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Supreme Court Rules Warrants Needed for GPS Monitoring
gambit3 writes "The Supreme Court has issued its ruling in the case of Washington, D.C. nightclub owner Antoine Jones, saying police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. A federal appeals court in Washington overturned his drug conspiracy conviction because police did not have a warrant when they installed a GPS device on his vehicle and then tracked his movements for a month."
Cookies should require warrants.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
They got one right?!?!
Hopefully that'll bring this BS to an end, along with ending the jobs of the officers that continue to pull this stunt.
Is getting a search warrant on someone really that time consuming?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. In this post-9/11 world, we must give up some of our rights to enjoy freedom. By allowing this so-called right not to have GPS attached to a car, the liberal Supreme Court has allowed terrorists to step one inch closer to Lady Liberty.
Vote pro-America in 2012. Vote Gingrinch.
but just because he was illegally tracked doesn't mean he wasn't still guilty. The police should be disciplined, the criminal shouldn't be let off the hook.
Seriously, this is a good thing. I have no problem if a warrants are involved. They should be, otherwise, law enforcement feels the right to slap one of those devices on anyone's vehicle for any old reason. There is a reason for warrants, it helps keeps things fair and legal. If the bad guys are really showing their hands, then obtaining a warrant for a GPS should be a no brain-er. And until then, law enforcement can do the good old stakeout for a few days until all the legal paperwork is signed and buttoned up correctly.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Perhaps they're finally realizing the technologies used to enable us can also be used to enslave us.
What amazed me was it was a unanimous decision.
Your iPhone, smart phone, auto GPSr, or even hand-held GPSr track being used against you.
Funny how they don't bundle both decisions together, though clearly the attachment of a device to an unwitting suspect's vehicle is a more active role than seizing records your vehicle or device have been recording for you.
Best be careful about Geocaching near marijauna farms (even if you are unwittingly near one in a state or federal park!)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's a good ruling (and about damn time on this one), but it could have gone farther. As the minority opinion says, and I agree, what's to stop non-intrusive methods such as future UAV drones from being used without a warrant?
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
So that the SCOTUS will keep feeling the urge to keep the POTUS on a short leash.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Outside of that ...
A brief read of Justice Sotomayer's concurring opinion seems to characterize the differences in the justice's reasoning as follows:
1.) Scalia, Sotomayer, Roberts, Thomas, and Kennedy formed the majority in the opinion of the court, which relied on the fact that a trespass occured when the physical device was planted on the car. The majority did not look at any issues other than the trespass one because the trespass issue was sufficient to decide the case. Sotomayer describes it his way: "By contrast, the trespassory test applied in the majority’s opinion reflects an irreducible constitutional minimum: When the Government physically invadespersonal property to gather information, a search occurs. The reaffirmation of that principle suffices to decide this case."
2.) Alito, joined by Breyer, Kagan, and Ginsburg, focused more on the impact of obtaining the knowledge - that is, whether GPS tracking data, regardless of whether it's obtained via physical trespass or some other way, falls within the expectation of privacy protected by the fourth amendment. Alito would hold that trespass is irrelevant to 4th amendment law, and that only the expectation of privacy issue is relevant.
3.) Sotomayer (who joined the opinion of the Court), thinks that Alito's dismissal of the trespassory test would do harm to the constitutional protections, but emphasizes that, in other cases where no trespass occurs, the Court should also analyze expectation of privacy.
In sum, we have 5 justices who are willing to apply a trespassory analysis (which means physically attaching a device to a car is subject to the warrant and reasonableness requirements of the 4th amendment), 5 justices who think the expectation of privacy involved in one's movements should provide 4th amendment protection when long-term electronic tracking is used, regardless of whether trespass occurs, and at least 1 who thinks both apply.
It should be noted that, if I'm reading Sotomayer's concurring opinion correctly, the 4 in the majority other than Sotomayer should not be viewed as having rejected the application of the expectation of privacy test to electronic location tracking. Rather, they've emphasized that the expectation of privacy test is in addition to the trespassory test, and expressly declined to evaluate it because the trespassory test was conclusive.
