US appeals court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional | Hacker News Reader

US appeals court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional

techcrunch.com

91 pointswarrenm25 comments

15d ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41228630

It is still welcome (if surprising) news from the 5th circuit, especially following July's contradictory ruling from the 4th circuit.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/10/accessing-google-locati...

Thanks! That one is:

Federal appeals court finds geofence warrants “categorically” unconstitutional - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41228630 - Aug 2024 (177 comments)

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Oh, good, a circuit split! That means an appeal of one or the other case is at least somewhat likely to be accepted by the Supreme Court.

Not the ideal court I'd like that split to go up to but that's not changing any time soon and maybe they'll surprise me in a good way this time.

With the additions of Gorsuch and Jackson, we have the most 4th amendment friendly court we've had in a long time.

That said, it still looks like a 5-4 tossup, with a clustering that will likely confuse the media. I'd wager Gorsuch, Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan as a bloc here with hopefully one more in either Roberts or (less likely) Kavanaugh.

Do you think this Supreme Court is weak on the 4th amendment? I casually follow the court but don't really know their recent history on the 4th.

I don't know their individual stances but ideologically their source is pretty staunchly in the pocket of allowing police access to data sources like this.

Ideologically, sure, maybe. I assume you mean Republicans because historically that’s been the “law and order” party.

But for example the Jan 6’th protestors must have been targeted by this type of warrant, right? If you do a geofence warrant for anybody around the Capitol building that day and then explore out a couple nodes, who knows who you’ll find, right?

Overly broad warrants don’t benefit anybody I think. Investigations should be done based on solid evidence, not geographical coincidences.

(Edit: hopefully this does not come off as too partisan. I picked this event because if you are a solid Republican, you might think the investigations are overly broad, and if you are a solid Democrat, you probably think the events were openly bad enough that normal police work should be able to investigate them. I have an opinion as well, but I’m trying not to indulge in it too much or insult the other side. So, hopefully it can be agreed by both groups that geography is not great evidence).

> ... Jan 6’th protestors ...this type of warrant

The US would be better off if neither had ever existed.

I don't know that they're specifically friendly to police. If anything, they lately seem to be inclined to rein in what they view as government overreach. I would not be surprised at all to see them uphold this decision.

> I don't know that they're specifically friendly to police.

Throughout the last 5 decades: The SC have increased deference to LEO and established sweeping precedent that grants increasingly wider leeway by default. exs:Good Faith Exception, Qualified Immunity and Third Party Doctrine.

This is the SC before the recent conservatizing. The flags flying indicate this won't be rolled back an inch.

Sotomayor and Thomas have both expressed disdain for qualified immunity. I think if the right case came before them we might see those protections narrowed.

> Sotomayor and Thomas have both expressed disdain for qualified immunity.

Thomas spends an inordinate amount of time signaling that; but then signaling is his thing. Is there a chart of his prize-winning showdog ideologies? Perhaps there's one that could conflict - that he might inject into a case because he does that.

Sotomayor's previous day-job was to safeguard Gov abilities to abuse civil rights, to support and defend the desires of US LEO and IC agencies. While her SC decisions can run counter to that, I'm believe it's influence can be glimpsed.

In a sort of backhanded way of affirming you, there are absolutely times that a justice can go against expectation. Sometimes a justice will put the actual welfare of individuals over whatever other factors drive them. I think it's too weak a peg to hang hopes of a QI overturn, however.

They rein in the government calling it “overreach“ when it involves federal oversight. When it comes to LEO issues, however, they tend to side with LEO’s.

The real test will be when they inevitably hear the Louisiana case about people filming police officers.

That seems a bit counterintuitive since the circuit court that ruled geofence warrants unconstitutional is a conservative one, while the circuit court ruling in favor is more liberal.

>> I don't know their individual stances but ideologically their source is pretty staunchly in the pocket of allowing police access to data sources like this.

> That seems a bit counterintuitive since the circuit court that ruled geofence warrants unconstitutional is a conservative one

This decision by the 5th is surprising, near to the point of shock. It is wholly out of harmony with previous rulings - which could heap privileges onto police that went beyond the scope of the case.

> while the circuit court ruling in favor is more liberal.

Which are usually a crap shoot. Non-conservative courts have a long history of siding with police. Prosecutors are on appointers' radar much, much more often than defense attorneys.

I don't know if you meant it, but being in someone's pocket implies a financial relationship. I've never heard the claim before that organizations affiliated with the police are paying court members for friendly decisions.

Here is a 2018 case [0] where Thomas, widely seen as the most ideologically conservative, and often accused of receiving inappropriately valuable gifts from wealthy conservatives, agreed that a 4th ammendment violation occurred when an officer entered someone's curtilage without a warrant to investigate a stolen vehicle.

And here is a 2021 case [1] where Thomas again concurs that an officer may not follow you into your home without a warrant just because he was pursuing you under the belief you committed a misdemeanor.

(In both cases Thomas makes a separate point about evidence admissibility. He believes that federal courts cannot compel state courts to throw out evidence obtained by 4th ammendment violation. If that is to be done, the state government must impose that constraint on itself. He proposes other permissible remedies for such violations.)

[0] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-1027

[1] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/20-18

The 5th circuit is responsible for a lot of garbage rulings, which doesn't fill me with confidence in the quality of their reasoning. If the 5th is the lone circuit ruling this way, I'm not holding out much hope that the SCOTUS will side with it.

Orin Kerr's analysis of this new ruling, which is linked from the Tech Crunch article, helps break down where the specific splits with other courts lie. This is useful even if you don't agree with Kerr's analysis of the validity of any specific courts' decisions: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/13/fifth-circuit-shuts-dow...

The follow-up article with ACLU's response is also interesting: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/16/the-aclus-response-to-m...

It’s interesting to note this decision in favor of privacy came from the 5th Circuit court, a predominantly conservative court. As the article notes, the 4th Circuit, made up largely of Democratic appointees, ruled in favor of the search warrants.

Legal conservatism is somewhat different than Republican Conservatism in the same way that legal progressivism is somewhat different than Democratic Progressivism.

The two might agree on certain issues in ways that seems contradictory at the political party level until you look into it more.

As much as anything I've conceived of that as the only example of separation of powers working to stir opposition to the sprint to unlimited power for the executive.

[dupe]

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41228630

Does this have any impact on J6 and BLM riot cases?

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