by Brent Skorup and Laura Bondank at Reason
A Supreme Court case could determine whether Americans own their digital data—or whether the government can take that information without a warrant.
When the IRS secretly demands your financial records and private information from a third party, without a warrant, what rights do you still have?
That’s the question at the heart of Harper v. O’Donnell, which is before the Supreme Court. New Hampshire resident Jim Harper is fighting back against the IRS after discovering he was swept up in a massive digital dragnet. The case could redefine how the Fourth Amendment applies in the age of cloud storage—and it may determine whether your emails, location history, search queries, and financial records that tech companies store on your behalf are treated as your property.
In 2016, the IRS ordered the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to hand over transaction records of over 14,000 customers. Harper was among them and only learned of the government’s records grab after the IRS sent him a warning letter, mistakenly suggesting he’d underreported his cryptocurrency income. He soon discovered the IRS had his transaction logs, wallet addresses, and public keys—allowing the agency to monitor any future transactions he made.
Harper hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d simply used a legal platform to buy and sell cryptocurrency. But his digital footprint became visible to the government overnight.
Now he’s suing the IRS not just to protect his own privacy, but to force the…
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