LSTD 510 8-1 DISCUSSION: SEARCH AND SEIZURE

This Owlisdom, LSTD 510 8-1 Discussion: Search And Seizure assignment Involves Analysis Of Two Noteworthy Cases, Carpenter V. U.S. and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, et. Courts regarding questions of digital privacy and Fourth Amendment policing in the context of the Baltimore Police Department. You will dissect these cases for their facts and rulings, talk about the idea of geo-fence warrants and its consequences, counsel clients on privacy issues in relation to the cases and propose changes to the constitution to enhance protection of digital and genetic privacy.

What are the facts of each of the two cases?  Compare the facts. What did the Supreme Court and the Fourth Circuit decide in these respective cases?  What is a geo-fence warrant?

FACTS

• Summarize LSTD 510 8-1 Discussion: The case regarding Search And Seizure, where law enforcement got Timothy Carpenter’s cell site location information (CSLI) searching a series of robberies without a warrant.

• Discuss the Baltimore Police Department case in which an aerial surveillance program tracked the movements of residents without a warrant.

• Know the common theme of they both cases warrantless surveillance and the use of technology.

• Tell them the Supreme Court ruled that searching or accessing CSLI without warrant is a Fourth Amendment search.

• Explain the Fourth Circuit’s ruling that aerial surveillance program violated the Fourth Amendment.

• Next discuss the privacy concerns and possibility of mass surveillance that arises through the use of geo–fence warrants.

Example

Carpenter v. would, in the end, turn out to be pivotal.v. United States and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggleeaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Assessing digital privacy and surveillance, they underscore the difficulty faced by the judiciary in applying constitutional principles developed under an analogue technology regime.Whether the government has needed a warrant to obtain every single person’s cellphone location history, as involved in Carpenter v.iciary’s challenge in adapting constitutional principles to modern technology in the realm of digital privacy and surveillance.

Carpenter v. United States focused on whether the government requires a warrant to access an individual’s cellphone location history (Carpenter v. United States, 2018). We hold that law enforcement’s access to a suspect’s historical CSLI to prosecute a robbery suspect is a Fourth Amendment search, and therefore requires a warrant, because CSLI reveals ‘a wealth of locational information both historic and contemporaneous.’The flip side is Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v.Leads Beautiful Struggle v served as the plaintiff in that lawsuit, which challenged Baltimore Police Department’s aerial surveillance program that used a drone to record public movements across Baltimore.titutional principles to modern technology in the realm of digital privacy and surveillance.

On the contrary, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. In Baltimore Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle sued the Baltimore Police Department over its police department’s aerial surveillance program, which recorded movements of the public in the city of  Baltimore (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. (Baltimore Police Department, 2020). The Fourth Circuit found that the Fourth Amendment was violated by this extensive surveillance because, after all, the residents had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

In both cases the tension between public safety interests and individual privacy rights to technology driven data gathering by the law enforcement without traditional warrants reflects. Here we come to geo-fence warrant, allowing law enforcement to collect information about devices located within a specified geographic area, at a specified time, something that will raise great privacy concerns.

Given these cases, how would you advise a client who was concerned about mass searches of electronic devices and the use of DNA given to genealogy sites?  What about law enforcement using Forensic Genetic Genealogy Searches to solve crimes; should this be permitted?  

ADVISING CLIENTS ON DIGITAL PRIVACY AND DNA USAGE

• Inform clients about their LSTD 510 8-1 Discussion: This research centers around Search And Seizure, digital privacy rights and the need for warrants when seeking electronic data.
• Examine the possible advantages and privacy hazards of applying genome from the ancestry sites to criminal analysis.

Example

Clients concerned that the police might search their electronic devices, or use DNA-based analyses of the increasing number of publicly accessible genealogy sites, should know that they have the right to digital privacy and legal protections against unneeded searches. Forensic genetic genealogy should be understood, both how it can aid in solving crimes and its privacy ramifications, and what its crime solving potential is.

What major theories or practices from allied fields (e.g., healthcare, public policy, psychology, sciences, sociology, technology, etc.) might relate to this inquiry about DNA and the law? How can such data be used to help courts understand as they work on cases involving this evolving topic?Has your state enacted any laws to stop, or permit, such use of DNA? If available, provide data about how the residents of this state feel about this topic.

RELATED THEORIES AND STATE LAWS

• Discuss LSTD 510 8-1 Discussion: Search And Seizure interdisciplinary insights from healthcare and technology that will inform the legal understanding of DNA usage.

• Come to understand about research and summarize your state’s laws on using DNA in law enforcement.

• Please provide data about what people are thinking about these laws if data is available.

Example

As DNA’s role in law enforcement evolves, the insights into healthcare, public policy, and technology need to be interdisciplinary. The ethical considerations in healthcare result in strong DNA data protection (Oosthuizen & Howes, 2022). Technological advances in genetic analysis need adaptive legislative response and public policy guides that evolution. These insights can be used by courts to make sense of complex DNA related cases, so that decisions reflect up to date understandings and societal values. 

Recently legislation has been enforced by law enforcement agencies to monitor DNA. Laws went so far as for the Liberty State Legislature, which passed legislation requiring a court order for law enforcement to obtain DNA DNA samples from genealogy databases and strictly limiting access to genetic information. The bill was passed in response to rising fears about the growing ‘genetic surveillance’ and worry over privacy and ethical issues. A state wide poll was conducted to test public opinion on this proposed law, and 70% of Liberty’s residents said that they agree with this new law as they believe that added privacy protection should be in place. But 30 percent expressed concerns those restrictions also could hamper law enforcement from being able to effectively solve crimes. The public opinion is shaped by nuance, as the majority of whom value their genetic privacy and substantial minority expressing their desire for public safety and crime solving capabilities.

If you could change the federal or state constitution, how you would alter it to address this matter better?  Be sure to identify what exactly you would change, and provide the specific language that you would use.  Document how and why you would do so, and articulate how your analysis here influenced the specific language that you chose for your proposed change.

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE

• Write precise language for an amendment that protects us from breaches to digital and genetic privacy.

• Explain  LSTD 510 8-1 Discussion: In Search And Seizure, analyze cases how and why you propose these changes?

  Example

To enhance constitutional clarity on digital and genetic privacy, I propose an amendment to federal and state constitutions: This Constitution declares that all of a person’s digital data and genetic information is private. No such data can be accessed by any government entity without a warrant based upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the data to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The amendment intends to protect specifically digital and genetic data against government reach not authorized by a warrant, extending previous Fourth Amendment protection to the data of the moment.

REFERENCES

Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. (2018). Justia Law. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/16-402/ 

Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, No. 20-1495. (2020). Justia Law. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/20-1495/20-1495-2020-11-05.html 

Oosthuizen, T., & Howes, L. M. (2022). The development of forensic DNA analysis: New debates on the issue of fundamental human rights. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 56, 102606. 

In the next module of  LSTD 510 8-2 Research Paper: The Jury Selection Process And Constitutional Law.