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Paul Ohm

@paulohm.bsky.social

2.4K followers 187 following 12 posts

Lawprof Georgetown / Emacs and org-mode

Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

To my surprise, Chatrie is only the second time the word "panopticon" has appeared in a Supreme Court opinion. The first was in the should-have-been-the-majority dissent by Justice Scalia in Maryland v. King.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Big day for "panopticon" watchers. I predict that the "virtual panopticon" test will become new shorthand for Chatrie/Carpenter. Does the system of private surveillance create a V.P.? Both concurrences point to that phrase as a key to the test.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Second, Justice Barrett, I'm disappointed about your take on Carpenter but I'm encouraged by the parts of Justice Alito's dissent you didn't agree to join. Third, Justice Gorsuch (who famously dissented in Carpenter), glad you found your way to turn that dissent into a concurrence!

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

And there were many surprises in store in Chatrie about the post-Carpenter justices: First. Justice Kavanagh! Welcome to the pro-privacy supermajority! I didn't see your vote/stance coming!

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Kagan's two most important moves in Chatrie to shore up Carpenter (after a quick skim): 1. Forget mosaic theory nonsense. Two-hours of location tracking is enough for a search. 2. "Consent" on a smartphone is a contradiction in terms. Part II(D) will have a life beyond the Fourth Amendment.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Second, Justice Kagan's Chatrie opinion shores up Carpenter. Notwithstanding many arguments by the US and scholars like Orin Kerr, Carpenter says what it means and means what it says.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

First, and most significantly, the Court in Chatrie got it right! Geofence warrants are searches subject to the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Privacy wins!

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

*Tap Tap* Is this thing on? I'm going to post for the second time ever, to respond to today's landmark Chatrie ruling from the Supreme Court.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Posted at precisely the same minute as yours: bsky.app/profile/paul...

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

I'm not enough of a 1st Amendment scholar to weigh in so early on Paxton, but because Reno v. ACLU was decided at the end of my 1L year and first sparked my interest in internet law, it seems fitting to mark the day that the court held that Reno's "Internet" is no longer today's internet.

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

I concluded: "But as one who has long argued that the data surveillance activities of private social media companies create significant and meaningful risks of concrete harm, I'm adding this to Carpenter/Riley/Jones as proof that a supermajority of the current court agrees!"

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Paul Ohm @paulohm.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

A good moment to post for the first time. As I just said on a listserv: Tiktok "is the most pro-data-privacy/pro-data-protection opinion the Supreme Court has ever issued! Now given the track record, maybe that's not saying a lot. And given the unusual context, who knows what can be made of this?"

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