<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19154"></HEAD>
<BODY style="PADDING-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-RIGHT: 10px; PADDING-TOP: 15px"
id=MailContainerBody leftMargin=0 topMargin=0 CanvasTabStop="true"
name="Compose message area">
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>
<DIV id=fb-root></DIV>
<DIV class=header>
<DIV class=left><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><IMG
title="http://www.nytimes.com/
CTRL + Click to follow link" border=0
hspace=0 alt="The New York Times" align=left
src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif"></A>
<NYT_REPRINTS_FORM>
<LI class=reprints>
<FORM name=cccform
action=https://s100.copyright.com/CommonApp/LoadingApplication.jsp
target=_Icon></FORM></LI></DIV>
<DIV class=right> </DIV></DIV><BR clear=all>
<HR align=left SIZE=1>
<DIV class=timestamp>November 5, 2011</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">The Court’s GPS
Test</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody><NYT_CORRECTION_TOP></NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>
<P>There were no GPS tracking devices when the framers wrote the Fourth
Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But that does not mean
this sometimes intrusive technology can be used against Americans without
meeting constitutional standards. </P>
<P>In <A title="U.S. v. Jones"
href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-jones/">United
States v. Antoine Jones</A>, scheduled to be heard on Tuesday, the Supreme Court
will review a <A
title="US v. Maynard, renamed US v. Jones, decided on August 6, 2010"
href="https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/US_v_Jones/maynard_decision.pdf">ruling</A>
by the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which
found that police officers violated the Constitution when they hid a GPS device
on Mr. Jones’s car without a valid warrant and tracked his every move for 28
days. </P>
<P>Reversing Mr. Jones’s conviction for conspiracy to distribute cocaine because
of the illegal search, the appeals court persuasively argued that this powerful
technology requires thinking differently about reasonable expectations of
privacy and what is unreasonable for law enforcement officers to consider
public. Surveillance that “reveals an intimate picture of the subject’s life
that he expects no one to have — short perhaps of his spouse,” the court wrote,
violates those expectations. </P>
<P>The government contends that a person in a car driving on public roads has no
reasonable expectation of privacy and has exposed his movements to observation
by the police. Such surveillance, it argues, is the same legally whether police
officers follow in another car or track with a beeper, which the Supreme Court
has <A title="US v. Knotts, decided March 2, 1983"
href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=460&invol=276">allowed</A>
without a warrant. </P>
<P>A beeper, however, does not provide the police with an uninterrupted picture
of everywhere an individual goes and nearly everything an individual does. As
the appeals court noted, “A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce
whether he is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an
unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of
particular individuals or political groups — and not just one such fact about a
person, but all such facts.” </P>
<P>In its<A title="p. 14, brief for the United States"
href="http://volokh.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/DOJJonesBrief.pdf">
brief</A> to the Supreme Court, the government asserts: “Law enforcement has not
abused GPS technology. No evidence exists of widespread, suspicionless GPS
monitoring, and practical considerations make that prospect remote.” But that is
not a constitutional standard, and is no guarantee the technology will not be
broadly abused in the future. Unless the Supreme Court requires the government
to get a warrant for GPS tracking, the police will be free to monitor a person’s
movements without limit 24 hours a day. </P><NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM>
<DIV
class=articleCorrection></DIV></NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM><NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></DIV></NYT_TEXT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>_______________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>