Supreme Court ruling guts government’s use of geofence warrants

美国最高法院裁决：政府使用“地理围栏搜查令”受限

The Fourth Amendment protects a user’s “location history,” the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The same logic already applied to a cellphone’s tracking, and the high court found “no good reason exists to reach a different result for Location History” collected by third parties like Google. 美国最高法院周一裁定，宪法第四修正案保护用户的“位置历史记录”。最高法院认为，既然该逻辑已适用于手机追踪，那么对于谷歌等第三方收集的“位置历史记录”，也“没有充分理由得出不同的结论”。

Split 6-3, the majority agreed that the government needs a warrant and must show reasonable cause to turn a phone’s location-tracking services into a government surveillance tool. The decision came in a case where cops used so-called geofence warrants to track down an armed bank robber from a list of all phones logged in the area. 最高法院以 6 比 3 的投票结果裁定，政府若要将手机的位置追踪服务转变为政府监控工具，必须获得搜查令并证明存在合理理由。此案源于警方使用所谓的“地理围栏搜查令”，通过获取该区域内所有手机的登录记录来追踪一名武装银行劫匪。

Applying a three-part process, cops worked with Google to narrow down the list of suspects and eventually arrested Okello Chatrie, who had opted in to share his location with Google every few minutes. Chatrie was sentenced to 12 years in prison but challenged the geofence warrant as an unconstitutional search. 警方通过三步流程与谷歌合作，缩小了嫌疑人名单，最终逮捕了 Okello Chatrie。Chatrie 此前曾选择每隔几分钟与谷歌共享一次位置信息。Chatrie 被判处 12 年监禁，但他对地理围栏搜查令提出质疑，认为这属于违宪搜查。

The US tried and failed to argue that no search was conducted under the Fourth Amendment, partly because they only searched a little bit of Chatrie’s location data, which the government considered too small to warrant privacy protections. They also claimed that Chatrie was aware that voluntarily sharing his location with Google could mean that law enforcement might get access to the data. And along similar lines, the government argued that Chatrie’s data simply showed his movements in public, where he supposedly had no reasonable expectation of privacy. 美国政府试图辩称此举不构成第四修正案下的“搜查”，但未获支持。政府理由之一是他们仅搜查了 Chatrie 的少量位置数据，认为数据量太小，不足以触发隐私保护。政府还声称，Chatrie 应当意识到自愿与谷歌共享位置可能意味着执法部门能够获取这些数据。此外，政府还辩称，Chatrie 的数据仅显示了他在公共场所的行踪，而他在公共场所本不应享有合理的隐私预期。

However, Justice Elena Kagan, penning the majority opinion, said it didn’t matter how much data the government obtained. It was still a search under the Fourth Amendment because people carrying cellphones today commonly opt in to location-tracking, so that their apps work. 然而，撰写多数意见书的埃琳娜·卡根（Elena Kagan）大法官表示，政府获取的数据量多少并不重要。这仍然属于第四修正案下的搜查，因为当今携带手机的人们通常为了让应用程序正常运行而选择开启位置追踪。

“Google repeatedly prompts users to turn on the service, often warning that devices will not ‘work correctly’ otherwise, while not disclosing in that prompt how frequently users’ location information would be recorded, how precise it would be, or how it might be given to the government,” the majority agreed. 多数派一致认为：“谷歌反复提示用户开启该服务，并经常警告称否则设备将无法‘正常工作’，但在提示中并未披露用户的地理位置信息会被记录得多么频繁、精度有多高，或者这些信息可能会如何被提供给政府。”

Much like carrying a cellphone is part of modern life, so is allowing a third party to track your movements, and that doesn’t diminish a person’s right to privacy, the majority ruled. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that “even short-term monitoring” of where a person has been can reveal “a wealth of detail about [his] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations”—particularly if he’s seen visiting a sensitive location, like a clinic, an attorney’s office, or a strip club. 多数派裁定，正如携带手机是现代生活的一部分一样，允许第三方追踪行踪也是如此，但这并不会削弱个人的隐私权。索尼娅·索托马约尔（Sonia Sotomayor）大法官指出，“即使是短期的监控”也能揭示一个人“关于其家庭、政治、职业、宗教和性取向关联的丰富细节”——特别是如果他被发现访问了敏感地点，如诊所、律师事务所或脱衣舞俱乐部。

“An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company,” Kagan wrote. 卡根写道：“个人对其手机位置记录拥有合理的隐私预期，当警方要求获取这些信息时，即使只是在有限时间内且从第三方科技公司获取，也侵犯了受宪法保护的利益。”

