ABSTRACT The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution functions as a shield against excess governmental or police power by prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. Since its ratification, legal challenges have tempered this shield by frequently disputing the application of investigative processes and tools, including those that bypass the traditional – and simpler – analysis that focused on physical trespass. But recent technological advancements have prompted novel challenges and have forced the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt a parallel inquiry that evaluates society’s expectations of privacy as an alternate path to invoke the Fourth Amendment’s protections apart from any physical trespass. As revolutionary technology continues to present unique issues, this 200-year-old shield manifests a reflective luster as if polished by years of legal discourse that reveals the priorities of those who would interpret its text. Viewing the Fourth Amendment’s shield as a mirror illustrates not only the thoughts of the drafters that revolved primarily around protecting property interests but also the expectations of modern society with its insistence on promoting privacy. And where the drafters channeled their outrage against the loathsome writs of assistance in colonial times, later Americans continued to denounce the similarly invasive general warrants and attempts by investigators to expand the tools in their arsenal beyond constitutional bounds, especially in the surveillance context. Yet, the problems posed by new technology upon privacy concerns are best resolved by relying on the core principles supporting the Fourth Amendment, previous U.S. Supreme Court precedent, and current societal perspectives regarding privacy as a top priority proven by recently enacted legislation both foreign and domestic. By applying a similar method to address advancing communication technology and its use as a surveillance tool in Carpenter v. United States, the Court turned this shield-become-mirror upon society to conclude that cell phone location information deserves Fourth Amendment protection because of its untiring comprehensiveness and its uniquely detailed nature. Moreover, nearly every American adult carries a cell phone with them almost all the time, making it possible to create a time-stamped map of any cell-phone-carrying-individual’s movements reaching back years and years. Unfortunately, the Carpenter Court did not extend this crucial protection far enough to protect all cell phone location data, and the unmistakable gap in its holding leaves a potential privacy vulnerability the exploitation of which could cause greater harm than all previously disputed surveillance technology combined because of cell phone usage’s general – near universal – applicability. Allowing cell phone location information to be obtained without probable cause and a proper search warrant not only fails to meet the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, it also begins to tarnish that shield such that it no longer reflects historical or current societal values, reducing its goal of protecting Americans to a hollow incantation of words left to languish as time (and technology) marches on.

中文翻译：

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太大而无法监视：在关注隐私的后木匠世界中，由“现代灯光”照亮并由 obsta principiis 遮蔽的第四修正案

摘要 美国宪法第四修正案通过禁止不合理的搜查和扣押，起到了抵御过度政府或警察权力的作用。自批准以来，法律挑战通过频繁地对调查过程和工具的应用提出争议，从而削弱了这一盾牌，包括那些绕过专注于物理侵入的传统且更简单的分析。但最近的技术进步引发了新的挑战，并迫使美国最高法院采用平行调查，评估社会对隐私的期望，作为除任何身体侵犯之外援引第四修正案保护的替代途径。随着革命性技术不断提出独特的问题，这个有 200 年历史的盾牌显示出反射的光泽，仿佛被多年的法律话语擦亮，揭示了那些解释其文本的人的优先事项。将第四修正案的盾牌视为一面镜子，不仅说明了起草者主要围绕保护财产利益的思想，也说明了现代社会对促进隐私的坚持的期望。在起草者对殖民时代令人厌恶的援助令状表达愤怒的地方，后来的美国人继续谴责调查人员试图将其武器库中的工具扩大到宪法范围之外的类似侵入性一般授权和企图，尤其是在监视背景下。然而，新技术对隐私问题带来的问题最好依靠支持第四修正案的核心原则、美国最高法院以前的判例以及最近颁布的国内外立法证明的将隐私作为首要任务的当前社会观点来解决。通过在 Carpenter v. United States 案中应用类似的方法来解决先进的通信技术及其作为监视工具的使用问题，法院将这种盾牌变成了社会的镜子，得出结论，手机位置信息值得第四修正案保护，因为它不厌其烦。全面性及其独特的详细性质。此外，几乎每个美国成年人几乎都随身携带手机，使创建任何携带手机的个人活动的时间戳地图成为可能，这些活动可以追溯到几年前。不幸的是，Carpenter Court 并未将这一关键保护措施扩展到足以保护所有手机位置数据的程度，而且其持有的明显差距留下了潜在的隐私漏洞，利用该漏洞可能会造成比所有先前有争议的监视技术加起来更大的伤害，因为手机使用的一般——近乎普遍——适用性。允许在没有可能原因的情况下获取手机位置信息和适当的搜查令不仅不符合第四修正案的精神，而且还开始玷污了这一盾牌，使其不再反映历史或当前的社会价值，