I always like to mention how Paula Broadwell was identified as David Petraeus' mistress as it's a good example of how even without a phone you can still be identified.

- FBI had three distinct IPs linked to emails

- They geolocated those back to 3 different hotels

- They pulled the guest list from each of the hotels

- Did a "join" on them and the only guest at all 3 was Broadwell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Broadwell#Petraeus_affai...

• remarkEon

  today at 6:23 PM

  This is also a great example of map resection.

From https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enfo...

Additional details:

> The information that Google provided to law enforcement officials came in three tranches. First, Google gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts (but without the names attached to those accounts) linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Second, based on that list of 19 accounts, the government asked for additional information about nine accounts that were in the area during a two-hour period. At the third step, a detective asked for, and received, the names and information associated with three accounts – one of which was Chatrie’s.

> Relying on the location data, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to search two residences linked to Chatrie, where they found almost $100,000 of the stolen cash, a gun, and demand notes.

> Prosecutors charged Chatrie with bank robbery. He asked the trial judge to bar prosecutors from using the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant at his trial, arguing that the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

> A federal district judge agreed that the warrant in Chatrie’s case did not have the kind of probable cause and specificity that the Fourth Amendment requires. However, she nonetheless allowed the prosecutors to use the evidence, reasoning that even if there had been a violation of the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officials had acted in good faith.

Link to ruling:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf

• petcat

  today at 5:17 PM

  I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery.

  I believe this is similar to how they nabbed the Washington State University murderer. The feds compelled Amazon to give them all the bluetooth MAC addresses that was seen by the Echo device in the home around the time of the murders and were able to correlate it to other devices their suspect's phone had been visible to.

  • autoexec

    today at 5:31 PM

    > I guess don't bring your phone to a bank robbery.

    You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect and force you spend a bunch of money defending yourself. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike...

    Hopefully rulings like this make that scenario a little less likely to happen, but it doesn't stop it entirely, it just means that the police need to spend 15 minutes to get a rubber-stamped warrant before they turn everyone within a few miles of crime into a suspect.

    • sidewndr46

      today at 6:20 PM

      one of the more fun things I learned during criminal court in Texas is that the absence of forensic evidence cannot exonerate an individual. The prosecutor and the judge covered that despite not having any forensic evidence, the jury would still be expected to be able to convict the defendant. If you weren't OK with that you weren't eligible to serve on a jury.

    • jotux

      today at 5:46 PM

      >You should also make sure not to bring your phone to anywhere where a nearby crime is happening because that's all it takes to make you a suspect

      Proximity to a crime makes you a suspect even without the phone, right?

      • autoexec

        today at 6:01 PM

        Only if it's known that you were ever there in the first place, and people that typically wouldn't ever be considered, like someone who is quietly visiting in the living room of someone who lives nearby, will fall under scrutiny when police are just getting the data of everyone in a certain radius.

    • bombcar

      today at 5:39 PM

      I mean in this case it would also have helped not to have $100k in cash from a bank robbery laying around.

  • BeetleB

    today at 6:05 PM

    Source for this? As I recall, his phone was off when he committed the murders. In fact, they used the evidence that it had been turned off just for the duration of the murders (with some padding) against him.

    If you're going to commit a crime, don't suddenly turn off your phone if you don't have a history of doing so!

  • xyzzy_plugh

    today at 5:26 PM

    Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe this data is persisted, unless they tore open the device to extract logs.

    • ceejayoz

      today at 5:29 PM

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/amazon-releases-echo-dat...

      • xyzzy_plugh

        today at 5:34 PM

        This article is about audio recordings. There's no mention of Bluetooth nor any mention as to if there were any relevant recordings, which as I understand it are not stored on the device at all.

        This smells like an urban myth.

        • ceejayoz

          today at 5:39 PM

          I don't think it's implausible that an Echo would have an internal list of trusted Bluetooth devices and their last date of connectivity.

• bee_rider

  today at 5:36 PM

  It is a little confusing, they ruled that the search was not legitimate, but this didn’t end up helping the defendant? I’m definitely missing an important nuance here but I’m not sure what it is…

• plagiarist

  today at 5:38 PM

  > [E]ven if there had been a violation of the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officials had acted in good faith.

  How is this even remotely a possibility?

  • ChrisKnott

    today at 5:45 PM

    It just means they were completely transparent with the court when getting the data, and believed themselves it was lawful.