A couple of other notes:
(1) The government did obtain a warrant in this case, but the placed the tracker on the car outside the time and physical location the warrant gave permission for. The Court did not consider the government's argument that the technical violation of the warrant's strictures rendered the search unreasonable, holding that the government waived those arguments. Therefore, we don't have any insight into how strictly the requirements of warrants will be applied.
(2) The Court did not address this, but it's not hard to imagine scenarios where the Court might allow tracking without a warrant. For example, if an officer witnesses a crime but cannot effect an arrest, the Court might allow an officer to plant a device without a warrant due to exigency, and thereafter apply for a warrant. Similarly, the Court might allow a device to be planted during the course of a high-speed chase without warrant, if the means to do so are invented. I want to emphasize this is total speculation on my part, but fourth amendment law goes far beyond "did a search occur?"
(3) Although there's no holding yet, there's very good reason to believe that obtaining GPS data from non-trespassory means, such as from OnStar or a cell phone, will also require a warrant.
You didn't even read the first sentence of the article. Good job skilltron.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
It was 9-0.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Sotomayor, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J., filed a concurring opinion. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan, JJ., joined.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that law enforcement authorities need a probable-cause warrant from a judge to affix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its every move.
.
Can you not read? It was unanimous.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
troll.
from the article: "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that law enforcement authorities need a probable-cause warrant from a judge to affix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its every move."
No it wasn't. It was 9-0 decision. There were two opinions handed down which was the split --- Alito wrote the second and was joined by Ginsberg, Beyer, and Kagan. Alito wanted to go further and say that the length of time required a second, separate warrant to cover it.
See Wired's coverage for more details.
An important thing to note that this case was obvious to the justices because a tracking device was placed on the suspects private property. This ruling is very limited in time constraints, and methodology. Can they use GPS tracking on things already present on the vehicle? No answer on that yet.
Okay, okay, reading comprehension fail. Never mind my idiocy. They were divided as to why. Feel free to mod my comment into oblivion.
A rare moment of sanity from a court known for some otherwise insane rulings (Citizens United / corporate personhood among them).
You're misreading it. The court ruled unanimously that the defendant's rights were violated.
The majority opinion stated that planting a GPS device is a search, and therefore requires a warrant, full-stop. The minority opinion stated that, because of the month-long surveillance, a warrant would be necessary in this particular case. The minority opinion did not argue which circumstances would or would not require a warrant.
Scalia voted wrong and changed his vote. Clarence Thomas voted the same as Scalia(as he always does), but fell asleep(as he always does) and wasn't able to correct his vote.
I am glad this decision came down from the Supreme Court. I am also glad to find it here already on the news page at /. .
I am providing a link to the NY Times article on this same subject it is more informative IMHO.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/police-use-of-gps-is-ruled-unconstitutional.html
From the NY Times link above by Adam Liptak
Though the ruling was limited to physical intrusions, the opinions in the case collectively suggested that a majority of the justices are prepared to apply broad Fourth Amendment privacy principles unrelated to such intrusions to an array of modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance and records kept by online merchants.
Further into the article are the juicy bits. I paste them here for you /.ers who are RTFA imparied.
Justice Sotomayor joined the majority opinion, agreeing that many questions could be left for another day “because the government’s physical instruction on Jones’s jeep supplies a narrower basis for decision.”
But she seemed to leave little doubt that she would have joined Justice Alito’s analysis had the issue he addressed been the exclusive one presented in the case.
“Physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. In the case of G.P.S. devices, she wrote, “I would ask whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on.”
She went on to suggest that “it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties.”
“People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers,” she wrote. “I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year.”
Justice Alito listed other “new devices that permit the monitoring of a person’s movements” that fit uneasily with traditional Fourth Amendment privacy analysis.
“In some locales,” he wrote, “closed-circuit television video monitoring is becoming ubiquitous. On toll roads, automatic toll collection systems create a precise record of the movements of motorists who choose to make use of that convenience. Many motorists purchase cars that are equipped with devices that permit a central station to ascertain the car’s location at any time so that roadside assistance may be provided if needed and the car may be found if it is stolen.
