Julian Sanchez:

They're calling it a tweak.

Yet those four little words would make a huge difference.

Rebecca Brock:

People say to me, "Whatever it takes." I tell them, It's going to take everything.

Sanchez:

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has argued, such broad authority would not only raise enormous privacy concerns but have profound implications for First Amendment speech and association interests.

Decius:

Man, what a great time to be alive!

Julian Sanchez:

They're calling it a tweak.

Yet those four little words would make a huge difference.

I can see both sides of this dispute. It really boils down to what you think the scope of the term is. I tend to agree that the term ought to be clearly defined, and that is part of the problem. Congress will need to wade into this water and clearly regulate what kinds of electronic transactional records are available without court review.

A very good example is locational information from the cellular phone system. The FBI wants it without a warrant, some courts have argued that a warrant would be required. This change may push the argument in the FBI's favor.

The fact is that we're going to need to see some limit on warrantless collection of transactional information if we're going to maintain some semblance of a right against unreasonable privacy intrusions in a world where everything that we do is constantly being recorded by computers.