US Supreme Court Rules On GPS Use

The official vote in today’s US Supreme Court ruling on police use of a GPS device to track a suspect was 5-4, denying such use without a warrant as a violation of a right to privacy. In reality, the vote was 9-0 because the dissenters would have based the same decision on different reasoning.

The majority opinion held that the US citizens have a right to privacy based on Fourth Amendment language guaranteeing protection in “persons, houses, papers, and effects” against unreasonable government search. The majority said that a person’s automobile was private property and the ban was extensible to such property.

The dissenters went a step further, holding that use of GPS device without a warrant was not a mere property right, but violation of a US citizen’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Justice Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, noted that it was not necessary to use the broader test because the violation of property rights was by itself enough to invoke the Fourth Amendment.