Courts & Litigation Cybersecurity & Tech Surveillance & Privacy

Lawfare Daily: Chatting on Chatrie with Adam Unikowsky, Michael Dreeben, and Richard Salgado

Kate Klonick, Michael R. Dreeben, Richard Salgado, Adam Unikowsky, Jen Patja
Tuesday, May 5, 2026, 7:00 AM
A panel of experts break down Supreme Court oral argument in Chatrie v. United States.
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Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick speaks with former Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben; lecturer in law at Stanford, Richard Salgado; and attorney Adam Unikowsky, to discuss the geofencing Fourth Amendment case that was heard Monday, April 27 in the Supreme Court, Chatrie v. United States.

They discuss the background of the case with their unique perspectives, starting with Unikowsky's framing of the case for his client, Chatrie, and his thoughts on the arguments he made in his defense when he argued the case before the Court on Monday. Salgado, who worked for Google for years answering such warrants and co-authored the technologist amicus brief, discusses how the Court seemed to be handling the sophistication of the technology issues. Dreeben, who argued Carpenter, the Fourth Amendment technology case seen as the precursor to Chatrie, frames up the stakes of the Fourth Amendment issues. They debate the values of various technology metaphors, the long term future of the third party doctrine, and what the Justices seem most concerned with coming out of the arguments on Monday. 

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Topics:
Courts & Litigation Cybersecurity & Tech Surveillance & Privacy
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Kate Klonick

Kate Klonick

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Kate Klonick is an Associate Professor at St. John’s University Law School, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Distinguished Scholar at the Institute for Humane Studies. Her writing on online speech, freedom of expression, and private internet platform governance has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post and numerous other publications. For the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a Fulbright Schuman Innovation Scholar in the European Union where she was a Visiting Professor at SciencesPo and University of Amsterdam researching and writing about the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.
Michael R. Dreeben

Michael R. Dreeben

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Michael Dreeben is a Distinguished Lecturer from Government at Georgetown University Law Center and an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. In more than 30 years of service in the Department of Justice, he was an Assistant to the Solicitor General, a Deputy Solicitor General, and a counselor to two special counsels. He has taught courses at Harvard Law School, Duke Law School, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Richard Salgado

Richard Salgado

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Richard Salgado teaches at Stanford and Harvard Law Schools. He also serves as an Advisory Board Member of American University Washington College of Law’s Tech Law and Security Program, a Visiting Fellow on Security and Surveillance with the Cross-Border Data Forum, and a Senior Associate (Non-resident) with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Richard founded a consultancy to provide guidance to organizations navigating cybersecurity and surveillance challenges. Richard has over 35 years of experience across the private sector, government and academia, including as Google’s Director of Law Enforcement & Information Security for 13 years, and as a prosecutor with the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Justice Department.
Adam Unikowsky

Adam Unikowsky

AdamUnikowsky
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Adam Unikowsky is a partner in the Appellate & Supreme Court Practice Group at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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