Today’s most popular online services collect vast troves of information about their users. As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt once put it in 2010, “With your permission, you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches. We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” While services such as Google and Facebook remain popular among Americans, their collection of personal information prompts an understandable sense of unease, not least because law enforcement agencies at the state, local, and federal level analyze “Big Data” while conducting surveillance. Unfortunately, the state of 4th Amendment jurisprudence leaves much to be desired.
Congress can make reforms to address “Big Data” concerns, but these reforms should be carefully tailored to ensure that Americans are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government without hampering growth and innovation in America’s technology sector.