My own, admittedly amateur, interpretation is that he's largely internally consistent with his ideas of protecting person freedoms and advocating in favor of judicial restraint.
I see citizens united as an exanpsion of Scalia's attitude about protecting personal freedoms (and this is an expansion I disagree with, btw). His logic in Bergofell was that the court doesn't have the authority to meddle further in religious matters than it already has and needs to exercise restraint.
In my opinion, the argument is stronger in Bergofell than it is in Citizens United, even though I agree with the result of the former and disagree with the latter.
I could be incredibly wrong, but I think that over 30 years, Scalia has been a champion of individual rights and protections more often than not. Much to various people's chagrin at different times.
That has sometimes led to good results and sometimes led to bad. I feel comfortable in this case making the assertion that Scalia would have definitively come down on the side of Apple, and done so in the heavy-handed manner that he was known for and probably persuaded a fence justice like Kennedy to side with him in this case. But possibly also bringing RBG in with him at the same time.
Yes, it's all prognostication at this point, and I know that. But in my opinion, the bigger picture of Scalia outside of Citizens United and Obergefell are the history of someone who would have opposed the order against Apple.
Cringley is just being Cringely: bigoted, hateful, and wrong. As usual.
But then again, I could be really wrong. It does happen sometimes.
Scalia also didn't think that women were protected from discriminatory laws under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment (interview in California Lawyer, 2011).
I just have to conclude he thought some individuals (and corporations) were more equal -- and have more rights -- than others.
He can wrong, but then he is known to admit that.
Please, several conclusive examples would be surprising to me and interesting.
I may have disagreed with Justice Scalia on a great many points, but he was one of the foremost defenders of the rights of criminal defendants.
[0]Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004)
Also look at Texas v Johnson, Maryland v. King, Kyllo v. United, Florida v Jardines.
Scalia would almost certainly be on Apple's side in this because it represents not a question of legislation but a question of the power of the state.
It's easy to dislike Scalia based on decisions not going the way one's personal convictions would hope, but in questions regarding the power of the state, Scalia is very clear. Remember Scalia defended flag burning as well as opposing thermal imaging into a private home without a warrant. He also opposed involuntary DNA submission -- definitely read the opinions and not simply examine the outcomes.
And there are other examples as well.
People want/like to think of him as a defender of the Constitution. Great. But consistent, he never was.
> The Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.
But additionally, he argues that without the physical intrusion, long term tracking via GPS may be permissible:
> The concurrence posits that “relatively short-term monitoring of a person’s movements on public streets” is okay, but that “the use of longer term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses” is no good. ... That introduces yet another novelty into our jurisprudence. There is no precedent for the proposition that whether a search has occurred depends on the nature of the crime being investigated. And even accepting that novelty, it remains unexplained why a 4-week investigation is “surely” too long and why a drug-trafficking conspiracy involving sub-stantial amounts of cash and narcotics is not an “extra-ordinary offens[e]” which may permit longer observation.
So at a clip, I'd go with my usual and say that Scalia had an independent mind that tried to balance a original reading of the Constitution with federal law. How he'd land on the Apple case is entirely unclear.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_(2012) [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-1259#writin...
The plaintiffs would have to prove with substantial weight that there is a national security issue (i.e. An imminent threat.) That would be hard to prove as the government is really just investigating and fishing as opposed to having proof there's a nuclear launch code on the phone. I would suspect the 9th Circuit would rule in favor of Apple.. As such a 4-4 Supreme Court would by default result in the 9th Court decision standing.