Today in a landmark 9-0 decision the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that law-enforcement must seek a probable cause warrant to track a suspects movements via GPS.
The convoluted decision (.pdf) in what is arguably the biggest Fourth Amendment case in the computer age, rejected the Obama administration’s position that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle was not a search. 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.
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The ruling while a step in the right direction still left room open for interpretation and I have no doubt that future cases will be needed to solidify American’s Constitutional right to Privacy in the digital age. The case has toss out the life sentence of a District of Columbia drug dealer who was the subject of a warrantless, 28-day surveillance via GPS.
In the Supreme Court case decided Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had ruled that the Fourth Amendment rights of suspected District of Columbia drug dealer Antoine Jones had been violated by the month-long warrantless attachment of a GPS underneath his car. The lower court had reversed Jones’ conviction, saying the FBI needed a warrant to track Jones.
Scalia’s majority opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, said placing the device on the suspect’s car amounted to a search.
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