However:
> They have access to things like cellphone metadata, which to a normal human being is a very clear violation of privacy.
In the U.S., when you study 4th Amendment law in Criminal Procedure, you learn there is a "third party doctrine" that says that if you voluntarily provide a third party with information--even information you consider private-it's the third party's property and you can no longer object to it being sought by the Government. There's a good overview of this on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
The Supreme Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine to tracking one's location via cell-phone metadata in Carpenter v. U.S., 585 U.S. 296 (2018), so it's not absolute.
> The Supreme Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine to tracking one's location via cell-phone metadata in Carpenter v. U.S., 585 U.S. 296 (2018), so it's not absolute.
In other words, principles are law -- in the US, whatever the principles of 9 judges at a given time, because they are the final arbiter of what anything written down by Congress means. "Third-party doctrine" is not law as written by Congress, it is something the Supreme Court made up out of thin air according to their principles. And these principles are not binding; a later panel of judges is free to throw out the rulings of older judges if they decide their principles differ, as famously happened to Roe v. Wade among other cases.
The government can now partner with private businesses to effectively bypass the Fourth Amendment.
If it were a violation, Courts could enjoin it. But since it's not a violation, there's nothing to enjoin.
It's almost like HN isn't a court and the OP was expressing their opinion that this should be illegal. . . Not relying on specific semantics for the current state of affairs?
HN is a forum of written communications. Clarity and accuracy are essential skills for participating effectively in such places, and are the responsibility of the author.
Are you trying to argue that people shouldn’t be taken at their word? Or that we shouldn’t challenge people who make unqualified legal assertions? I’m not sure what your point is.
We all know that the actual interpretation is up to 5 republicans on the supreme court and whatever they feel on a given day will increase their side's power/ideology.
No one is going to be making arguments about that because there's no point, you can't logic someone out of a position that they didn't use logic to get to in the first place.
So again, when someone on a forum says "this is wrong and something should be done about it" replying that it might technically be legal at this moment in time is incredibly useless. It's completely missing the point.
If that had been what was said, we wouldn’t even be here.
You have the roles and responsibilities exactly backwards.
Very well said. While the legal system's details are important for a few avenues of effecting change, they're often used to bog down conversions into "what is" territory rather than staying focused on "what ought". And "what ought", based on the ideals laid out in our country's founding documents, is very different from "what is" in the modern day.