Today in Stopped Clocks

The Supreme Court has ruled that geofence demands from law enforcement are a 4th Amendment search which requires a judge issued search warrant, and not just an administrative warrant.

Good.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday that geofence warrants count as a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, a decision that will likely impact how police departments around the country seek cellphone location data in the future.

Geofence warrants compel tech companies like Google to provide information about electronic devices that are present in a given area on a particular date during a specific window of time. The case, Chatrie v. United States, involved a man who was convicted of robbing a credit union outside Richmond, Virginia, in 2019.

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The question at hand was whether these geofencing techniques are considered a “search” under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Supreme Court found on Monday that police had conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google “because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information.” But it didn’t ban the practice completely. Police will now need to show probable cause.

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“In recent years, police around the country have relied on geofence warrants like the one in this case tens of thousands of times to cast dragnets that violate the privacy of innocent bystanders, all without even targeting a known suspect or device. Although the Court stopped short of striking down these warrants as inherently unconstitutional, we look forward to pressing lower courts to eliminate these warrants once and for all.” 

Here's hoping that these digital dragnet will eventually be made unlawful.