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Page Number: 79

8 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

generation in part because it reflected “the ancient propo-
sition  of  law”  that  “ ‘ “the  public  . . .  has  a  right  to  every 
man’s evidence.” ’ ”  United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 
709 (1974); see also ante, at 10 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting). 
As early as 1612, “Lord Bacon is reported to have declared 
that ‘all subjects, without distinction of degrees, owe to the
King tribute and service, not only of their deed and hand,
but  of  their  knowledge  and  discovery.’ ”  Blair,  supra,  at 
279–280.  That  duty  could  be  “onerous  at  times,”  yet  the
Founders considered it “necessary to the administration of
justice  according  to  the  forms  and  modes  established  in
our system of government.”  Id., at 281; see also Calandra, 
supra, at 345. 

B 
Talk  of  kings  and  common-law  writs  may  seem  out  of 
place  in  a  case  about  cell-site  records  and  the  protections 
afforded  by  the  Fourth  Amendment  in  the  modern  age.
But this history matters, not least because it tells us what
was  on  the  minds  of  those  who  ratified  the  Fourth 
Amendment  and  how  they  understood  its  scope.    That 
history  makes  it  abundantly  clear  that  the  Fourth
Amendment, as originally understood, did not apply to the
compulsory production of documents at all. 

The  Fourth  Amendment  does  not  regulate  all  methods 
by  which  the  Government  obtains  documents.  Rather,  it 
prohibits  only  those  “searches  and  seizures”  of  “persons, 
houses,  papers,  and  effects”  that  are  “unreasonable.” 
Consistent  with  that  language,  “at  least  until  the  latter
half  of  the  20th  century”  “our  Fourth  Amendment  juris-
prudence  was  tied  to  common-law  trespass.”    United 
States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 405 (2012).  So by its terms,
the  Fourth  Amendment  does  not  apply  to  the  compulsory
production  of  documents,  a  practice  that  involves  neither
any physical intrusion into private space nor any taking of 
property by agents of the state.  Even Justice Brandeis—a