“Perhaps most significant, cellphones and other wireless devices now permit wireless carriers to track and record the location of users— and as of June 2011, it has been reported, there were more than 322 million wireless devices in use in the United States.”
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
.. he wasn't trafficking in pirated movies, or the judge would have been merciless.
Currently hooked on AMP
Police officer witnessing a crime means all bets are off when it comes to warrants. I have no problem with this.
Good-bye
we just have too highly a politicized process for people to understand that.That includes members of this site who one day will cheer someone/something on and the next day vilify it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
While the court did rule 9-0 that the tracking was too extensive and had to be thrown out, the court split 5-4 on the reasoning and scope of the ruling. The majority opinion held that the tracking was invalidated by the fact that police used the defendant's private property (his car), in violation of the 4th amendment. This largely sidesteps the much broader questions about stake: police use of GPS tracking in cellphones, camera networks backed by face/vehicle/license plate recogniztion software, etc. The minority opinion sought to invalidate the tracking on more broad grounds such as the duration (one month), continuous nature, expectation of privacy in the modern age, etc. But, being the minority opinion, it doesn't exactly have the same force behind it. Their opinion, however, is likely to form a blueprint for how these things can get argued going forward. It is certain that these issues will come up again and again in the Court.
More information and explanation of the ruling can be found at the NYTimes, wikipedia, and the court's opinion text (PDF).
My initial reaction to this is that this is a very good thing.
But a serious question. Police now cannot track your car via GPS without a warrant. But is there anything preventing police from just following you? Is the location of your car, driving around in public places, reasonably considered private, personal information?
So what's the objection to GPS tracking, if it is no less invasive than other means of tracking can be? The only thing that seems to separate GPS tracking is its passive nature; that it could be done to many targets easily and the data stored for future use; that instead of finding a suspect to follow, we instead track data from everyone and retrospectively see if any of the data fits. This would not be possible if it required paying ~3 people to follow someone around all day and night.
Now, I'm firmly against the dystopian big brother future that technology enables... But it seems like a better line needs to be drawn, rather than "well, you can do it, but you can't do it with certain technology." While that may be effective in practice, in the short term, it seems like it's awfully prone to creep and workarounds.
In other words, this seems like a start, but the hard work is still to be done: trying to define the role and limitations of government, expectations of privacy, etc., in a world where many of your communications and your location at any given time can be monitored. Or am I being to short-sighted? Is this exactly how that does get formed, that it is set by the sum many rulings? In which case, are we being to passive about the government's apparent policy of trying anything and seeing what sticks?
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
There are two interesting facts about this ruling. First all nine Justices agreed that the use of the GPS without a warrant in this case was unconstitutional. However, 4 of the Justices felt that it might have been Constitutional if done for a shorter period of time. What is interesting about that is that the divide was not along the usual divide. The majority opinion was supported by Scalia (who wrote it), Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy (the "swing" vote) and Sotomayor (generally considered a "liberal" vote). While the minority opinion was written by Alito (generally considered a "conservative" vote) and joined by the rest of the Court's "liberals" (Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Depends on the judge (I do a lot of subpoena work, on boths sides).
.. I have seen some where the judge says "Apartment #3 is not sufficient to identify the residence" and "Computer equipment does not sufficiently identify the property sought" and the police had to go back and get permission (from the landlord) to take a picture of the door and go back to the judge along with serial numbers and such of the devices.
.. because what if the police work is sloppy and the stolen computer is serial number AB123456 and you have a computer that's DE78910 but the same exact model .. guess which defendant is getting their stuff back.
I have seen some that are "rubber stamped" with only a vague description of what they're after (eg: "computer equipment")
The judge in the 2nd case is doing it right
Honestly, if law enforcement has, and can demonstrate, probable cause, they'll have no problem getting a warrant very quickly.
I've read of officers getting warrants during the duration of a traffic stop in a couple of rural counties around my location in the middle of the night.
