Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, has filed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court questioning the legality of sending “broad, suspicionless” requests for data to crypto exchanges such as Coinbase and other firms.
Many crypto exchanges have been hit by these types of requests, termed “John Doe” requests. And it’s not been limited to Coinbase: Competitor crypto exchange Kraken and USDC stablecoin issuer Circle received them in 2021.
The brief was filed in support of the case of James Harper, who has been locked in a legal battle with the IRS since 2020. Harper’s civil case objected to the IRS using a subpoena to obtain three years of transaction records concerning over 14,000 customers from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, including himself.
The argument hinges on the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, ensuring that warrants are issued only when the government can prove probable cause and provides specific details.
The X attorney’s brief, filed on Friday, asks whether these Fourth Amendment protections permit “warrantless searches of customer records held by third-party service providers if the records are contractually owned by the customer” and “if those records enable surveillance of future behavior.”
The brief says that “Mr. Harper’s contract with the exchange made clear that the records belonged to him and that the exchange would protect his privacy.”
In particular, the brief focuses on what is called the “third-party doctrine,” a legal precedent established in the 1970s that can enable these types of invasive data requests—as long as they are directed toward a third party, rather than a particular private individual.
For example, the application of the “third-party doctrine” could allow the government to access an individual’s bank records, which they gave consent for the bank to access, without a warrant, but not papers stored in their home.
A decision by the Supreme Court in favor of Mr. Harper would bolster legal protections against data requests by all U.S. companies, outside of the crypto industry, including X. But the Supreme Court, the final court of appeal, has not yet agreed to hear James Harper’s case.
Though the outcome of the case could impact the fortunes of X, the third-party doctrine has had plenty of criticism from independent legal academics who think it is outdated in today’s digital age. There have also been judges who ruled against the third-party doctrine when it comes to accessing geolocation data from smartphones and smart home devices.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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