Digital age privacy questions need answers

That was obvious in the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in a search-and-seizure case handed down this week that foretells a dramatic change how the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable government searches and seizures in the age of ubiquitous electronic communications. That change is as stark as the difference between a horse-drawn carriage and a smartphone.

The challenge for the courts is to keep pace with new research and new understandings of privacy rights. If they can't do that, Congress and the states should be prepared to step into the void.

Case from the District of Columbia

In a case from the District of Columbia, the FBI and D.C. police attached a global positioning tracker to the undercarriage of a suspected drug dealer's vehicle. Using the tracker linked to a cell phone that relayed data to a computer, authorities compiled 2,000 pages of the man's movements over four weeks.

That makes little sense. It's hard to see how a brief invasion of privacy is any less troubling than a long-term one. The question is whether people believe police should have unfettered access to the mountain of information the people reveal about themselves with online visits, emails and tweets, GPS devices that come as standard equipment in new automobiles, smartphones and even automated toll-road readers.