SNEK POLICY
Get a Warrant
Digital information can reveal more about someone’s life than many physical searches. Moving information onto a server should not erase basic privacy protections.
Private digital data deserves protection
Government should generally need a warrant based on probable cause before accessing private messages, cloud files, device contents, detailed location history, and similarly sensitive digital information.
Do not buy around the warrant requirement
Government should not be able to avoid constitutional safeguards simply by purchasing deeply sensitive personal information from a commercial data broker.
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Why SNEK thinks this
Modern digital records can reveal a person’s communications, movements, relationships, finances, habits, and private thoughts in extraordinary detail. SNEK’s position is that moving private information onto a phone, server, cloud account, or commercial database should not erase the basic principle that government needs a lawful reason to search it.
How it would work
Government should generally obtain a warrant based on probable cause before accessing private messages, device contents, cloud files, detailed location histories, or similarly sensitive records. Agencies should not be able to buy the same deeply private information from a data broker simply to avoid the warrant process. Emergency access can exist when delay creates an immediate threat, but it should receive prompt judicial review afterward.
Where we’re flexible or still working it out
Not every piece of publicly available information requires a warrant, and ordinary administrative records can follow different rules. The stronger protection applies as the information becomes more intimate, comprehensive, and revealing. As surveillance technology changes, SNEK would keep the default simple: if government wants deeply private information, get a warrant.