Third party doctrine is a gaping hole in privacy in the age of cell phones and the web

Cops, Cellphones and Privacy at the Supreme Court

The Times' Editorial Board.

[The third party doctrine] was developed in the 1970s and holds that people have no expectation of privacy when information has been voluntarily shared with a third party, like a cellphone service provider.

. . . .

What should the Supreme Court do when a decades-old doctrine from the age of rotary-dial phones and Yellow Pages stops making sense in the face of rapid, unforeseen technological advances?

The answer is to revise it, if not throw it out altogether.

This would not involve reliance on the idea of a Living Constitution, since the amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and changing technology changes what is or is not unreasonable.

As, precisely, in this case.