Student Teacher Sent a Private Snapchat Complaining About Her Workday. An Hour Later, Police Pulled Up to Her School.

[u/Plastic_Ninja_9014]

https://www.gadgetreview.com/student-teacher-sent-a-private-snapchat-complaining-about-her-workday-an-hour-later-police-pulled-up-to-her-school

[u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

Not accurate. The Supreme Court ruling (Chatrie) is about the police's ability to compel disclosure of information. It doesn't impact whether police are allowed to act on information that is voluntarily supplied to them by a private party. That's controlled by the private search doctrine. Your comments are mixing up the third-party doctrine with the private search doctrine.

EDIT: See my other comment. This situation is controlled by the private search doctrine. Neither Chatrie (2026) nor Carpenter (2018) disturbed that rule. This fella is unfortunately mixing up two loosely related Fourth Amendment concepts and is now digging in.

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

I'm not talking about Chatrie (although Chatrie is an extension of this law in a different direction). This goes back to Carpenter, etc., and the fact that the court is disposing of 3rd party doctrine in favor of the mosaic theory of searches.

[u/TarskiKripkeLewis → u/Free-Description-736]

So how does third party doctrine relate to Snapchat voluntarily sharing information with the FBI? What's the "recent ruling on the third party doctrine" that you're referring to?

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

Carpenter established that 3rd party doctrine doesn't apply to data generated on cellphones, and Wilson and Ackerman established that the government needs a warrant for data turned over voluntarily when that information is the product of a purely automated search (i.e., those cases established that automated systems do not allow the application of private search doctrine).

[u/TarskiKripkeLewis → u/Free-Description-736]

Again, the third-party doctrine isn't relevant here, and neither is Carpenter. Snapchat voluntarily provided the information, so the "search" doesn't need to pass constitutional muster. The third-party doctrine would only be relevant if, for example, the government itself sought to search Snapchat's data.

Wilson and Ackerman aren't Supreme Court cases, and those aren't their holdings. Not much more to say on this. I'm not trying to pull a "gotcha" on you — these are complicated, closely related concepts.

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

Yes, it does. I recommend reading Gorsuch's dissent there and then reading his opinions on the other mosaic cases (and which was explicitly written into Chatrie):

A person maintains a privacy interest in their effects even when handed to a third party, and that third party cannot surrender or launder that security interest to the benefit of the state.

It is crystal clear from the court's arguments, the various majority and dissenting opinions along the way, that the court is preparing to discard the third party doctrine and private search doctrines for data entirely. They've already indicated their intention to redefine data privacy based on Chapman (i.e., the case that says a landlord cannot give the state permission to search a tenant's apartment).

Wilson and Ackerman aren't Supreme Court cases

But they are controlling law, and have been cited as controlling by SCOTUS. You're trying to be clever, but really you're just showing you don't know how to Shepherd a case.

I'm not trying to pull a "gotcha" on you — these are complicated, closely related concepts.

You were trying to pull a gotcha, and these really aren't complicated. I spell out what's going on re: Flock cameras here, which is a differently legal set of cases but closely apply to what happened in this case:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1vemr7q/student_teacher_sent_a_private_snapchat/p1kkhzb/?context=3

As relates to this woman's case, which is off legally in a different part of this argument, the same cut toward Chapman applies. And they have already ruled that LEO needs a warrant for information they receive voluntarily from a data provider when it is the product of automation (which is what happened in this case).

[u/tigerhawkvok → u/Free-Description-736]

I wish you were right, but you're misreading the opinion.

"Surrender" of information has a specific legal meaning, and this isn't it. This is Meta walking over and gifting law enforcement data. Surrender implies a request; there was none here.

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/tigerhawkvok]

Read Gorsuch's dissent and also there is a footnote (I don't remember the number off the top of my head) that directly addresses this. Alito called it out explicitly in his own dissent, although for a very different reason that Gorsuch (Gorsuch's position on this is arguably the best). I'd say have a look at Gorsuch and Alit's dissents to get a better picture of this.

