United States v. Jones

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10–1259.pdf

SCOTUS ruled today that plac­ing a GPS track­ing device on a defendant’s vehi­cle is a search within the mean­ing of the 4^th Amendment.

This is a 5–4 opin­ion, split between whether the act of plac­ing a GPS track­ing device is a search or whether the long-term sur­veil­lance that the defen­dant was sub­jected to by way of the GPS tracker vio­lated his rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of privacy.

The one thing I want to add is that J. Sotomayor’s con­cur­rence was a sur­pris­ingly refresh­ing bonus. Here is a Supreme Court jus­tice who seems to have at least a basic grasp of tech­nol­ogy and technology’s impli­ca­tions on the 4^th Amend­ment.
Hav­ing her and J. Scalia (who has his own encour­ag­ing views on technology’s impact on the 4^th Amend­ment) on the bench, I’m ever so sightly opti­mistic about the future of our rights.

UPDATE

After read­ing numer­ous com­men­taries on the case, my feel­ings about this deci­sion have not changed. The major­ity, draw­ing fire from crit­ics of the mod­ern take on the 4^th Amend­ment, strictly adheres to the tra­di­tional 4^th Amend­ment jurispru­dence. Mean­while, the minor­ity wants a new test to deter­mine when
4^th Amend­ment rights have been vio­lated, a stance cham­pi­oned by many.
How­ever, as things stand, I believe that the majority’s opin­ion is the bet­ter option for pro­tect­ing our indi­vid­ual rights.
Short-term sur­veil­lance isn’t too intru­sive? Call me a cynic but I don’t like any option that let’s the State start with­out a warrant.

UPDATE AGAIN

After think­ing about this deci­sion some more, and after dis­cussing it with some peo­ple, I’m no longer so sure of my position.

The deci­sion is still an excel­lent one in terms of plac­ing GPS track­ers on vehi­cles. Accord­ing to the major­ity, plac­ing any GPS tracker, even for an after­noon, is a search and would require a war­rant or exi­gent cir­cum­stances. Alito’s minor­ity might be will­ing to allow that with­out a war­rant since such short-term sur­veil­lance is not too intru­sive of a person’s rea­son­able expec­ta­tion of privacy.

How­ever, in terms of the far­ther reach­ing impact of 4^th Amend­ment law, Alito’s test could very well be much more help­ful.
In Bal­ti­more, there are police sur­veil­lance cam­eras on almost every cor­ner of the “dan­ger­ous neigh­bor­hoods.” Accord­ing to US v. Jones, an argu­ment could be made that such long-term sur­veil­lance would require a war­rant before… using the video footage? I’m not entirely clear on how this would play out, but it does make for some inter­est­ing ideas.