Thanks to Lyle Denniston, I learned today that the Justice Department has just filed its brief in United States v. Jones, the pending Supreme Court case on whether installing and using a GPS device to detect the location of a suspect’s car without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment. The DOJ brief is an interesting […]
Archive | GPS Surveillance
Supreme Court Agrees to Review Case on GPS and the Fourth Amendment
According to this morning’s order list, the Supreme Court has agreed to review United States v. Jones, the DC Circuit’s “mosaic theory” case on whether and when use of a GPS device installed on a car is a Fourth Amendment search. The Court added a question, as well: “Whether the government violated respondent’s Fourth Amendment […]
Petition for Certiorari Filed in Pineda-Moreno, The Ninth Circuit GPS Case
A petition for certiorari was recently filed asking the Supreme Court to review United States v. Pineda-Moreno, the Ninth Circuit case allowing warrantless GPS surveillance. I have posted a copy of the cert petition here. There’s been a lot of interest in this case thanks to Judge Kozinski’s over-the-top dissent from denial of rehearing, so […]
DC Circuit Denies Rehearing in United States v. Maynard, the “Mosaic Theory” Case, by 5-4 Vote
The DC Circuit has just noted on its docket that it has denied rehearing in United States v. Maynard, the GPS case introducing a new “mosaic” theory of the Fourth Amendment, by a 5-4 vote. According to the docket entry, there were two dissents from denial of rehearing. Judge Sentelle wrote one dissent that was […]
DOJ Petitions for Rehearing in DC Circuit “Mosaic Theory” GPS Surveillance Case
The Department of Justice has filed this petition for rehearing en banc in United States v. Maynard, the case adopting a “mosaic” theory of the Fourth Amendment to hold that long-term public GPS monitoring requires a warrant. As you might case from my earlier post on this, I think DOJ has a very strong case […]
Podcast on GPS Surveillance, Open Fields, and the Fourth Amendment
I recorded it yesterday for the Legal Talk Network, and it runs about 30 minutes; you can listen here. We start off by discussing Judge Kozinski’s stirring dissent from denial of rehearing en banc in United States v. Pineda-Moreno, which has received a lot of press attention. Among the questions discussed: Who lives in gated […]
Fourth Amendment Stunner: Judge Rules That Cell-Site Data Protected By Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement
A few federal court opinions have been making a big public splash recently by taking surprising positions on how the Fourth Amendment applies to location surveillance. The latest opinion in the line is Magistrate Judge James Orenstein‘s decision in In The Matter Of An Application Of The United States Of America And Order For […]
D.C. Circuit Introduces “Mosaic Theory” Of Fourth Amendment, Holds GPS Monitoring a Fourth Amendment Search
Today the D.C. Circuit held that government use of a GPS device to monitor the location of a car on public roads is a Fourth Amendment “search” when conducted over a long-term period (in his case, a month). The case is United States v. Maynard, and it was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg and joined […]