Chatrie v. United States · ¶40

The question presented in Carpenter was “whether the Government conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment when it accesses historical cell phone records that provide a comprehensive chronicle of the user’s past movements.” 585 U. S., at 300. The cell-phone records at issue were what is known as cell-site location information (CSLI). As we explained, CSLI is a “time-stamped record” generated each time a cell phone connects to a cell site. Id., at 301. Wireless carriers collect and store that information for their own business purposes (such as finding weak spots in their networks). But CSLI can also benefit law enforcement, because it identifies an individual’s approximate location every time his phone makes a connection. In Car penter, police officers investigating a string of Radio Shack robberies ordered a wireless carrier of a known suspect to turn over his CSLI records for a…

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