Privacy advocates cheered the ruling, even though it “stopped short of striking down these warrants as inherently unconstitutional,” the surveillance litigation director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Andrew Crocker, said in a statement provided to Ars. “We applaud the Court’s decision,” Crocker said. “The Court reaffirmed that you have an expectation of privacy in location data that reveals your movements in the physical world, and that even short-term surveillance of these movements is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment.” 隐私倡导者对这一裁决表示欢迎，尽管电子前沿基金会（EFF）的监控诉讼主任安德鲁·克罗克（Andrew Crocker）在提供给 Ars 的声明中表示，该裁决“并未直接宣布此类搜查令本质上违宪”。克罗克说：“我们为法院的决定鼓掌。法院重申，对于揭示你在物理世界中行踪的位置数据，你拥有隐私预期；即使是对这些行踪的短期监控，也属于受第四修正案约束的搜查。”

Tech companies also moved to support the ruling. Matt Schruers is CEO of a trade association that counts Google and Apple among members, the Computer & Communications Industry Association. In a statement, he celebrated the ruling for clarifying that “the Fourth Amendment fully protects people’s rights to privacy from government intrusion.” 科技公司也纷纷支持这一裁决。计算机与通信行业协会（CCIA）的首席执行官马特·施鲁尔斯（Matt Schruers）表示，该协会成员包括谷歌和苹果。他在一份声明中称赞该裁决明确了“第四修正案充分保护人们的隐私权免受政府侵犯”。

“We are encouraged to see the Court recognize that privacy interests persist regardless of the technology involved, and that law enforcement must seek judicial authorization to obtain Americans’ geolocation information,” Schruers said. 施鲁尔斯表示：“我们很高兴看到法院认识到，无论涉及何种技术，隐私利益始终存在，且执法部门必须寻求司法授权才能获取美国人的地理位置信息。”

Dissent argued for app-by-app basis

异议意见：主张应基于“逐个应用”进行评估

Most justices agreed that a common standard that the Fourth Amendment applies to all location history was necessary to avoid future court battles that could potentially draw different lines between different apps and phone features. Kagan suggested that in arguing for an app-by-app basis, the government was trying to “disconnect the activities people do on their cell phones from the mere act of carrying a turned-on cell phone,” with “only the latter receiving assured Fourth Amendment protection.” 多数大法官认为，有必要建立一个适用于所有位置历史记录的统一标准，即第四修正案的适用性，以避免未来可能因不同应用和手机功能而产生法律界限模糊的诉讼。卡根指出，政府主张“逐个应用”评估，是试图“将人们在手机上的活动与仅仅携带开机手机的行为割裂开来”，并认为“只有后者才能获得第四修正案的明确保护”。

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the majority had destabilized longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. He suggested that an app-by-app basis would have been appropriate, while warning against rushing to judge “new technologies” that “we barely understand.” 塞缪尔·阿利托（Samuel Alito）大法官在异议意见书中写道，多数派的裁决动摇了长期以来的第四修正案判例法。他认为“逐个应用”的评估方式更为妥当，并警告称不要急于对“我们几乎不了解”的“新技术”进行评判。

According to Alito, the majority announced a “new rule” that will “unleash” “upheaval” in Fourth Amendment law, requiring that “the police must obtain a warrant every time they access any cell-phone location information from a third party, however brief the duration, however innocuous the request, and however voluntarily that information was disclosed by the user.” 阿利托认为，多数派宣布了一项“新规则”，这将在第四修正案法律中“引发”“动荡”。该规则要求“警方每次从第三方获取任何手机位置信息时，都必须获得搜查令，无论时间多么短暂、请求多么无害，也无论用户是多么自愿地披露了这些信息。”

“One is left wondering on which side of the line location data from a mobile-payment service like Apple Pay falls,” Alito wrote in a footnote. But Kagan said the majority agreed that “the point of carrying smartphones is to use what is on them.” 阿利托在脚注中写道：“人们不禁要问，像 Apple Pay 这样的移动支付服务产生的位置数据属于哪一类？”但卡根表示，多数派一致认为，“携带智能手机的目的就是为了使用其中的功能。”

“A cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do,” Kagan wrote. She further suggested that Alito and the government were misapprehending “the very nature of modern cellphone use.” According to Alito, the Supreme Court never should have taken up the case, because settling this legal question… 卡根写道：“手机用户仅仅因为做了手机用户通常会做的事情，就不应被视为与第三方共享了私人信息，进而导致这些信息可以被随意传递给政府。”她进一步指出，阿利托和政府误解了“现代手机使用的本质”。阿利托则认为，最高法院根本不应该受理此案，因为解决这一法律问题……