Police Violated Fourth Amendment Rights With GPS Tracking of Jeep, Court Says

Just the Facts:

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the use of a GPS device to track a suspect's Jeep Grand Cherokee violated privacy rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.
• Police had installed a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of the Jeep when it was parked in a public parking lot.
• The court said the Fourth Amendment has a special concern for government trespass in "persons, houses, papers and effects." The Jeep Grand Cherokee in this case is considered an "effect."

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the use of a GPS device to track a suspect's Jeep Grand Cherokee violated privacy rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.

But Justice Samuel Alito Jr. noted in a concurring opinion, that "many motorists purchase cars that are equipped with devices that permit a central station to ascertain the car's location at any time so that roadside assistance may be provided if needed and the car may be found if it is stolen."

Police in this case — U.S. v. Jones — had installed a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of a Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to the wife of Antoine Jones, the owner and operator of a nightclub in the District of Columbia, when it was parked in a public parking lot. The ruling said Jones "came under suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and was made the target of an investigation." He was the principal driver of the car. The Jeep was monitored for 28 days. By means of signals from multiple satellites, the device established the vehicle's location within 50 to 100 feet, and communicated that location by cellular phone to a government computer. It relayed more than 2,000 pages of data over a four-week period.

"It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case: The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia for the unanimous Court. "We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted."

The court said the Fourth Amendment has a special concern for government trespass in "persons, houses, papers and effects." The Jeep Grand Cherokee in this case is considered an "effect."

The Court rejected the government's argument that no search had taken place because Jones had no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the Jeep's underbody and in the location of the Jeep on public roads.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a separate concurrence, noted that "with increasing regularity, the government will be capable of duplicating the monitoring undertaken in this case by enlisting factory- or owner-installed vehicle tracking devices or GPS-enabled smartphones."

Sotomayor noted that "GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person's public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious and sexual associations."

Citing People v. Weaver, Sotomayor noted that "disclosed in data?will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on. The government can store such records and efficiently mine them for information years into the future."

Justice Alito said that the best solutions to privacy concerns in cases involving dramatic technological change may be legislative.

"A legislative body is well suited to gauge changing public attitudes, to draw detailed lines, and to balance privacy and public safety in a comprehensive way," he wrote.

Inside Line says: A key privacy ruling for our digital age — with plenty of impact on cars and law enforcement.