Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

18 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

KENNEDY, J., dissenting 

straight ones; and who are their closest friends and family 
members.  The  troves  of  intimate  information  the  Gov-
ernment  can  and  does  obtain  using  financial  records  and 
telephone records dwarfs what can be gathered from cell-
site records. 

Still, the Court maintains, cell-site records are “unique” 
because they are “comprehensive” in their reach; allow for 
retrospective  collection;  are  “easy,  cheap,  and  efficient 
compared  to  traditional  investigative  tools”;  and  are  not 
exposed  to  cell  phone  service  providers  in  a  meaningfully 
voluntary  manner.  Ante,  at  1113,  17,  22.    But  many 
other  kinds  of  business  records  can  be  so  described.    Fi-
nancial  records  are  of  vast  scope.    Banks  and  credit  card 
companies  keep  a  comprehensive  account  of  almost  every 
transaction  an  individual  makes  on  a  daily  basis.    “With 
just the click of a button, the Government can access each
[company’s]  deep  repository  of  historical  [financial]  infor-
mation  at  practically  no  expense.”    Ante,  at  1213.  And 
the  decision  whether  to  transact  with  banks  and  credit 
card  companies  is  no  more  or  less  voluntary  than  the
decision whether to use a cell phone.  Today, just as when 
Miller was  decided, “ ‘it is impossible to participate in the 
economic life of contemporary society without maintaining 
a bank account.’ ”  425 U. S., at 451 (Brennan, J., dissent-
ing).  But  this  Court,  nevertheless,  has  held  that  individ- 
uals  do  not  have  a  reasonable  expectation  of  privacy  in
financial records. 

Perhaps recognizing the difficulty of drawing the consti-
tutional  line  between  cell-site  records  and  financial  and 
telephonic  records,  the  Court  posits  that  the  accuracy  of
cell-site  records  “is  rapidly  approaching  GPS-level  preci-
sion.”  Ante, at 14.  That is certainly plausible in the era of 
cyber technology, yet the privacy interests associated with 
location information, which is often disclosed to the public 
at  large,  still  would  not  outweigh  the  privacy  interests
implicated by financial and telephonic records.