All that this ruling will do is cut back on "hunches" and make sure an officer can get at least one other person agrees that there is something worth investigating and/or worth tracking.
re (2) : these exist. http://www.starchase.com/
It was a unanimous decision that in this case a warrant was necessary. 4 other the justices, though, chose not to join the opinion that said attaching GPS to a private car should always require a warrant. They only specified that in a case like this where the tracking went on for a month, a warrant was necessary.
Did both Roberts and ThomasScalia forget to show up that day? This ruling is completely at odds with their pro police state belief set.
Here's a link to the decision:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-1259.pdf
Note the following, which puts this ruling into perspective:
At bottom, the Court must “assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.”
From Volokh: [http://volokh.com/2012/01/23/what-jones-does-not-hold/]
What Jones Does Not Hold
Orin Kerr January 23, 2012 12:50 pm
A lot of the early press reports on United States v. Jones are reporting that the Supreme Court held that the government needs a warrant to install a GPS device. But that’s not correct, actually. The Court merely held that the installation of the GPS was a Fourth Amendment “search.” The Court declined to reach when the installation of the device is reasonable or unreasonable. As the opinion explains on page 12 of the slip opinion:
The Government argues in the alternative that even if the attachment and use of the device was a search, it was reasonable—and thus lawful—under the Fourth Amendment because “officers had reasonable suspicion, and in-deed probable cause, to believe that [Jones] was a leader in a large-scale cocaine distribution conspiracy.” Brief for United States 50–51. We have no occasion to consider this argument. The Government did not raise it below, and the D. C. Circuit therefore did not address it. See 625 F. 3d, at 767 (Ginsburg, Tatel, and Griffith, JJ., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc). We consider the argument forfeited. See Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U. S. 51, 56, n. 4 (2002).
So we actually don’t yet know if a warrant is required to install a GPS device; we just know that the installation of the device is a Fourth Amendment “search.”
Thanks for linking that. I hadn't heard of it; I shouldn't be surprised someone thought of it already.
Does your point number 1, above, mean they planted the tracker and only applied for a warrant after they found it yielded incriminating evidence?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The decision was the same, the reasoning by which some members arrived at the decision was different. As I see it, that makes it unanimous.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Ouch. Your post has got to sting. 5-4 split was over the "rationale" behind the 9-0 decision.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
No, they applied for a warrant. The warrant specified 10 days to install the tracker, and that it be installed in DC. The tracker was installed on the 11th day, in MD. The decision says the tracker was on the car for 28 days; I don't know what the warrant said about how long they could track.
This ruling doesn't really matter. Most of us carry an even more accurate tracking device on our person every day, and this device is used exponentially more often than these silly GPS trackers.
Kriston
And what I'm stating is exactly what the judges confirm.
Let's hope they confirm this is more scenarios, including things the MPAA/RIAA gave up on in the US, such as subpoena-ing ISP's for user info.
However, if I'm going to follow your general phrasing, let's be more creative: Let's make it that providing your information to third parties should require warrants from the third parties, as it is a search of all of your information.
unless the police can argue "inevitable discovery" (ie: "we would have found it eventually anyway) .. any evidence derived from that which is obtained in an illegal search, is also illegal.
.. their entire case can get thrown out for sloppy work up front.
For example : illegal wiretap discovers drug operation. Search for drugs based on poisoned warrant discovers guns and cash. Unless the government can reasonably argue that the guns and cash would have been found without the poisoned warrant, they too are inadmissible.
That is a rather large stick to disincentive police misconduct
Of course, this all depends on the quality of your lawyer, which itself is largely a matter of funding. This is also why plea agreements are so common.
Yep, watch my karma disappear :)
The government had told the high court that it could even affix GPS devices on the vehicles of all members of the Supreme Court, without a warrant.
With a threat like that, they had to check the Executive powers. I suspect this was the unanimous part of the decision.
Thank God.
My understanding is that there is some ambiguity as to whether the 10 days on the warrant was the time frame until when they had to install the tracker or the time frame under which the warrant was granting them permission to track. In either case, they violated the 10 day time frame by waiting until day 11 to install the tracker and THEN did so outside of the jurisdiction of the court which approved the warrant.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
5 justices who think the expectation of privacy involved in one's movements should provide 4th amendment protection when long-term electronic tracking is used, regardless of whether trespass occurs, and at least 1 who thinks both apply.
