The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will decide whether police can install Global Positioning System devices on suspects’ cars to track them without first acquiring a warrant. The high court will review a Washington case in which D.C. police put a GPS device on the Jeep of Antoine Jones, a nightclub owner suspected of operating a cocaine distribution ring. The police tracked Jones’ movements for a month, and he was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to life in prison partly because of the GPS surveillance.
Jones’ lawyer, Stephen Leckar, said police used a machine that noted Jones’ location every 10 seconds for a month.
“That’s putting a human being under a microscope, and that’s just not right,” he said.
The federal appeals court in Washington overturned his conviction, ruling that evidence from the GPS could not be used since the device was installed and used without a warrant.
The U.S. Justice Department and D.C. police did not respond to requests for comment.
Two other courts have ruled that police can use GPS monitoring without a warrant.
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the tactic when Fairfax County Police put a GPS device on the van of a convicted rapist suspected in a series of attacks. The court said he had no expectation of privacy on a public street.
California’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling that installing a GPS to track a suspect is no different than having an officer tail him, also authorized the use of warrantless GPS tracking.
The Supreme Court will answer two questions regarding the high-tech surveillance, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: the constitutionality of installing a warrantless GPS device, and then using one to track a vehicle’s movements.
Rotenberg said that allowing GPS surveillance without a warrant could have far-reaching implications.
“If the court does not establish constitutional safeguards, the police will have unrestricted authority to monitor the travels of virtually anyone they want,” he said.
Rotenberg said his group likely will file an amicus brief in support of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision.
