Speaking of Privacy Rignts

The most right wing, and most batsh%$ insane circuit of the federal courts, the 5th Circuit, just got one right, ruling that geofencing warrants are unconstitutional.

These warrants use our digital devices to allow authorities to track everyone in a specific area without specific suspicion of any crimes.

It appears that a stopped clock and the 5th Circuit, can be right twice a day:

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that geofence warrants, which are used to identify all users or devices in a geographic area, are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

The ruling was issued by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which is generally regarded as the most conservative appeals court. The 5th Circuit holding creates a circuit split with the 4th Circuit, which last month rejected a different Fourth Amendment challenge to geofence warrants.

"This court 'cannot forgive the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the name of law enforcement.' Accordingly, we hold that geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment," the August 9 ruling from the 5th Circuit said.

The case, United States v. Smith, involves three Mississippi men convicted of a 2018 armed robbery of a mail truck. Despite ruling geofence warrants to be unconstitutional, the 5th Circuit denied the convicts' motion to suppress evidence because "law enforcement acted in good faith in relying on this type of warrant."

"We hold that geofence warrants are modern-day general warrants and are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. However, considering law enforcement's reasonable conduct in this case in light of the novelty of this type of warrant, we uphold the district court's determination that suppression was unwarranted under the good-faith exception," the court said.

The term "General warrants," is a term that hearkens back to the revolutionary war, when customs agents of the British Crown were issued, "General writs of assistance," which allowed them to search anywhere at any time without evidence of crimes.

General warrants are specifically forbidden under the language of the 4th Amendment, specifically the phrase, "No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."

It can be further determined from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which preceeded and informed the writing of the 4th Amendment, which specifically says, "That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted."

Unfortunately, the court ruled against excluding the evidence, because the officers in question used, "Good faith," but it does mean that any future evidence acquired through geofence warrants in the future would be excluded, because any future searches would not be in good faith by definition.

I don't think that this will survive Supreme Court review, which I think is inevitable, since different circuits now have different precedents on the matter.

Even the so-called liberals on the court tend to be overly solicitous to the surveillance-industrial complex.