Whipped Cream Difficulties

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court takes up the case of United States vs. Jones. The key issue in Jones is: did the use of a vehicle-mounted GPS device, without a warrant, to track the movements of a suspected drug dealer, violate the 4th Amendment?

This may very well be one of the most significant 4th Amendment cases in years. The Ninth Circuit has already ruled, in a different case, that the subject

…couldn’t expect to have privacy in his driveway because it had no gate, no sign against trespassing and was regularly used by letter carriers, delivery services and visitors. Furthermore, the judge noted from an earlier 9th Circuit ruling, “a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.”

The LAT has an overview of the case, and the issues involved. We’re pretty biased in favor of Jones, and in favor of our hero Judge Alex “Big Al” Kozinski, who wrote:

“The needs of law enforcement, to which my colleagues seem inclined to refuse nothing, are quickly making personal privacy a distant memory.”

There is nothing about GPS tracking that rises to the level of “exigent circumstances” that would justify giving law enforcement a pass on the requirement for a search warrant. We hope that the Supreme Court feels the same way.

(Bonus points to Carol J. Williams for opening with the story of Katz vs. United States, which we have covered previously in this space.)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 10:57 am and is filed under Clippings, IANAL, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.