Last year, I blogged extensively about the pending Fifth Circuit case on Fourth Amendment protection for cell-site data. Readers may recall that this is the case in which a Magistrate Judge denied an application for a court order to obtain cell-site data on the ground that he thought the Fourth Amendment would be violated by […]
Archive | 5th Circuit Cell-Site Case
Thoughts on the Oral Argument in the Fifth Circuit Cell-Site Case
The Fifth Circuit held its oral argument in its Fourth Amendment cell-site case today; the audio is here. On the whole, I thought the argument was pretty unilluminating. The judges spent a lot of time trying to figure out the statute and the facts, but they had surprisingly few questions about the Fourth Amendment questions […]
Fifth Circuit Cell-Site Case: Magistrate Judge Smith Responds and Defends His Decision
Although I wasn’t planning to post any more on the Fifth Circuit cell-site case, I happened to notice that Magistrate Judge Smith recently posted a new essay on SSRN that is in significant part a response to my amicus brief and my criticisms of his decision. I thought it only fair to point readers to […]
Fifth Circuit Cell-Site Case: The Second Article III Problem With Magistrate Decisions at the Application Stage
I wanted to add another post to my series on the Fifth Circuit’s upcoming cell-site case, which raises the issue of whether magistrate judges have the power to decide prospectively how the Fourth Amendment might apply to executing a court order at the time the government applies for the order — and to deny the […]
Fifth Circuit Cell-Site Case: The Lack of Hardship to the Party Seeking to Invoke Jurisdiction
This is the third in a series of posts on the pending Fifth Circuit case about a magistrate judge’s power to deny statutory applications to collect records under the Stored Communications Act in light of fears that (depending on how one interprets the Fourth Amendment) the execution of the order might violate the target’s Fourth […]
Fifth Circuit Historical Cell-Site Case: The Most Relevant Ripeness Precedents
This is the second in a series of posts on the justiciability of Fourth Amendment disputes. Specifically, the issue is whether magistrate judges have the power, when asked to review a statutory court order for surveillance under the Stored Communications Act, to decline to sign an application that satisfies the statute but that the magistrate […]
Can Magistrate Judges Deny Statutory Surveillance Orders Based on Prospective Fourth Amendment Concerns?
On October 2, the Fifth Circuit will hold oral argument in case No. 11–20884, In Re Applications of the United States for Historical Cell-Site Data. In this case, the United States applied for a court order under the Stored Communications Act to compel cell phone providers to disclose location information about particular phones suspected in […]
Amicus Briefs Filed in Fifth Circuit Cell-Site Case
Does government collection of cell-site records implicate the Fourth Amendment after United States v. Jones? I mentioned a while back that I had filed an amicus brief in a pending Fifth Circuit case that touches on that question. The question in the Fifth Circuit case is whether magistrate judges can deny applications for court orders […]
Can Magistrate Judges Rule on How the Fourth Amendment Applies to the Execution of a Court Order At the Time of the Application?
Last week, I filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit on a very important question in high-tech crime investigations. As far as I know, the issue is a matter of first impression in any court. Here’s the question: When privacy statutes require the government to obtain a court order before collecting records or conducting […]