On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter, effectively ruling that artificial intelligence cannot be credited as an author—but this seemingly narrow decision signals something far more consequential. The nation's highest court is quietly orchestrating the most significant recalibration of technology law in a generation, with rulings that will determine who owns AI-generated content, whether your location data needs a warrant, and how social media platforms can moderate your posts.
In this comprehensive supreme court news guide, you'll discover how recent judicial decisions are rewriting the rules of the digital age. From geofence warrants that sweep up innocent bystanders' data to copyright battles over machine-generated art, these cases represent the collision between 18th-century constitutional principles and 21st-century technology. Whether you're a tech professional, privacy advocate, or simply someone who uses a smartphone, these rulings will fundamentally alter your relationship with technology.
The supreme court's refusal to hear the Thaler case has profound implications for the rapidly expanding AI industry. The case involves a piece of visual art, "A Recent Entrance to Paradise," created entirely through the use of an AI system developed by Dr. Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist, who listed his AI as the sole author without claiming any human authorship.
The D.C. Circuit's ruling that the Copyright Act requires copyrightable works to be authored by a human being now stands as binding precedent. This creates a critical vacuum: if AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted, they enter the public domain immediately. For companies investing billions in generative AI technologies, this represents an existential business challenge.
The implications extend beyond visual art. The U.S. Copyright Office's January 2025 report clarified the Office's position that prompts alone are insufficient to afford a work copyright protection, concluding that "prompts essentially function as instructions that convey unprotectable ideas". This stance affects everything from AI-written code to machine-generated music and synthetic media.
Additional pending cases, such as Allen v. Perlmutter, in which the plaintiff has challenged the USCO's refusal to register a work generated with more than 600 prompts directed at refining the AI-generated image, may establish clearer boundaries. The question becomes: how much human involvement transforms an AI creation into a human work? This uncertainty leaves tech companies, artists, and developers in legal limbo.
Perhaps no supreme court technology case carries more immediate privacy implications than Chatrie v. United States, which examines the constitutionality of geofence warrants. The case arose from a 2019 armed bank robbery where police lacked traditional suspects, so they obtained a "geofence warrant" directing Google to identify every device within 150 meters of the bank during a one-hour window.
This digital dragnet captured location data from 19 Google accounts, with eighteen belonging to wholly innocent people who happened to be near the bank. This reverse-search technique represents a fundamental departure from traditional Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, where law enforcement identifies a suspect first, then seeks evidence.
The Supreme Court's answer may shape how crimes are investigated, as well as the fundamental relationship between individuals, technology companies, and the government. The court must grapple with whether the digital age demands new interpretations of "unreasonable search and seizure."
The constitutional tension centers on voluntariness. The third-party doctrine holds that when a person voluntarily shares information with a third party, she loses a reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. But is enabling Google's Location History truly "voluntary" when it's buried in pages of terms of service most users never read?
Where the court lands on voluntariness and general warrants will shape the landscape of the digital Fourth Amendment, including automated license plate readers, pole cameras, government purchases of digital records, and more. The decision could either fortify digital privacy protections or open the floodgates to warrantless surveillance.
The Supreme Court decided in Cox v. Sony, a landmark copyright case, that internet service providers (ISPs) should have limited copyright liability for user behavior that infringes copyrighted materials. This March 2026 decision represents a significant news development for free expression online, preventing ISPs from being forced to become internet police.
The decision builds on earlier rulings addressing social media platform editorial discretion. The court made clear that government regulation of how popular social media platforms curate their feeds violates the First Amendment, rejecting Texas and Florida laws that sought to control platform content moderation.
A social media company's content moderation decisions can constitute expressive activity, just like a newspaper deciding which op-eds to publish. This framework will likely influence how AI companies defend their content controls when regulations inevitably arrive.
The cases affect artificial intelligence and how the government will be able to regulate it, as many proposed AI regulations impact the kind of content that models like ChatGPT can produce, and would likely require AI labs to change their content controls. If platforms have First Amendment protection for algorithmic curation, AI companies may claim similar protections for how their models are trained and what outputs they generate.
The best supreme court news for privacy advocates came years ago with Carpenter v. United States, but its principles continue reverberating through 2026 cases. The Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant before they can seize people's sensitive location information stored by cellphone companies, establishing that digital data deserves heightened Fourth Amendment protection.
