The Supreme Court Can’t Save Digital Privacy

Carrying a smartphone, it’s hard to get lost. But the connection works both ways: If you can always find your location, you can always be found. That simple equation was at issue in this week’s Supreme Court decision in Chatrie v. United States. The justices decided, correctly, that the Constitution protects the privacy of the location data our phones constantly transmit. Still, the opinion has a whistling-past-the-graveyard quality, a struggle to find legal protection for what technology has al