    What’s hard to believe about that? They clearly put some effort into minimising the collateral privacy intrusions.

  • Tangurena2

    today at 5:52 PM

    Because there are way too many existing precedents where "acting in good faith" was sufficient to overcome the Fruit of the poison tree doctrine.

    • adestefan

      today at 6:19 PM

      This court doesn’t care about precedent.

> ation history” feature that documented his location every few minutes.

Google removed this feature last year because they were tired of dealing with these warrants. Now your devices each store their own location history without centralisation.

Of course Alito and Thomas would have allowed the government unlimited power. I am bit surprised to see Barret in the minority of this one.

• DetroitThrow

  today at 4:49 PM

  She's not as big on some of the broader interpretations of the 4th amendment that more civil liberty minded justices would lend credence to.

  • thewebguyd

    today at 5:07 PM

    Particularly when it comes to tech, she usually goes along party lines but she's been surprisingly independent in other areas. When it comes to the 4th she does heavily prioritize the sanctity of the home and property rights.

    • TimorousBestie

      today at 5:13 PM

      I have a pet theory that it’s difficult for her to convince the far right wing of the court to let her write the majority opinion, and that’s part of what is fueling these uncharacteristic or “independent” moments.

      • newaccountman2

        today at 5:26 PM

        I am pretty sure the Chief Justice chooses who writes the opinion when he (or, one day, she) is in the majority, and if that's right, then Roberts is the only one she would have to convince

      • ocdtrekkie

        today at 5:17 PM

        When the Court rules to the center, I think Roberts likes to take it himself or let a liberal Justice write it so it looks like the court is balanced and unified or something.

        Roberts has lost control of his court and is desperately trying to make it appear legitimate.

        • wyldberry

          today at 5:37 PM

          Genuinely curious:

          What does it mean for a Chief Justice to be in control of their court, and of course, for them to be out of control?

          • ocdtrekkie

            today at 5:47 PM

            So very specifically I've historically read Roberts as a fairly moderate jurist. He has a true romanticism about the neutrality of the court and that it shouldn't be a political body. (This is ridiculous, but anyways.) This has changed as the court has reached a 6/3 bias. When the court was a 5/4, Roberts could swing to the center and bring the majority position with him. But now the far right wing doesn't need his help: The conservative wing can do a 5/4 even with his dissent. So you see Roberts bucking the conservative trend much less, maybe not because he agrees with the court but knows he can't push the outcome to the center.

            The other aspect I think in play here is that the current executive branch pretty much just ignores every court order it doesn't like, and the Court can't enforce any ruling it makes, because that's the executive branch's job. I think Roberts knows if the Court pulls against Trump very hard, it could lead to a showdown where Trump just... does what he wants anyways, which would destroy the perceived power of the Court. I think Roberts has tried to dodge a lot of law and a lot of rulings to avoid clear positions on the President which he would, in turn, ignore.

      • twoodfin

        today at 5:16 PM

        She doesn’t have to convince the “far right wing”. As long as CJ Roberts (not generally regarded as in any “wing”) is in the majority, he can assign the opinion to her.

        • TimorousBestie

          today at 5:20 PM

          [flagged]

          • torstenvl

            today at 5:37 PM

            Don't do this here.

            • b40d-48b2-979e

              today at 6:02 PM

                  Don't do this here. 
              

              What? Call out reality?

• ocdtrekkie

  today at 5:16 PM

  As per the current conservative trend of allowing authoritarianism through technicality, the majority of Alito's dissent is just that the Court shouldn't rule on this at all because it won't help the defendant's case much specifically.

  • galangalalgol

    today at 5:22 PM

    With the exception of citizens vs united, I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job. I don't see how all this turns out well for normal people, but if it does, I think congress will have to be much stronger than it was within the federal government, and the federal government will have to be much weaker than it was. The structural problems are that the federal government doesn't want to be weaker, and congress people don't want to be stronger, because they have no term limits, so they don't want the power to rock the boat.

    • ceejayoz

      today at 5:24 PM

      > I think most of the decisions of the "conservative" court have been along the lines that congress should do its job.

      They have repeatedly reduced Congressional powers, including today, where they basically said Congress can't setup genuinely independent agencies (in Slaughter). Or when they kneecapped the VRA.

      Some of them likely subscribe privately to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory.

