Kozinski: The Fourth Amendment Is Dying, and We Are the Killers
The Fourth Amendment is “all but obsolete” in a world where corporations track our store purchases, online companies save our account information, and smartphones reveal our geographic location.
That’s the conclusion of Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He and his law clerk, Stephanie Grace, mourn the passing of the Fourth Amendment in an op-ed for The Daily. Blogger Kashmir Hill notes the “eulogy” at The Not-So Private Parts and Above the Law.
Kozinski and Grace argue that we have lost our expectation of privacy because we’ve revealed so much. “You’re the murderer,” they write. “We all are.”
“Where police officers once needed a warrant to search your bookshelf for Atlas Shrugged, they can now simply ask Amazon.com if you bought it,” they write. “Where police needed probable cause before seizing your day planner, they can now piece together your whereabouts from your purchases, cellphone data and car’s GPS.
“Someday soon we’ll realize that we’ve lost everything we once cherished as private,” they conclude. “And as we grieve the loss of the Fourth Amendment, we’ll be forced to look deep in our hearts—and at the little pieces of plastic dangling from our keychains—and ask ourselves if it was all worth it. R.I.P.”
