American Bar Association Criminal Justice Standards on Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records

Abstract:     
Drafted over the past six years and adopted by the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates in February, 2012, these Criminal Justice Standards on Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records provide much needed guidance to legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies having to decide how to regulate law enforcement access to existing records in the hands of third parties. It is the first framework of its kind, and it can do much to improve the current system of ad hoc protections in both state and federal systems. Decision makers are struggling to determine when law enforcement access to medical records, cell site location information, and myriad other information should be permissible, and these Standards provide a framework via which they can bring greater consistency to existing law, and, where necessary, frame new law that accounts for changing technologies and social norms, the needs of law enforcement, and the interests of privacy, freedom of expression, and social participation.

I serve as Reporter for the Standards, extensive Commentary to which is currently being formulated. An explanatory Report can be found by Googling "American Bar Association criminal justice standards" and following the link to these Standards.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 9

Keywords: United States v. Jones, location tracking, third party, fourth amendment, search, privacy

JEL Classification: K14

working papers series