PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

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Is the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine Dead?

Originally posted on Substack Yesterday, I edited Chatrie v. United States (2026) for my casebook, INFORMATION PRIVACY LAW, which Paul Schwartz and I are in the process of updating right now. The U.S. Supreme Court held that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in geolocation data obtained via a geofencing warrant (which compels a company to turn […]

Are Warrants Enough?

Originally posted on Substack This year, in Chatrie v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether geofence warrants are valid under the Fourth Amendment. The geofence warrant at issue in the case was one that allowed the government to obtain account data from Google of hundreds of millions of users. It’s the equivalent to […]

Privacy in Authoritarian Times: Surveillance Capitalism and Government Surveillance – Final Published Version

I’m very excited to share with you the final published version of my article, Privacy in Authoritarian Times: Surveillance Capitalism and Government Surveillance, 67 Boston College Law Review 51 (2026).  You can download the article for free on SSRN.

Privacy in Authoritarian Times

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I just published an op-ed in the Boston Globe entitled “States can fight authoritarianism by shoring up privacy laws.” Boston Globe (Dec. 23, 2024). It’s paywalled, but I’m allowed to repost it, so here it is below. I’m working on a law review article on this topic, and I hope to have a draft in the […]

Full Text of My Book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY

I’m delighted to announce that I have posted the full text of my book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY (Yale University Press 2011) on SSRN for free. With the press’s permission, I’m posting the entire book on SSRN, free for personal use. Students assigned the book for a class may […]

Top 10 Privacy Law Developments of the Decade 2010-2019

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It is an understatement to say that a lot has happened in privacy law during the past decade. Here is my list of the most notable developments. NOTE: I am giving a particular emphasis to what I find to be notable from a United States perspective.  What is notable privacy law depends upon where one […]

The Supreme Court on Smart Phones: An Interview of Bart Huffman about Law and Technology

The U.S. Supreme Court has been notoriously slow to tackle new technology. In 2002, Blackberry launched its first smart phone. On June 29, 2007, Steve Jobs announced the launch of the original Apple iPhone. But it took the Supreme Court until 2014 to decide a case involving the Fourth Amendment and smart phones – Riley […]

Carpenter v. United States, Cell Phone Location Records, and the Third Party Doctrine

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The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision in Carpenter v. United States, an important Fourth Amendment case that was eagerly awaited by many. The decision was widely cheered as a breakthrough in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence — hailed as a “landmark privacy case” and a “major victory for digital privacy [link no longer available].”  In the NY […]

10 Reasons Why the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine Should Be Overruled in Carpenter v. US

10 Reasons to Overrule the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine

The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing arguments this week in Carpenter v. United States, which is one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases before the Court.  The case involves whether the Third Party Doctrine will remain viable.  If so, the Fourth Amendment will fade into obsolescence in today’s digital age. In this post, […]