CA6: Ptfs showed standing for 4A claim over CTRs for cyptocurrency

Plaintiffs showed ripeness and standing for their Fourth Amendment claim over the requirement of cryptocurrency currency transaction reports under 26 U.S.C. § 6050I. Remanded, but taking no position on the claim. Carmen v. Yellen, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 20033 (6th Cir. Aug. 9, 2024), rev’g in part Carman v. Yellen, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124141, 2023 WL 4636883 (E.D. Ky. July 19, 2023):

But plaintiffs have also put forth a Fourth Amendment claim premised on the text of § 6050I that implicates all reporting mandated by this provision. Plaintiffs appear to reframe the issue on appeal to suggest that their claim concerns the initial reporting of information to the government, not what the government might do with that information down the line. See, e.g., Appellants’ Br. at 42. Under this theory, plaintiffs argue that even the mere disclosure of a specific transaction to the government implicates the Fourth Amendment bar on unreasonable searches regardless of any further steps taken by the government. That is, under this theory the initial information transmitted to the government is entitled to Fourth Amendment protection; we do not need to look at the mischief that law enforcement could undertake, such as trying to discern what plaintiffs’ addresses are. See, e.g., Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 313 (1997) (state-mandated drug testing necessary to be qualified to be political candidate was a search); City of Los Angeles v. Patel, 576 U.S. 409, 418 (2015) (entertaining facial Fourth Amendment challenge to law that required hotel owners to produce registries to law enforcement upon demand). As in Chandler and Patel, such a facial Fourth Amendment challenge poses no reviewability issues because it is premised on solely the disclosures that must actually be made based on the text of the statute, not what law enforcement intends to do with the information or how the law will be enforced. And such a challenge would seem akin to that addressed by the Supreme Court in Shultz concerning the depositor-plaintiffs’ claim that a law requiring them to report certain incoming or outgoing foreign-bank transactions to the government violated the Fourth Amendment. 416 U.S. at 59–63. Although the Court considered standing issues with other claims, this claim premised on the mere disclosure of reports to the government was decided on the merits. Id. at 63 (holding that regulations were “reasonable in the light of [their] statutory purpose, and consistent with the Fourth Amendment”).