Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 113.0

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

15 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

fully  guarded  from  examination and  inspection,  except  as
to their outward form and weight, as if they were retained 
by  the  parties  forwarding  them  in  their  own  domiciles.” 
Id.,  at  733.  The  reason,  drawn  from  the  Fourth  Amend-
ment’s text, was that “[t]he constitutional guaranty of the
right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  papers  against
unreasonable  searches  and  seizures  extends  to  their  pa-
pers,  thus  closed  against  inspection,  wherever  they  may 
be.”  Ibid. (emphasis added).  It did not matter that letters 
were  bailed  to  a  third  party  (the  government,  no  less).
The  sender  enjoyed  the  same  Fourth  Amendment  protec-
tion  as  he  does  “when  papers  are  subjected  to  search  in
one’s own household.”  Ibid. 

These  ancient  principles  may  help  us  address  modern
data  cases  too.  Just  because  you  entrust  your  data—in 
some  cases,  your  modern-day  papers  and  effects—to  a 
third  party  may  not  mean  you  lose  any  Fourth  Amend-
ment  interest  in  its  contents.  Whatever  may  be  left  of 
Smith and Miller, few doubt that e-mail should be treated 
much like the traditional mail it has largely supplanted—
as a bailment in which the owner retains a vital and pro-
tected  legal  interest.  See  ante,  at  13  (KENNEDY,  J.,  dis-
senting) (noting that enhanced Fourth Amendment protec-
tion  may  apply  when  the  “modern-day  equivalents  of  an
individual’s own ‘papers’ or ‘effects’ . . . are held by a third 
party”  through  “bailment”);  ante,  at  23,  n. 6  (ALITO,  J., 
dissenting) 
(reserving  the  question  whether  Fourth 
Amendment  protection  may  apply  in  the  case  of  “bail-
ment”  or  when  “someone  has  entrusted  papers  he  or  she 
owns . . . to the safekeeping of another”); United States v. 
Warshak,  631  F. 3d  266,  285–286  (CA6  2010)  (relying  on
an  analogy  to  Jackson  to  extend  Fourth  Amendment 
protection to e-mail held by a third party service provider). 
Second,  I  doubt  that  complete  ownership  or  exclusive
control  of  property  is  always  a  necessary  condition  to  the
assertion  of  a  Fourth  Amendment  right.    Where  houses