The decision stands as one of the most consequential rulings regarding privacy in the digital age, providing a roadmap for lower courts to protect many other kinds of sensitive data from warrantless government intrusion. Lower courts are now extending these principles to license plate readers, vehicle data recorders, and prescription drug databases.
Although Carpenter expanded Fourth Amendment protections for digital location, lower courts have spent the last decade contending with its boundaries. The Chatrie case will either expand or contract this digital privacy fortress.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued in a brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court that U.S. technology companies should be legally accountable in U.S. courts for building tools that purposefully and actively facilitate human rights abuses by foreign governments. The Cisco Systems case, scheduled for argument in April 2026, asks whether corporations can be liable under the Alien Tort Statute for aiding international human rights violations.
The 9th Circuit held that U.S. corporations can be held liable under the ATS for aiding and abetting human rights abuses abroad, and that a company does not need to have the "purpose" to facilitate human rights abuses—it only needs to have "knowledge" that its assistance helped. This standard could reshape how surveillance technology is exported globally.
Cisco Systems is just one of many U.S. companies that make surveillance systems, spyware, and other products used by governments to violate people's human rights. The supreme court's decision will determine whether tech companies face meaningful accountability when their products enable oppression.
Document human contribution to AI-assisted work: Best practices for ensuring copyrightability include careful documentation of human contribution to any works created with the assistance of AI. Maintain detailed records of prompts, iterations, and human editorial decisions to strengthen copyright claims.
Audit your location-sharing settings regularly: With geofence warrants potentially constitutional, minimize your digital footprint by disabling unnecessary location tracking. Review which apps have location access and restrict to "only while using" rather than "always."
Understand platform terms as legal documents: As of March 16, 2026, the court has agreed to hear 59 cases during its 2025-2026 term, many involving technology companies. The agreements you accept when using digital services are increasingly litigated documents—read privacy policies and understand what data you're voluntarily sharing, as it may not receive Fourth Amendment protection.
Q: Can I copyright artwork I created using AI tools like Midjourney or DALL-E?
A: It depends on your level of human authorship. Purely AI-generated works without human creative input cannot be copyrighted under current rulings. However, works involving substantial human selection, arrangement, modification, or creative direction may qualify. The Copyright Office examines each case individually, so document your creative process thoroughly.
Q: Are geofence warrants legal for law enforcement to use?
A: The legality is currently under review. While police have used geofence warrants for several years, the Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on their constitutionality. The Chatrie case will provide clarity, but until then, lower courts have issued conflicting opinions. Law enforcement continues using them in many jurisdictions while legal challenges proceed.
Q: Can social media platforms be forced to keep up certain content?
A: No. The Supreme Court has made clear that government cannot compel platforms to host specific content, as this violates the platforms' First Amendment editorial rights. Platforms have broad discretion to moderate content according to their own policies, similar to how newspapers choose which letters to the editor to publish.
Q: Does the third-party doctrine mean I have no privacy for data stored by tech companies?
A: Not necessarily. The Supreme Court has recognized limits to this doctrine, particularly for sensitive digital data. In Carpenter, the Court ruled that cell phone location data requires a warrant despite being held by phone companies. The exact boundaries remain unclear and are being refined through ongoing litigation, but the trend favors stronger privacy protections for comprehensive digital records.
The supreme court news emerging from the 2025-2026 term reveals justices grappling with profound questions: Can 18th-century constitutional principles protect 21st-century privacy? Who owns creativity when machines do the creating? How do we balance security with civil liberties when everyone carries a tracking device?
These decisions will ripple through every sector of the technology industry. AI developers must rethink intellectual property strategies. Privacy advocates watch geofence warrant jurisprudence carefully. Social media companies gain clarity on content moderation authority. Surveillance technology exporters may face unprecedented accountability.
One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse—reminding us that behind these legal abstractions lie real human consequences. The Court's technology cases aren't academic exercises; they determine whether your location can place you at a crime scene, whether AI can replace human artists, and whether tech companies can ignore how their products harm users.
As you navigate this evolving landscape, ask yourself: What kind of digital future do we want to build? The supreme court is answering that question right now—will you pay attention before the gavel falls?
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Written by
Sarah ChenBusiness & Finance
Business and finance analyst with deep expertise in market trends, investment strategies, and economic developments.
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