So at least for some of the justices, the mere ability to track a person's every move (or simply that of their vehicle) raises serious privacy concerns? Well that would apply to having someone tail a suspect and keep an eye on their car, tracking a person via public security cameras, using a drone to hover above and track them where they go, etc. I'm glad that some of them aren't limiting the rights to the mere physical technicality of how it is applied, but I'm somewhat surprised they were willing to possibly reach so far with this ruling. There would be ramifications in a number of law enforcement areas, even with things as simple as following a suspect with an unmarked (or marked!) car.
Better known as 318230.
4 said warrantless tracking via GPS was illegal. period.
9 said warrantless tracking via a attached GPS was tresspass, and thus illegal.
5 out of the 9 did not say if you could warrantless track via GPS WITHOUT tresspas. i.e. via a person's cell phone or GM's On-Star. It may well still be perfectly legal - or not. (I hope not, but....)
Interestingly it was statements similar to those that brought the dreaded Citizens United ruling. There Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart argued for the FEC had the power to ban books under the Austin decision if the advocated electing or defeating a candidate. That kind of rhetoric (much like that used in the current GPS case) causes the court to really stand up and take notice. In this case we got a sane ruling but in Citizens United we got what most consider a really bad ruling that is too broad.
Time to offend someone
Yeah, it's not entirely clear to me yet. I'd like to read the warrant, but haven't found it online yet. I'd have been interested to see how the court would have decided had the government argued that the failure to follow the technical details of the warrant was de minimis. This way was much cleaner, though - we know that putting a device on the car is covered by the 4th amendment now. There's strong reason to believe that other forms of GPS tracking are, too. That's good news.
The thing that makes me scratch my head about the trespass argument though is that the open fields doctrine found in Oliver v. United States has found that the government can search fields even if doing so would violate laws about trespassing (and even if it involves crossing fences and gates). If this new case is saying that physically invading personal property constitutes a search, does this overrule the jurisprudence in Oliver?
(I don't necessarily disagree that physical trespass means "search", and should require a warrant, but I'd also be quite wary of using that as a minimum.)
Summary:
Five members of the court rule that it is a search and requires a search warrant, but on the narrow grounds that the trespass to plant the device makes it a search.
Four members of the court actually believe that it's a search because it violates an expectation of privacy.
The difference matters when you consider that the majority's ruling doesn't apply to anything which doesn't involve a trespass, such as cell phone tracking, tracking by remotely programming the car's GPS, etc. So while the ruling is good, it falls far short of what we might really want.
How feasible would it be to build a 'GPS faker' that could feed false data to such a tracking device? It'd be fun to see what they made of a car that apparently levitated, flew across the Pacific ocean at Mach 3, then returned to its starting point...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I am not surprised by the ruling and agree with the decision. I imaged the discussion to focus on public versus private information. Police do not need a warrant to "tail" a suspect as they move through public streets. However, they need a warrant to follow the suspect into private property as their entrance would be trespassing.
It is good to know that the court viewed the attachment of the device to the vehicle as trespassing. While the court did not explicitly say that a warrant is required in all cases, it is clear the the trespassing issue has implications in both long term and short term use of implantable or attachable technology for surveillance.
Really? He thinks about cookies next.
So a government agency looking at where my car goes is not allowed (protected). But nakid pictures of my junk is fair game? WTF?
Back on topic thought... the 4th amendment doesn't really restrict itself to government agencies. It is a right of the people - one that is explicitly not ceded to the government. Simply the the government isn't allowed to infringe on your privacy doesn't mean that it's not still yours.
In any event, cookies are a choice, and most people choose to share them for their own benefit.
