No one wants to be surveilled — at least I’m pretty sure no one wants cameras tracking them 24/7, catching their faces and license plates, so let’s talk surveillance and privacy rights.
As technology continuously advances, offering technological convenience and information at our fingertips, the ways in which our data can be captured and stored expand.
In the wake of the latest U.S. Supreme Court session, attacks on Flock’s automated license plate reading and vehicle surveillance cameras, and cases of cops using Flock to stalk people, it’s worth looking into Chatrie v. United States and what rights we have when it comes to the implicit nature of surveillance in public (and even in private).
First, some background: privacy isn’t a right spelled out in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourth Amendment as protecting people rather than places in regard to privacy through Katz v. United States. Further, Riley v. California determined that police officers need a warrant to search the contents of someone’s phone. Additionally, prior to being overturned, Roe v. Wade also granted us the fundamental right to privacy through the 14th Amendment’s Due Process clause.
As a refresher, the Fourth Amendment is “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” unless probable cause gives reason for a warrant. And the 14th Amendment gave citizenship to formerly enslaved people, stating “no state may deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
But back to Chatrie v. United States. Okello Chatrie robbed a bank in 2019 and what got him caught was his phone’s location data, which the police department obtained with a geofencing warrant to Google, along with the data of other cell phone users within the radius of the bank during a certain timeframe.
In Chatrie’s case, the Supreme Court ruled on June 27 of this year that pulling someone’s phone location data is a Fourth Amendment search, requiring a warrant and reason for the search (as opposed to conducting an unreasonable search). As such, the court sent the case back to a lower court to decide whether the use of a geofencing warrant was reasonable or unconstitutional.
The interesting part was that in Chatrie v. United States, the Supreme Court justices discussed how phones “[make] possible a form of surveillance that would have been unknown prior to the digital age.” In her court opinion, Justice Elena Kagan applied rulings from Katz v. United States and Carpenter v. United States, which established that collecting cell phone records requires reasonable cause. Kagan also mentioned the idea of personal privacy when it comes to location tracking.
“Whatever the form of an attempted incursion, the Fourth Amendment protects Americans’ long-held conviction that no government official should have free access to the most closely kept aspects of their lives,” Kagan said in her opinion. “In recent decades, this court has often confronted the challenge of adhering to those principles in the face of new technologies.”
We never could have imagined the expanse of technological power and how it would fall within the scope of the Constitution. AI is being used for everything from homework assignments to dating to facial recognition and surveillance. A concern amongst scholarly discussions on surveillance and criminology is about who is being surveilled.
Not only is privacy at risk, but we are becoming used to being watched. We are used to feeding our photos and personal information into our phones, telling AI personal tidbits, and videoing ourselves and each other. Video surveillance isn’t new, but it’s transforming.
The ruling of Chatrie v. United States could implicate other technology with surveillance capabilities, setting further privacy precedents and limiting the capacity for mass surveillance. This protection of privacy is crucial for checking the use of technology by the government in this rapid period of advancement. However, the ruling has yet to impact companies like Flock. Some opposed to the constant scrutiny of outsourced security cameras on street corners have begun dismantling them. Of note, there are 25 Flock cameras around Truckee and North Lake Tahoe.
As AI and surveillance become increasingly integrated into society, our phones ping cell towers that collect location data, apps track it, and Flock cameras register it with license plates. And location isn’t the only thing capable of being tracked. People share their most sensitive data with technology and cameras –– fingerprints, facial recognition, medical data, and more enhance the tracking of each individual who is online. Even if they’re not online, CCTV and Flock cameras can capture one’s movement. The advancement of technology, therefore, has also advanced the ability to control a population without the presence of humans who formally or informally enforce rules.
The implied right to privacy becomes scarce when technology can constantly police a society. It makes one wonder how protected the right to privacy is, especially where the government is involved.
Surveillance creates a power dynamic between those who are monitored, and those who do the monitoring. It is a part of governance and control whether by the United States or another entity entirely.
Though Chatrie v. United States is one ruling that could protect against the increasing usage of surveillance technology, we will have to see what happens as technology pushes the bounds of the Constitution.
