Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 96.0

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

25 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Amendment  rights  ha[d]  been  severely  impeached”  by 
Katz and other recent cases.  See Brief for Respondent in 
United  States  v.  Miller,  O.  T.  1975,  No.  74–1179,  p. 6. 
Turning to Katz, he then argued that he had a reasonable 
expectation of privacy in the banks’ records regarding his 
accounts.  Brief  for  Respondent  in  No.  74–1179,  at  6;  see 
also Miller, supra, at 442–443. 

Acceptance  of  this  argument  would  have  flown  in  the 
face  of  the  Fourth  Amendment’s  text,  and  the  Court  re-
jected that development.  Because Miller gave up “domin-
ion  and  control”  of  the  relevant  information  to  his  bank, 
Rakas, 439 U. S., at 149, the Court ruled that he lost any 
protected Fourth Amendment interest in that information. 
See  Miller,  supra,  at  442–443.    Later,  in  Smith  v.  Mary-
land, 442 U. S. 735, 745 (1979), the Court reached a simi-
lar conclusion regarding a telephone company’s records of 
a customer’s calls.  As JUSTICE KENNEDY concludes, Miller 
and Smith are thus best understood as placing “necessary
limits  on  the  ability  of  individuals  to  assert  Fourth 
Amendment  interests  in  property  to  which  they  lack  a
‘requisite connection.’ ”  Ante, at 8. 

The  same  is  true  here,  where  Carpenter  indisputably
lacks  any  meaningful  property-based  connection  to  the 
cell-site  records  owned  by  his  provider.    Because  the  rec-
ords are not Carpenter’s in any sense, Carpenter may not
seek to use the Fourth Amendment to exclude them. 

By  holding  otherwise,  the  Court  effectively  allows  Car-
penter to object to the “search” of a third party’s property,
not  recognizing  the  revolutionary  nature  of  this  change.
The Court seems to think that Miller and Smith invented 
a  new  “doctrine”—“the  third-party  doctrine”—and  the
Court  refuses  to  “extend”  this  product  of  the  1970’s  to  a
new  age  of  digital  communications.  Ante,  at  11,  17.  But 
the  Court  fundamentally  misunderstands  the  role  of  Mil-
ler  and  Smith.  Those  decisions  did  not  forge  a  new  doc-
trine; instead, they rejected an argument that would have