Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 94

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

23 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

It would be especially strange to hold that the Telecom-
munication  Act’s  confidentiality  provision  confers  a  prop-
erty  right  when  the  Act  creates  an  express  exception  for 
any  disclosure  of  records  that  is  “required  by  law.”  47 
U. S. C. §222(c)(1).  So  not only does Carpenter lack “ ‘the
most  essential  and  beneficial’ ”  of  the  “ ‘constituent  ele-
ments’ ”  of  property,  Dickman  v.  Commissioner,  465  U. S. 
330,  336  (1984)—i.e.,  the  right  to  use  the  property  to  the 
exclusion of others—but he cannot even exclude the party 
he would most like to keep out, namely, the Government.5 

For  all  these  reasons,  there  is  no  plausible  ground  for 
maintaining that the information at issue here represents
Carpenter’s “papers” or “effects.”6 

—————— 

scriber  concerned  and  shall  take  such  actions  as  are  necessary  to
prevent unauthorized access to such information by a person other than
the subscriber or cable operator”). 

5 Carpenter also cannot argue that he owns the cell-site records merely
because  they  fall  into  the  category  of  records  referred  to  as  “customer 
proprietary network information.”  47 U. S. C. §222(c).  Even assuming
labels alone can confer property rights, nothing in this particular label
indicates  whether  the  “information”  is  “proprietary”  to  the  “customer”
or  to  the  provider  of  the  “network.”    At  best,  the  phrase  “customer
proprietary  network  information”  is  ambiguous,  and  context  makes
clear that it refers to the provider’s information.  The Telecommunica-
tions Act defines the term to include all “information that relates to the 
quantity,  technical  configuration,  type,  destination,  location,  and 
amount  of  use  of  a  telecommunications  service  subscribed  to  by  any
customer of a telecommunications carrier, and that is made available to 
the  carrier  by  the  customer  solely  by  virtue  of  the  carrier-customer 
relationship.”  47 U. S. C. §222(h)(1)(A).  For Carpenter to be right, he
must  own  not  only  the  cell-site  records  in  this  case,  but  also  records 
relating to, for example, the “technical configuration” of his subscribed 
service—records  that  presumably  include  such  intensely  personal  and
private  information  as  transmission  wavelengths,  transport  protocols, 
and link layer system configurations. 

6 Thus, this is not a case in which someone has entrusted papers that 
he or she owns to the safekeeping of another, and it does not involve a 
bailment.  Cf. post, at 14 (GORSUCH, J., dissenting).