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Page Number: 24

20 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

vacy interests or for a corporation’s own books.5  The lone 
exception,  of  course,  is  Miller,  where  the  Court’s  analysis
of the third-party subpoena merged with the application of 
the  third-party  doctrine.    425  U. S.,  at  444  (concluding 
that Miller lacked the necessary privacy interest to contest 
the issuance of a subpoena to his bank).   

JUSTICE  ALITO  overlooks  the  critical  issue.

  At  some 
point, the dissent should recognize that CSLI is an entirely 
different  species  of  business  record—something  that 
implicates  basic  Fourth  Amendment  concerns  about  arbi-
trary  government  power  much  more  directly  than  corpo-
rate  tax  or  payroll  ledgers.    When  confronting  new  con-
cerns  wrought  by  digital  technology,  this  Court  has  been
careful not to uncritically extend existing precedents.  See 
Riley,  573  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  10)  (“A  search  of
the  information  on  a  cell  phone  bears  little  resemblance
to  the  type  of  brief  physical  search  considered  [in  prior 
precedents].”).

If the choice to proceed by subpoena provided a categori-
cal limitation on Fourth Amendment protection, no type of 
record  would  ever  be  protected  by  the  warrant  require-
ment.  Under JUSTICE ALITO’s view, private letters, digital 
contents  of  a  cell  phone—any  personal  information  re-
duced  to  document  form,  in  fact—may  be  collected  by 

—————— 

5 See United States v. Dionisio, 410 U. S. 1, 14 (1973) (“No person can
have  a  reasonable  expectation  that  others  will  not  know  the  sound  of 
his voice”); Donovan v. Lone Steer, Inc., 464 U. S. 408, 411, 415 (1984) 
(payroll  and  sales  records);  California  Bankers  Assn.  v.  Shultz,  416 
U. S.  21,  67  (1974)  (Bank  Secrecy  Act  reporting  requirements);  See  v. 
Seattle, 387 U. S. 541, 544 (1967) (financial books and records); United 
States  v.  Powell,  379  U. S.  48,  49,  57  (1964)  (corporate  tax  records); 
McPhaul  v.  United  States,  364  U. S.  372,  374,  382  (1960)  (books  and
records of an organization); United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U. S. 
632,  634,  651–653  (1950)  (Federal  Trade  Commission  reporting  re-
quirement); Oklahoma  Press  Publishing Co.  v.  Walling,  327  U. S.  186, 
189, 204–208 (1946) (payroll records); Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 45, 
75 (1906) (corporate books and papers).