shakespeare play – ranked!, 22 April).I’d like to make a case for promotion of The Tempest from its lowly 25th position. Admittedly my fondness for it started with doing it for A-level in 1968, but, having the good fortune to see both the all-female women’s prison version, starring Harriet Walter, and the RSC magical hi-tech production within a few months, I think its versatility deserves a higher ranking. I would swap it with The Winter’s Tale, which for me is just a bit too weird.Marian SainsburyEdinburgh I studied A Midsummer Night’s Dream at school in the 1960s
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: ‘A delicate snowflake with the thinnest fat skin of any human being ever’
Late-night hosts imagined an alternative White House correspondents’ dinner roast and recapped Donald Trump’s latest erratic threats on Iran.On Thursday evening, Jimmy Kimmel looked ahead to this weekend’s annual gala hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), which Donald Trump promised would be the “GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!”“The only thing hotter than this dinner are his diapers on the golf course,” the host quipped.This will be the first time that Trump attends the annual event for press and politicians as president, and the Daily Beast reported that his plan for the occasion is to lambast the media and leave, in an intentional “mic-drop moment” – “which I think would be disappointing”, said Kimmel.“This is the first time Trump is even going to the correspondents’ dinner as president,” he added, “but he doesn’t have to worry about being made fun of, because the event isn’t being hosted by a comedian this year.” Instead, the White House Correspondents’ Association hired mentalist Oz Pearlman to perform
‘It’s iconic worldwide – it’s special to skateboard there’: the South Bank skatepark turns 50
The undercroft at London’s Southbank Centre has been a haven for skateboarders since the 1970s. Now a new exhibition is celebrating its contribution to culture – and communityShane O’Brien first skated at London’s Southbank Centre in the summer of 1975, at the age of 10. But before he could call himself a “Southbanker”, a regular of the famous spot, he had to face a certain ritual. In 1983 he was launched into the Thames by senior skaters and could finally consider himself one of the crew. Now in his 60s, O’Brien calls the South Bank his second home
Seth Meyers on Kash Patel: ‘He has resting “run for your lives” face’
Late-night hosts dug into the allegations of FBI director Kash Patel’s excessive drinking, Donald Trump’s Iran war struggles and some questionable math by RFK Jr.On Wednesday evening, Seth Meyers relished more details from a shocking Atlantic report from this weekend detailing alleged excessive drinking and erratic behavior by the FBI director, Kash Patel. According to more than two dozen current and former FBI officials, Patel was known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, and many people expected him to be fired for his unreachability and impulsivity.“Generally speaking, you don’t want to hear that the country’s top law enforcement official is known for having freak-outs, you know?” the Late Night host said. “When you’re the head of the FBI, you’re supposed to be calm and level-headed
BP reports ‘horrifying’ jump in profits as Iran war boosts oil trading; Brent crude hits three-week high – business live
Price rises in UK shops slow as retailers apply heavy discounts to lure shoppers
MacBook Pro M5 review: serious power, still long battery life
US supreme court hears whether smartphone location data warrants infringe users’ privacy
Sabastian Sawe’s sub-two marathon feat is the Roger Bannister moment of our time | Sean Ingle
Indigenous players back St Kilda coach Ross Lyon after comment deemed ‘casual racism’