Over the centuries, the courts looked at whether people had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” and considered what it meant when you stored your information with someone else. Put simply, if it was in something like a locked storage container and the key was inaccessible to others, then judges concluded that there was such an expectation and the Fourth Amendment applied. But if you stored your documents in a box of files that was stacked next to other people’s boxes where people could come and go, then the police didn’t need a search warrant. This was because the courts concluded that you
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