Big Data Distortions: Exploring the Limits of the ABA LEATPR Standards

Before moving on to my contribution about how the growing reliance on big data analytics may necessitate a slight modification to the ABA Standards on Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records (LEATPR Standards), I would like first to pay a few compliments to the drafters of the LEATPR Standards for producing such a systematic, thoughtful, and elegant framework for considering Fourth Amendment freedoms. As anyone who writes about or teaches the Fourth Amendment knows, the doctrine remains a theoretical muddle. Yet, despite a minefield of conflicting precedent, the drafters of the LEATPR Standards have managed to construct a defensible and coherent structure on which to build third party protections. I hope legislatures take note of the logic, scholarship, and wisdom of the committee in providing such a considered analysis of a complex problem.