The latest from the War On (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs, a/k/a where the Constitution goes to die. Marcy Wheeler does a very good job of explaining the illogic behind claims that the government doesn't need probable cause to get access to tracking data; if taken seriously, it would eviscerate large parts of the Bill of Rights. It would also make hash of existing Fourth Amendment doctrine; one doesn't surrender their constitutional rights by using new private technologies to communicate with other people. As Justice Stewart correctly observed, "the Fourth Amendment protects people -- and not simply 'areas.'" People should be entitled to the reasonable expectation that the state will not have access to private tracking data, email, etc. without some independent reason to suspect wrongdoing.
--Scott Lemieux
