Ep 206 — Who’s Afraid of the Fourth Amendment?

Feb 20, 2026

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DOCKET ALERTS:

Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier is getting paid $50,000 a semester to teach a single class at University of Florida’s law school.

The Trump Administration finally obeyed the court order and put the exhibit on enslaved people back at President’s House in Philadelphia.

The Supreme Court has decided to eliminate corruption by asking litigants to add their stock ticker symbols to filing disclosures. Oh, you thought maybe the justices would agree to stop trading individual stocks? LOL.

And a JAG lawyer sent to help out the US Attorneys Office in Minnesota got cited for contempt after ICE responded to a habeas order by dumping a Minnesota man on the street in El Paso without his identity documents. Judge Laura Provinzino ordered the lawyer to pay $500 per day until the petitioner got his ID back.

MAIN SHOW:

In California, Judge Sunshine Sykes issued a major benchslap to the Trump administration’s claim that it can — or must! — detain immigrants who haven’t been granted permanent residence. In December, she granted class certification and ordered the government to give everyone not detained at the border a bond hearing. The government ignored her ruling, based on a decision by the immigration courts housed inside the Justice Department. Separation of powers, how does it go?

And Andrew and Liz talk about two “surveillance” issues: commercially-aggregated data tracking our every movement and “dynamic” pricing.

The Supreme Court first started considering surveillance in US v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) and endorsed the “mosaic theory” of the Fourth Amendment in Carpenter v. US, 585 US 296 (2018).

Sens. Lujan and Merkley have co-sponsored the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026. Gizmodo recently ran a story about it, referencing prior research into dynamic pricing.

Florida’s attorney general gets $100K part-time teaching job at UF

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2026/02/17/uthmeier-uf-adjunct-teaching-contract-pay-attorney-general/

Soto Jimenez v. Bondi

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72221590/soto-jimenez-v-bondi/

Matter of Yajure Hurtado

https://www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1413311/dl?inline

Maldonado Bautista v. Noem

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70895584/lazaro-maldonado-bautista-v-ernesto-santacruz-jr/

US v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3066032366235422373

Carpenter v. US, 585 US 296 (2018)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=853695326923033538