Are there evidence collection changes required to balance privacy and public safety under the current regulations?

Rather than enhancing privacy as outlined under the 4^th Amendment, the sum of the SCA, ECPA, and the Wiretap, Pen Register, and PATRIOT Acts have been to systematically erode privacy rights in the US. The need for a warrant doesn't protect privacy, it simply delays the invasion and opens the door to information troves unthinkable even a few decades ago. As of September 11, 2001 these Acts and their like have operated under the guise of maintaining public safety, or national security, and of course a right thinking citizen would never think to object, certain that the sacrifice of privacy is worth the benefit of safety.

Evidence collection is all too modern: new technologies simplify access, and it's increasingly difficult for the public to keep information private. That it's available on the Internet, or to modern evidence gathering technologies, is not equivalent to it being public. Riley v. California falls far short of protecting privacy under the 4^th. Instead, today's smartphone has become your digital doppelgänger: it is you. And therefore, the standard for gathering evidence from it is no longer the 4^th, but rather the 5th Amendment. Gathering evidence from today's smartphone is the moral equivalent of the State forcing you to testify against yourself.

The CLOUD Act is the most egregious example in our surrender of privacy to public safety. It's the conscious choice to submit to a police state where privacy no longer exists, and any country (Russia, China, Iran, etc.) may bypass the judiciary and directly demand electronic evidence be produced. This is unacceptable in a democracy under the rule of law.

Yes, the current regulations are insufficiently weighted toward privacy and surreptitiously erode it, and we must constitutionally guarantee privacy with an amendment to forestall privacy violating evidence collection.

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