Never let a mediocre career stand in the way of a good time
Yeah yeah, fine. I'm sure it's not the end times. I'm sure there's some more reasonable explanation. Like... Ooh I know! Someone kidnapped all the justices and left... CYLONS... in their place! Yes. I'm sure that's it...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"A scenario: An officer receives permission to search a car (yeah dumb, but people give it all the time); can he leave a tracker behind? He wasn't trespassing. He had permission to be in the vehicle, so installing the tracker was not a trespass and, for now, no warrant is required regardless of whether the cause was reasonable."
The tracker evidence might be legal but also if the person found the tracker and then sticking it in a package with a note to send back out to a random location and giving it to a currior service (or just fedexing it to HELL GA) would also be most likely be "legal".
How many targets of this would be dumb enough to not do a good search of the car after a LEO (or other untrusted person) had been in said car??
A LEO could also hide a few dime bags of %Product% in the car while he was "searching" it so the next LEO would find something.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I do not think that would have flown since the key failure was that they installed the GPS outside of the jurisdiction of the court which issued the warrant.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
as it happens if your tinfoil hat is properly paper lined and has a decent trim on the end IT IS A FARADAY CAGE
(hint line all but the bottom 1/4 inch of your tinfoil hat with paper and you should be set)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
a police force could, with enough resources employ a team of forty or fify people to track a subject without their knowledge. Multiple trackers which allows one of them to get lost, handing off so one tracker doesn't attract attention, stationary spotters handing off, round the clock shifts, it has been done, and would provide the same information as GPS. But the key here is enough resources. Hardly any police force in the U.S. - not even the FBI - can afford to apply that kind of team on a regular basis. So, as far as I can see, this is a matter of money, not trespass. Someone needs to explain why a team of covert tailers a la John Le Clare or Tom Clancy can still be legal, because police do it all the time without a warrant, and the GPS device is not.
FRCP 41(b) specifically grants power to approve installing a tracking device to the court in the district in which the device will be installed, while allowing the tracking to be conducted outside the district. So it's clear the installation violated that Rule. But other types of searches can be authorized by courts outside the district. So there's no inherent constitutional problem with a federal magistrate in one district issuing a warrant for a search in another district as a general matter, if the rules so authorize. The question the Court would have to address is how severe the defect is given the rules. I've not researched whether such errors can fall under the good faith exception.
The basis of Oliver was that the open field was not a person, house, paper, or effect. Therefore, the trespass doctrine did not apply. The Oliver court also held that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in an open field.
In today's opinion, the court ruled that the car is an effect. Therefore the trespass doctrine applies. The court explicitly distinguished Oliver:
Finally, the Government’s position gains little support from our conclusion in Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170 (1984), that officers’ information-gathering intrusion on an “open field” did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search even though it was a trespass at common law, id., at 183. Quite simply, an open field, unlike the curtilage of a home, see United States v. Dunn, 480 U. S. 294, 300 (1987), is not one of those protected areas enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. Oliver, supra, at 176–177. See also Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, 59 (1924). The Government’s physical intrusion on such an area—unlike its intrusion on the “effect” at issue here—is of no Fourth Amendment significance.8
[Footnote] 8 Thus, our theory is not that the Fourth Amendment is concerned with “any technical trespass that led to the gathering of evidence.” Post, at 3 (ALITO, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added). The Fourth Amendment protects against trespassory searches only with regard to those items (“persons, houses, papers, and effects”) that it enumerates. The trespass that occurred in Oliver may properly beunderstood as a “search,” but not one “in the constitutional sense.” 466 U. S., at 170, 183.
Now they just need to rule that the government must have a warrant in order to force ISPs to record all of your actions on the internet.
HR 1981 is a faux. Yeah, it's under the guise of protecting children from Child Pornography, which I agree with. Our children need to be protected. But the method that Lamar Smith outlines in yet another assault on our freedom and privacy has gone too far. Lamar Smith must be stopped! I would like to see what major company is paying for him to write legislation that threaten our very freedom and privacy on the internet.
Hopefully not! FTIW I couldn't, but I wouldn't have modded you down. At least once it's modded to 0, folks rarely continue to punish the poster. I see you got a -1 tho and that was probably just from two people modding you down at the same time.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
And then I discovered new life in my septic tank. It resembles a disk, a back flap, and a scorpion.
