Week 7: Fourth Amendment: Unreasonable Search – Computer Searches & Locational Tracking

This class will introduce the Fourth Amendment, and the difficulties courts have faced in balancing security and privacy concerns. What does privacy really mean in the digital age? Should the Government be able to search the computer you use at work? Can police monitor your movements using a GPS device? Should they be able to track you using your cell phone or the RFID chip in your driver’s license? Given that privacy is always in conflict with countervailing interests such as the free flow of information, detection of crime and national security, we will focus on the various balances that must be struck. We will examine the Supreme Court’s struggle to apply Fourth Amendment doctrine to new technologies, and will ask whether the Fourth Amendment is able to remain relevant in the digital era.

Required readings:

The Fourth Amendment technology cases:

• U.S. Const. Amend. IV.
• Solove & Schwartz, Privacy, Information, and Technology, pp. 77-90 [but skip pp. 81-83, subsections (g), (h) and (i)], 95 (start at Katz)-100, 113 (start at Place)-114 (stop at Caballes), 117-118 (stop at Greenwood), 132 (start at Kyllo)-138.

GPS Tracking:

• Wikipedia on GPS (optional).
• Solove & Schwartz, Privacy, Information, and Technology, pp. 131-132.
• United States v. Garcia, 474 F.3d 994 (7th Cir. 2007).

RFID:

• Reepal S. Dalal, Chipping Away at the Constitution: The Increasing Use of RFID Chips Could Lead to An Erosion of Privacy Rights, 86 B.U. L. Rev. 485 (2006), Part I only (pp. 487-491).

Computer Searches:

• Solove & Schwartz, Privacy, Information, and Technology, pp. 158-165.
• Samantha Trepel, Digital Searches, General Warrants, and the Case for the Courts, 10 Yale J.L. & Tech. 120 (2008), Parts I, II and III (optional).