The Supreme Court gave a big boost to privacy Monday when it ruled that hotels and motels could refuse law enforcement demands to search their registries without a subpoena or warrant. The justices were reviewing a challenge to a Los Angeles ordinance requiring hotels to provide information to law enforcement—including guests' credit card number, home address, driver's license details, and vehicle license number—at a moment's notice. Similar ordnances exist in about a hundred other cities stretching from Atlanta to Seattle.
Los Angeles claimed the ordinance (PDF) was needed to battle gambling, prostitution and even terrorism, and that guests would be less likely to use hotels and motels for illegal purposes if they knew police could access their information at will.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the 5-4 majority, ruled (PDF) that the Los Angeles ordinance violated the Fourth Amendment and is an illegal "pretext to harass hotel operators and their guests."
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