Home » Men's Interest Articles » Court Says GPS Tracking a Search Within the Scope of Fourth Amendment
Court Says GPS Tracking a Search Within the Scope of Fourth Amendment
GPS tracking might be admissible in certain cases only if a warrant is obtained before the tracking begins.
February 18, 2012 /Mens Interest PR News/ -- The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Americans a certain expectation of privacy from governmental intrusion. Specifically, the amendment protects us from an "unlawful search and seizure" by law enforcement or other government agencies. In short, it means that before our private property can be entered and snooped through by the government, a good reason must be presented to a judge and a warrant must be obtained.
And, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, a search also includes governmental tracking of our movements by GPS.
Supreme Court Decision
In 2005, law enforcement suspected that a Washington, D.C., nightclub owner was involved in selling drugs. To prove their case, the police secretly attached a global positioning system (GPS) to the nightclub owner's car and tracked his movements via satellite for nearly a month. The information gathered by the GPS was used by the prosecution as evidence of his guilt during the trial, and the nightclub owner was convicted of drug trafficking.
A federal Court of Appeals threw out the conviction and stated that the police can track a suspect by GPS for an extended length of time only after first obtaining a warrant.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the lower court, unanimously upholding its decision. Four of the justices believed the act of attaching the GPS monitor required a warrant; doing so without a warrant would be considered a trespass and an "improper intrusion" constituting a search within the scope of the Fourth Amendment. Other justices believed that the duration of the search infringed upon the nightclub owner's reasonable expectations of privacy but that the act of attaching the GPS unit was not necessarily itself in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
While the court didn't say that every instance of GPS tracking required a warrant, it seems that a warrant will likely be necessary in most cases. If the authorities tracked you or a loved one via GPS, with or without a warrant, speak with an experienced criminal defense attorney about the unique facts of your case.
Article provided by Patrick J. Artur & Associates
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