So what happens when a company is acting on behalf of/as an extension of the government? And exactly how close can that relationship get?
If I'm a cell phone company and decide to just give the government access to all data I have pass through my systems, is that allowed? What if the government gives me some benefit in return for it?
> When police apprehended some members of the ring, the smaller fish implicated the leader of the ring, Timothy Carpenter. Police got a court order to get access to 127 days of cellphone tracking records for Carpenter and other members of the gang.
> Lo and behold, Carpenter's general location information matched the robbery locations, and that information was used to help convict him. Carpenter appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, contending that the Constitution required that police first obtain a warrant before getting this location information from a service provider.
This paragraph makes it seem like the govt must get a warrant before it can ask the service provider for that information.
But what happens if I give without being asked? If I provide an API for them to pull any data they want, is it that they need a warrant to make a data pull? If I drop off a book with the data, they need a warrant before opening the book?
If I'm a cell phone company and decide to just give the government access to all data I have pass through my systems, is that allowed? What if the government gives me some benefit in return for it?