Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 109.0

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

11 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

did  the  government  “search”  five  days’  worth  of  location 
information it was never even sent?  We do not know. 

Later still, the Court adds that it can’t say whether the 
Fourth  Amendment  is  triggered  when  the  government
collects  “real-time  CSLI  or  ‘tower  dumps’  (a  download  of 
information on all the devices that connected to a particu-
lar cell site during a particular interval).”  Ante, at 17–18. 
But  what  distinguishes  historical  data  from  real-time
data, or seven days of a single person’s data from a down-
load of everyone’s data over some indefinite period of time?
Why isn’t a tower dump the paradigmatic example of “too
permeating  police  surveillance”  and  a  dangerous  tool  of 
“arbitrary”  authority—the  touchstones  of  the  majority’s 
modified Katz analysis?  On what possible basis could such
mass data collection survive the Court’s test while collect-
ing a single person’s data does not?  Here again we are left 
to guess.  At the same time, though, the Court offers some 
firm assurances.  It tells us its decision does not “call into 
question  conventional  surveillance  techniques  and  tools, 
such  as  security  cameras.”    Ibid.    That,  however,  just 
raises  more  questions  for  lower  courts  to  sort  out  about
what  techniques  qualify  as  “conventional”  and  why  those
techniques would be okay even if they lead to “permeating
police surveillance” or “arbitrary police power.” 

Nor  is  this  the  end  of  it.    After  finding  a  reasonable 
expectation  of  privacy,  the  Court  says  there’s  still  more
work  to  do.  Courts  must  determine  whether  to  “extend” 
Smith and Miller to the circumstances before them.  Ante, 
at 11, 15–17.  So apparently Smith and Miller aren’t quite
left for dead; they just no longer have the clear reach they 
once did.  How do we measure their new reach?  The Court 
says courts now must conduct a second Katz-like balancing
inquiry,  asking  whether  the  fact  of  disclosure  to  a  third 
party  outweighs  privacy  interests  in  the  “category  of  in-
formation” so disclosed.  Ante, at 13, 15–16.  But how are 
lower  courts  supposed  to  weigh  these  radically  different