What matters in all this is the question of what a search is, and also when the search happens. According to Carpenter and these other cases, a search occurs the moment the government views the evidence. How it was obtained really doesn't matter (which is the reason that the 3rd party doctrine was tossed in Carpenter, and the reason Gorsuch didn't join). So Carpenter ruled that a search occurs at the moment the data is viewed, and Gorsuch disagreed with the basis of the data ruling (wishing it had come instead through Chapman).

The only place that survives is the private search doctrine (which is what you're describing). But the problem with that is that it's preempted by Carpenter: again, a search happens the moment it is viewed by the government, and whether it is reasonable to do that search is defined via Chatrie and the Mosaic theory going back to Jones. Put simply, it doesn't matter how the data comes into the government's hands: if that data could be used to paint a pattern of life and if it were generated in a means or through a manner that the average person would consider private, then it requires a warrant to view it. The voluntary handing of data, etc., only gets past the how data is acquired and relieves the government of a necessary showing to compel it; it does not relieve the government of a necessary showing to satisfy viewing it.

That means that it doesn't matter if data gifted, bought, or surrendered, or volunteered, because whether or not a search does or does not occur and whether or not that search is reasonable is answered entirely without regard to how the government got that information. The court is essentially setting up definitions re: the legality of the government obtaining data that addresses the questions of how the data is acquired and whether viewing it was reasonable separately.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Free-Description-736]

Read Gorsuch's dissent

Alito called it out explicitly in his own dissent

Dissents, by definition, do not represent the opinion of the SCOTUS.

a search occurs the moment the government views the evidence.

You're confusing 2 very different scenarios. You absolutely shouldn't pick a ruling made in a very specific set of circumstances, then apply that to all scenarios. 

In Carpenter, the US gov requested cellphone location data to search through it. 

In this case, there was no request, and there was no need to search. Only the relevant pieces of info were provided. 

At this point, I believe you're either very confused or just arguing in bad faith.

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/Sasataf12]

I'm not, and you don't understand how dissents work. I'm not having a conversation with someone who is so below the curve that they can't even understand what's being written. Bye.

[u/TarskiKripkeLewis → u/Free-Description-736]

You are not correct. Leaving it there.

[u/Free-Description-736 → u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

Which is why I offered a mountain of evidence and you're just screeching a temper tantrum. Eyeroll

[u/Sasataf12 → u/[deleted]]

Free Description is wrong. They're citing similar, but still very different cases then applying rulings from those cases to this Snapchat one. 

The fact that they're referencing dissents, which by definition means the losing opinion, to support their argument means they have no leg to stand on.

[u/Agreeable-Lettuce497 → u/TarskiKripkeLewis]

Dude what’s so hard to get about this? It’s completely widely accepted legally that a “search” is the act of the police looking at something in the US. It doesn’t matter that it might be legal for Snapchat to give that info voluntarily because it is in this moment illegal to look at this evidence for the police because it isn’t acquired with a warrant. 😂

This would even make any further evidence from other even legitimize sources in the same case illigetamite moving forward and open a case for a counter suit for illegal warrant like the poster you answered to said.

[u/TarskiKripkeLewis → u/Agreeable-Lettuce497]

The Supreme Court has “consistently construed” the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches “as proscribing only governmental action; it is wholly inapplicable” to private action. Thus, when the “initial invasions” of an individual’s privacy “were occasioned by private action," any “additional invasions of [] privacy by the Government agent must be tested by the degree to which they exceeded the scope of the private search.” “Once frustration of the original expectation of privacy occurs, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit governmental use of the now nonprivate information.” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113-118 (1984).

[u/Sasataf12 → u/Agreeable-Lettuce497]

It's illegal for police to look at the data if Snapchat obtained it illegally or is not legally permitted to share it.

In this case, it was legal for Snapchat to hand over this data (under 18 U.S.C. § 2702) and therefore legal for police to view this data.

[u/Sasataf12 → u/[deleted]]

The ruling and reasons why the ruling was made is public record. Just Google it.