Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 29

2 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

KENNEDY, J., dissenting 

statements from the businesses that create and keep these 
records,  the  Government  does  not  engage  in  a  search  of 
the business’s customers within the meaning of the Fourth 
Amendment. 

In  this  case  petitioner  challenges  the  Government’s
right  to  use  compulsory  process  to  obtain  a  now-common 
kind of business record: cell-site records held by cell phone 
service  providers.    The  Government  acquired  the  records
through  an  investigative  process  enacted  by  Congress.
Upon approval by a neutral magistrate, and based on the 
Government’s  duty  to  show  reasonable  necessity,  it  au-
thorizes the disclosure of records and information that are 
under the control and ownership of the cell phone service
provider,  not  its  customer.  Petitioner  acknowledges  that 
the  Government  may  obtain  a  wide  variety  of  business 
records using compulsory process, and he does not ask the 
Court to revisit its precedents.  Yet he argues that, under 
those  same  precedents,  the  Government  searched  his
records when it used court-approved compulsory process to
obtain the cell-site information at issue here. 

Cell-site  records,  however,  are  no  different  from  the 
many other kinds of business records the Government has
a lawful right to obtain by compulsory process.  Customers 
like  petitioner  do  not  own,  possess,  control,  or  use  the
records,  and  for  that  reason  have  no  reasonable  expecta-
tion  that  they  cannot  be  disclosed  pursuant  to  lawful
compulsory process.

The  Court  today  disagrees.    It  holds  for  the  first  time 
that  by  using  compulsory  process  to  obtain  records  of  a
business  entity,  the  Government  has  not  just  engaged  in
an impermissible action, but has conducted a search of the
business’s customer.  The Court further concludes that the 
search in this case was unreasonable and the Government 
needed  to  get  a  warrant  to  obtain  more  than  six  days  of
cell-site records. 

In concluding that the Government engaged in a search,