"In this case we got a sane ruling but in Citizens United we got what most consider a really bad ruling that is too broad."
Citizens United was not just an overly-broad decision, it was just plain a BAD decision all around, as it relies on a number of unjustified assumptions (e.g., "corporations are people") while at the same time ignoring centuries of other court precedent.
The court ignored far too many precedents and the reasoning behind them, as well as the consequences of their decision, completely aside from precedent.
Eventually, Citizens United will go down in history as one of the all-time great blunders of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ah, the Evil Empire strikes again.
If only America could learn from Europe about freedom.
Unlike most of the world, America has freedom *and* the ability to enforce it independently.
Its called a Bivens action when you sue federal officers for a violation of your Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizures. No, there is no law that says you can sue them, just the Constitution of the United States.
The Civil Rights Act of 1871, which I should note predates France's constitution and the nation of Germany, allows the same against state officers. It supersedes any state law to the contrary.
Europe can have its so called "rights", but I prefer an actual way to enforce the ones I have.
Unfortunately there have been a number of decisions out of the court stating that corporations are in fact people (for certain definitions of persons). I would have much preferred to have the court figure out a way for the movie to have not been blocked but at the same time not have the egregious decision that came out of Citizens United. As far as going down as one of the all time greatest blunders I think it already has.
Time to offend someone
The example would be more believable if the dispatcher's second monitor had FB open.
5 justices who think the expectation of privacy involved in one's movements should provide 4th amendment protection when long-term electronic tracking is used, regardless of whether trespass occurs
This is really critical. Between networked traffic surveillance cameras and satellite technology, along with built-in broadcasting tech in cars, its probably possible right now to track vehicles precisely without actually attaching a GPS tracker. At the moment I would guess it's just difficult and expensive - at the rate this type of tech is developing, in a few years it'll be trivial.
At that point, there will be no need for any trespass to property to comprehensively track someone. Only the privacy analysis can offer real protection to people targeted by the police (which might, conceivably, be all of us...).
Read Pynchon.
My phone has gps data on it and when they pull you over they collect your phone data.
Nothing will change. if they want to put or get gps data they will, with or without a warrant.
Then, You are telling all your friends, YOU have no problems with BAD LAWS that fuck their lives over.
They probably realized that one day in the future they could be on a future president's "enemies list" and the power to warrantlessly track by GPS could be used to expose some skeletons in their respective closets...
Not only that but after hearing the original arguments on the narrow case brought by the Citizens United organization they told the lawyers to go back and bring arguments for a broader case. The SCOTUS on their own broadened the case beyond its original scope so they could make a broader ruling. Talk about activist judges.
No one has the right to commit crimes. The very idea of having a nation or a society involves all of us trying to make certain that all laws are vigorously enforced. I do not see a problem with tracking the location of a vehicle operated on public roads. Not only can it help convict the driver of the car but it can also be a method for locating his associates in crime as well.
Often the public has no real clue as to how things work. It is easy to find a cop rousting hookers, people with small amounts of crack or other drugs or a concealed knife or gun and most of these crimes result in short sentences. But what would cops do without these people supplying information about more serious crimes? The hooker picked up with a crack pipe and a bit of rock who is looking at less than one year in jail will quickly give up criminals that she knows that are in hiding, flight from warrents, or have committed a very serious crime. Maybe even more than half of all major arrests flow from people in the jails who will squeel long and hard to get back on the streets a bit faster.
People, the idea is to support catching and punishing criminals. You might save your own life or maybe your wife or kids simply by taking one criminal off the street. Give the alw the power to do the job we pay them to do.
If it's really true that this question has been settled, we might start asking about the legal situation with the next-most-interesting GPS-related question: If you're running software like google maps in your car (perhaps in your cell phone like I often do), what legal access to the authorities have to the tracking information that this produces?