      • mothballed

        today at 5:30 PM

        Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive. It doesn't stop congress from directly exercising that power instead. It just says you can't play the fuck-fuck game where you pretend to create an agency in the executive branch but actually violate the constitution by trying to create a new branch.

        • ceejayoz

          today at 5:32 PM

          > Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive.

          The law Congress passed set rules requiring cause for a firing of an FTC commissioner.

          It appears they now lack that power that they've had for almost a century.

          Or Alito's new "history and tradition" test, invented out of whole cloth to take out abortion but now being applied to all sorts of things Congress does.

          • mothballed

            today at 5:37 PM

            Statutes don't supersede the constitution and passing one doesn't create that power.

            • ceejayoz

              today at 5:40 PM

              > Statutes don't supersede the constitution…

              "We can make rules the President has to follow" does not supersede the Constitution.

              • galangalalgol

                today at 6:01 PM

                It obviously depends on what rules they make. They can't make a rule creating a body of government employees that decide the substance of rules (not just implementation details), and then also has armed officers to enforce those rules, with its own judges to have hearings specific to those rules. Whether you heard ice or atf when you read that, they both fit. I like Gorsuch's opinion. He clearly calls out this danger of a half step of saying the president has complete control of the executive without also ruling the agencies themselves are unconstitutional. Realistically though instantly removing all those agencies would mean chaos. The court can't rule how to fix something, only that the rock brought before them is the wrong rock. The telling bit would be if someone then brings them a case where the removal of the ftc leadership has resulted in the agency not enforcing the laws as written. If they then side with the congress I would give them the benefit of my doubt. But I do also feel like their positions, while correct, are correct only out of the context of their environment.

                • ceejayoz

                  today at 6:03 PM

                  > It obviously depends on what rules they make.

                  Today, the Court ruled that Congress can make the Federal Reserve an independent agency, but not the FTC. Same day, same justice!

                  What are the rules, exactly?

                  • mothballed

                    today at 6:15 PM

                    I see and acknowledge your point. But going back to

                    >Slaughter determined that agencies congress had ceded to the executive branch had control of the executive.

                    Congress ceded FTC to the executive branch. Congress put the Federal Reserve in some magical land, outside the executive branch, that doesn't even make sense.

                    My theory was that SCOTUS ruled the executive had this power over the agencies executive branch. Seems SCOTUS doesn't want to touch federal reserve question with a 10 foot pole. But going back to my original theory, it is a slightly different framing, since everyone involved freely agrees FTC is an executive agency while the federal reserve does not enjoy this agreement.

                    I do agree the federal reserve as independent makes no sense but I don't think it's the same question posed since you're not starting with the assumption the agency in question is an executive agency. SCOTUS seems to have ruled that an agency in the executive branch has executive control, while not going so far as to determine that the federal reserve is in the executive branch which is an entirely different question.

                    It's important to note SCOTUS is too chickenshit to rule on anything but in the most narrow way possible. If you ask them to rule on something with a prior established fact that it's in the executive branch you're likely going to get a very narrow ruling that doesn't try to create a unifying theory of everything.

                    • ceejayoz

                      today at 6:16 PM

                      > I do agree the federal reserve as independent makes no sense but I don't think it's the same question posed.

                      I think it's the core question; are there really rules at all?

                      The two rulings make that answer clear, I think.

                      Roberts in Cook says that firing was "out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference". How is the FTC's setup in this regard not part of the same tradition? What part of the Constitution permits the Fed's existence outside of any of the branches? Why can Congress establish a central bank outside the Executive entirely, but not regulate the FTC?

              • mothballed

                today at 5:40 PM

                In this case, it did, that's why SCOTUS ruled against it.

                • ceejayoz

                  today at 5:42 PM

                  SCOTUS does not enjoy papal infallibility. They fuck up.

                  (Or act maliciously, as when Alito invented the new "history and tradition" test.)

                  • mothballed

                    today at 5:47 PM

                    Congress fucks up as well. There's as pretty strong argument that "independence" from the executive power vested in the POTUS and legislative branch puts that power in a place not authorized anywhere in the constitution, and for good reason, as the design of the constitution intends elected office to have direct control over powers of congress and the executive.

                    • ceejayoz

                      today at 5:55 PM

                      Yeah, that's why we have the veto power; as a check on their power.

                      SCOTUS has now given the executive retroactive uncheckable vetos. Yikes. "Those rules we agreed to, signed into law, and followed for the last 90 years? HAHA PSYCHE SUCKERS!"

