Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 30.0

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

3 

KENNEDY, J., dissenting 

the Court unhinges Fourth Amendment doctrine from the 
property-based  concepts  that  have  long  grounded  the
analytic framework that pertains in these cases.  In doing 
so it draws an unprincipled and unworkable line between 
cell-site  records  on  the  one  hand  and  financial  and  tele-
phonic records on the other.  According to today’s majority
opinion,  the  Government  can  acquire  a  record  of  every 
credit  card  purchase  and  phone  call  a  person  makes  over
months  or  years  without  upsetting  a  legitimate  expecta-
tion of privacy.  But, in the Court’s view, the Government 
crosses  a  constitutional  line  when  it  obtains  a  court’s 
approval  to  issue  a  subpoena  for  more  than  six  days  of 
cell-site  records  in  order  to  determine  whether  a  person 
was  within  several  hundred  city  blocks  of  a  crime  scene. 
That  distinction  is  illogical  and  will  frustrate  principled 
application of the Fourth Amendment in many routine yet 
vital law enforcement operations.

It is true that the Cyber Age has vast potential both to
expand and restrict individual freedoms in dimensions not 
contemplated  in  earlier  times.    See  Packingham  v.  North 
Carolina,  582  U. S.  ___,  ___–___  (2017)  (slip  op.,  at  46).
For  the  reasons  that  follow,  however,  there  is  simply  no 
basis  here  for  concluding  that  the  Government  interfered
with information that the cell phone customer, either from
a  legal  or  commonsense  standpoint,  should  have  thought 
the law would deem owned or controlled by him. 

I 

Before evaluating the question presented it is helpful to 
understand  the  nature  of  cell-site  records,  how  they  are 
commonly  used  by  cell  phone  service  providers,  and  their 
proper use by law enforcement.

When a cell phone user makes a call, sends a text mes-
sage  or  e-mail,  or  gains  access  to  the  Internet,  the  cell 
phone  establishes  a  radio  connection  to  an  antenna  at  a 
nearby cell site.  The typical cell site covers a more-or-less