This is especially interesting if you enable Google's traffic reports, as I often do because our two in-car GPS gadgets don't have live Net access and can't do this. It can be useful to know that the route your car's GPS gadget is recommending has a major traffic congestion event happening on one stretch of highway. For this to work, it's fairly obvious that the map+traffic software is sending its location and speed back to the mother ship, and google has talked about this openly. Those traffic reports do mostly come from the packets being sent in by the millions of GPS-enabled smart phones that are running google maps, so their computers know where you are and how fast you're moving. They can keep the info around if they want to. They've said that they quickly add your info into the database's summary, and then discard your personal info. But it's obvious that they could collect this information, perhaps because they've been ordered to do so by a judge somewhere.
So the obvious questions arise. What legal rights do various government agencies have to this data? Can they get at it without a court warrant? Can they get at it in fact even if it's illegal? Is google legally obligated to collect this data if asked (or if so ordered by a court), or is the Constitution's ban on involuntary servitude mean that they can legally refuse unless paid for the extra disk space, employee time, etc.? Do they have to inform us if they are doing this, or can it all be done in secret and they can legally lie to us about it? And, of course, are they actually doing it now (and perhaps telling us they're not)?
It's obvious that the databases at maps.google.com and other mapping services don't qualify as our homes or property or whatever is protected from unwarranted search this month. The obvious suspicion is that such location information is 1) of interest to the authorities at least sometimes, and 2) a bit of an expense for the companies to keep long term (or forward to N agencies). It might be interesting to know how much is actually being accumulated now, and what if any legal protections might exist in this area.
There is no shortage of legal history about government agencies using and abusing such information, but people used to have to collect it themselves. In the past few years, it has gotten a lot easier, since our pocket phones can collect the data and send it in. We do benefit markedly from some of the capabilities of this GPS mapping information. But it's clear that the data could be misused by the authorites nearly anywhere, if they decided to use it against some of us.
Do we have any clear information on this topic?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I can easily see police bypassing this. What if a "private citizen" plants the device? Couldn't not the citizen inform the police of a suspects movements?
If there are privacy laws preventing citizens from planting tracking devices could not the police cut a deal where the informer got a slap on the wrist in exchange for their testimony of someones whereabouts?
Maybe collusion with the police would matter or maybe it wouldn't. In any case it would be difficult to prove collusion.
Take for example the case where a known burglar breaks into a house and witnesses a man killing his wife.. could not the police cut a deal with the burglar for his testimony? I can see parallels here.
The first story I read on this (which I cannot find now), led me to believe that it was a DC court which granted the initial warrant. I did find an article that said that the initial warrant was limited to the DC area (although it does not specify why). So, while a federal magistrate is not constitutionally limited on where they can issue a warrant, a magistrate of the District of Columbia would be so limited.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I know there have, but to me this just reflects what appears very strongly to me to be an increasingly corrupt and decreasingly educated Supreme Court. It's hard to really argue the "less educated" part, but they sure do act that way sometimes.
Indirect evidence: if you notice, nearly all of these controversial (or even un-controversially bad) decisions seem to involve either Government or Corporate power, and nearly all of them land on the wrong side of that scale.
Our recent Supreme Court has been terrible about upholding Constitutional rights, in general. It was very refreshing to hear the decision about G.P.S tracking, but even then I don't think they made their points strongly enough.
Thanks for linking that. I hadn't heard of it; I shouldn't be surprised someone thought of it already.
Thinking of it is easy. Plenty of prior art. Actually making it? That's something else...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The example would be more believable if the dispatcher's second monitor had FB open.
Agreed. Also, anyone else think this photo looks 'shopped?
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Sorry to rain on your parade, but as usual, news reporting of SCOTUS decisions is invariably completely wrong; as they try to create an exciting narrative they end up completely messing up the often crutial details.
In this case, the court did not rule that you need a warrant to track people with GPS. All they ruled is that doing such constitutes a serach for the purposes of the fourth ammendment.
The ruling explicitly leaves open the questions of whether or not performing this search without a warrant is a reasonable or unreasonable search, and if unreasonable what the remedy is (so we don't know if the exclusionary principle applies to any evidence gained or not).
Much better analysis of the ruling and how its not the huge victory everyone is portraying:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/01/reactions-to-jones-v-united-states-the-government-fared-much-better-than-everyone-realizes/