The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.I would have thought it would have been another 5-4 or maybe 6-3 case, with the usual cliques arguing that the government is free to monitor whoever they want and so on.
Here is another wrinkle: The cops were monitoring that dude for four weeks, which the Supremes said was far too long without a warrant. They declined to address what shorter period of time would be OK.
So the court stuck to narrow grounds. Unlike in Citizens United, where the nuts in black took a narrow question and used it to subvert the entire political system.
According to Erin Kerr, this may not be an entirely accurate evaluation of the Jones ruling.
ReplyDeleteKerr's interpretation
is that the ruling merely defined the placement of a GPS tracking device on Jones' automobile was a search, without ruling if it was a reasonable or unreasonable search.
The Justices said that leaving it on there for four months was too long, but didn't define what length of time might be acceptible.