SCOTUS: GPS Trackers Are a Form of Search and Seizure

schwit1 writes: If the government puts a GPS tracker on you, your car, or any of your personal effects, it counts as a search—and is therefore protected by the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court clarified and affirmed that law on Monday, when it ruled on Torrey Dale Grady v. North Carolina (PDF), before sending the case back to that state's high court. The Court's short but unanimous opinion helps make sense of how the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, interacts with the expanding technological powers of the U.S. government. "The only theory we discern [...] is that the State's system of nonconsensual satellite-based monitoring does not entail a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. That theory is inconsistent with this Court's precedents."

Comments

Re:Don't ask, don't tell

[Damarkus13]

This ruling doesn't even have anything to do with planting a tracking device. It is in regards to an individual who has been convicted of multiple sexual offences who has served his time and is being required by the State of North Carolina to wear a GPS anklet for the rest of his life. He challenged that on 4th amendment grounds. NC argued successfully (at the state level) that this requirement is not a search. The SCOTUS disagreed and sent the case back to NC.

Jeez, RTFA.