Fourth amendment landmark Supreme Court case surrounding warrant-less G.P.S tracking

Introduction

In this weeks entry, I am going to be looking at a landmark U.S Supreme Court ruling using "stare decisis", meaning a precedent that was set this past summer in the world of privacy law, that has made it unconstitutional to perform wireless GPS tracking of potential suspects vehicles. I am going to briefly analyze two cases that have been decided upon (one by the U.S Supreme Court that you may have heard about on some I.T news sites about a month ago) and the other being decided upon in California by California legislators. Both of these events are significantly IMPORTANT and should not be ignored by those working in the field of law, law enforcement, all other parties involved, and may need to be included in future revisions to the F.B.I manual for prosecuting federal crimes. Let's begin by analyzing each case piece by piece, in order to fully appreciate and understand what each case means in the context of warrant-less wireless GPS tracking and what it means for privacy law.

Brief Summary of the U.S vs. Jones (2012)

Antoine Jones was a nightclub owner who was under suspicion for the possible trafficking of narcotics in the District of Columbia, more specifically Cocaine in 2004 [1]. The F.B.I and local law enforcement relied on a number of techniques in order to monitor Jones, including numerous surveillance techniques and placed a pen trap register and wiretap to cover Jones cell phone. Based off information gathered a year later in 2005, the F.B.I decided to place a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of Mr. Jones vehicle and record his movements for up to 28 days, which returned over 2,000 pages of location data over a four week period.

The Supreme Courts interpretation & ruling

In short, the Supreme Court was evenly split over the U.S vs. Jones (2012) and whether or not Jones was consistent with a similar landmark case, known as the Katz vs. U.S (1967), which introduced the earliest federal wiretapping statute known as the "Title III" intercept later on in 1968, known as the "Federal Wiretap Act", that I speak of frequently in this blog. They based both the dissenting and concurring opinion around that case in order properly decide, whether or not the defense of the Mr. Jones mainly a "unreasonable search and seizure" was violated under the fourth amendment based upon an appeals ruling in 2007. They used a number of factors when determining the case including the scope, time duration, and they even looked at how the F.B.I failed to obtain consent (even though they didn't need it) from Mr. Jones wife in order to place the GPS tracking on the undercarriage of the car. In conclusion, they ruled placing a GPS tracking device on the bottom of ones car without a warrant (including both scope, time duration, and consent) constitutes an "unreasonable search and seizure" under the fourth amendment based upon the Katz decision.

What this means for law enforcement and some important unanswered questions

What does the Jones decision mean for law enforcement and the F.B.I? It basically means that placing any sort of GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of any vehicle violates the fourth amendment and is considered an unreasonable search and seizure, regardless of scope, time duration, or consent. Any evidence obtained using this method will more like be admissible in court, due to the fact that courts will look to the U.S vs. Jones (2012) landmark Supreme Court ruling. What the case DOES NOT address nor FAILS to answer in the same question that the S.C acknowledges in their opinion are statutes that include GPS tracking devices within smart phones and personal computers and how that data is obtained with or without a warrant! The Supreme Court is leaving that up to individual states and federal lawmakers to determine. Currently, California is on the verge of passing legislation banning the ability to track GPS devices implemented in smart phones without a warrant! [2] The consequences of this, while great for privacy advocates might be detrimental to law enforcement in differing circumstances!

Conclusion

In conclusion, some questions that will need to answered by states in local statues or even in a federal law will consistent of, should warrant-less GPS tracking of smart phones or personal computers be allowed at all? If not, then under what circumstances will law enforcement by allowed to track potential suspects looking at three factors that including the scope, time duration, and whether or not consent is required (depending upon the circumstances). What I mean by that is i.e what if you only have fifteen days to track a suspect and a warrant requires more time in order to arrest a potential suspect, such as thirty? What if evidence is obtained on the sixteenth day then is it outside the scope of circumstances and is admissible? Last, but not least what if a suspect wanders into an restaurant in order to perform a crime, such as trafficking drugs, would consent or implied be required from the owner in order to set up a pen-trap register or in order to perform a wiretap on the suspect? Would they now be considered an "agent" of the government and would that hold up in court? All of these questions will be need to be answered using very specific language in the future by lawmakers. In the meantime, all parties involved should use the U.S vs. Jones (2012) as stepping stone for what will and what will not be admissible in future legal battles!

I will be back in a couple days with a new entry. I want to thank everyone for reading this lengthy entry and I hope it's forcing you to think critically surrounding a lot important legal issues that we will have to deal with when it comes to technology, within the next decade! Take care and have an awesome week!

References:

1. Google Scholar. "U.S vs. Jones (2012)". http://scholar.googl...=en&as_sdt=2,22 accessed 25 Aug 2012. 2012
2. The Atlantic. "We're Close to Strengthening, The Privacy of your Cell Phone Location! (But only in California)" http://www.theatlant...ifornia/261541/ accessed 25 Aug 2012. 24 Aug 2012.