                      Reminder: On the SAME DAY, the SAME JUSTICE issued an opinion that the President can't fire a Federal Reserve member, in Cook, saying it was "out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference". You're asserting consistency that simply does not exist; the Court is starting with the desired ruling and working backwards from there.

    • ocdtrekkie

      today at 5:28 PM

      I agree in general, but this is also why I say allowing authoritarianism through technicality. They know by punting to Congress, a body that is completely paralyzed, what the practical outcome of that ruling is.

PDF of the full decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf

IANAL, what are the practical implications of this? I assume the outcome is police would first need probable cause to suspect a specific person of a crime, and then get a warrant for that person's location. Am I wrong?

• cmiles8

  today at 5:44 PM

  It’s raising the bar for doing these searches. Essentially saying some government investigator can’t go “oh well if we had this data we might find something interesting, so let’s get the data.” The court here is saying these geofenced searches smell a lot like such a fishing expedition hoping to find something interesting.

  Rather you should have evidence that a specific person did a specific thing and need to conduct a search to find additional evidence of said person doing said thing.

  The 4th amendment protects US persons from the government just doing generalized searches in hopes that it will turn up useful info. You have a right to privacy from the government unless the government can clear a high bar showing probable cause that you’ve done something wrong.

Excellent, I wonder how this might impact things like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48467712

• atroon

  today at 5:26 PM

  It will offer this company and those similar to it the ability to increase shareholder value by selling amalgamated information to law enforcement.

  • Cider9986

    today at 5:44 PM

    Google, the company in the case in question, doesn't sell your data. That would be a big change for them to start, they like to keep it for themselves.

good. Of course the precise language of the ruling matters, but good.

What if they purchase the information from a company peddling it rather than compelling cell phone companies to hand it over?

• WillAdams

  today at 5:23 PM

  For an example of what can be done with such purchased data, one project at a previous employer was:

  - identifying all cell phone #s which would regularly appear w/in a certain radius of any State Police Barracks

  - disambiguating that from people who lived/worked nearby and/or who met certain criteria

  - determining the income and certain other criteria of the remaining numbers

  - identifying the home address of the remaining cell #s which met the final criteria and mailing a franchise offer to those cell #s with the assumption that it would be targeting State Police Troopers

  • bilbo0s

    today at 5:50 PM

    In fairness, I mean, if the people collecting the data sell it on the open market, then you can't realistically expect it to be private.

    The only solution in that case is to make it illegal to sell the data. And that's never gonna happen in the US.

• twoodfin

  today at 5:21 PM

  This data was being “compelled” from Google. If Google had told its users that their data might be sold, had sold it, and the government had acquired it that way, this case comes out differently.

  In reality, Google simply stopped collecting this data in their cloud, leaving it only on the phone.

  Highly recommend (as always) listening to the oral arguments in your favorite podcast player. The specific question of how Google’s T&C’s mattered here came up more than once.

• Molitor5901

  today at 4:55 PM

  That is the loop hole IMO and that's how they will get around it.

Birthright citizenship decision coming tomorrow.

• catapart

  today at 5:19 PM

  Yep. And this hypocritical bench has had a pattern of ruling sensibly on minor issues like this just before ruling with torturous rationalizations to strip rights from people on larger issues. Feels like there's about to be some pure bullshit spewing from the right flank of this illegitimate court. I'd dearly love to be wrong about this, but I'm not holding out hope. Until alito and thomas are impeached for unconstitutional rulings and bribery, there's nothing worth hoping for.

  • Cider9986

    today at 5:49 PM

    There's a 94% chance the EO is struck down on polymarket.

    • awkwardpotato

      today at 5:58 PM

      And what are the odds in Vegas? How is the opinion of a bunch of gamblers on polymarket relevant?

      • jbird99

        today at 6:13 PM

        Because Polymarket is full of corrupt folks with insider information. Trump Jr. Is a senior advisor to Polymarket. Iran admitted they would observe Polymarket bets during the height of the war to see when they were next likely to get bombed.

rare scotus W, but i strongly suspect that because this data is "owned" by someone other than the people that generated it that said owners will simply choose to voluntarily cooperate with government inquiries 100% of the time. You can suppress information if the government unconstitutionally compels google to turn it over, but I don't believe that you as a defendant could push to exclude evidence if it was willingly turned over by a third party that had the right to have it.