The Supreme Court has decided that law officials must get a warrant before attaching a GPS device to someone’s car. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the Court opinion, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Sonia Sotomayor joined. Sotomayor also filed a concurring opinion, as did Justice Samuel Alito, in which Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan joined. Read the opinion here.
A contrary result would have been most disappointing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut... but my Lefty friends all say Scalia is a jackbooted fascist who loves the police state?!?
/ sarc
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen they tell you that, remind them that Scalia once let 10,000 federal inmates out of jail because he found it absurd that they were convicted for "using" a firearm during a drug transaction by merely having a gun with them during the black-market sale.
His first authority cited was Webster's Unabridged, for the correct definition of "use".
When the firearm charge was eviscerated with application of the Rule of Lenity, strict construction and a judicial limiting principle, there was nothing left keeping them in jail, as they had already served the first portion of the consecutive sentence for the drug offense.
10,000 inmates.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm glad one branch of our government is actually pushing back (albeit in a minor way) against the ever-growing threat to our freedoms posed by the national security state because neither mainstream conservatives nor liberals in Congress or the Executive Branch are doing so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis has been a great day at the Court. The Ninth Circuit gets unanimously smacked down (twice), and our Fourth Amendment is respected against warrant-less intrusion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDid Sotomayor's opinion say it was ok if the GPS was placed by 'a wise Latina' deputy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo this means the police now also need a warrant to use an unmarked car to follow a suspect.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSame action, just a different technology.
The irony of the law. The SCOTUS says the state cannot keep track of your property without a court order, but they can take your property and give it to another citizen who they like better than you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHm, unanimous. Kinda strange, but I always thought a search warrant was necessary for a GPS tracker. That's why I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, as to the specific judgment, it sounds like it was 9-0.
Apparently they differ on the rationale.
I'll have to look later. But, all 9 are mentioned by Bolduc as supporting the result.
Good for them. This is one of the easier issues the Supreme Court could possibly be called upon to decide.
"No, if you want to follow someone around endlessly, you get a warrant."
Um, D-U-H?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseActually, if the police want to follow you around endlessly by doing it in person, they can do it any time they want.
I'm guessing that the difference for the SC was the ease of attaching a GPS tracker vs. the cost in manpower of a 24 hour physical tail.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere's also the issue that a GPS can continue tracking even after you go onto private property. I don't believe police "tails" are allowed to do that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy couldn't they follow you onto private property? They can follow you to a friend's house. They probably won't go in with you....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSimple: let's say the suspect drives his car onto private property, or even into a private enclosed garage, and is no longer physically observable from public property (or property on which law enforcement has permission to access). The GPS tracker would nevertheless continue to transmit the car's location - information unobtainable by physical surveillance - even though the suspect at this point has a reasonable expectation of privacy, constituting a Fourth Amendment violation absent a warrant.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou are correct. The physical attaching of the GPS tracker to the vehicle was crucial to the decision. The Court's holding essentially was that any act by law enforcement that would constitute a trespass (such as affixing a GPS tracker to a vehicle) requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Old-fashioned physical surveillance, even if around the clock, is not so implicated.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm just waiting for the response from John Yoo saying that this decision helps terrorists...
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