PART 2: “GPS Tracking Initiated at the Border” | 4th Amendment and Technology #gps

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable government searches and seizures.
• Seizures can be split into two categories.
o A seizure of property is “some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.”
o A seizure of an individual occurs when an individual reasonably believes that he is not at liberty to leave a government official’s presence, given all of the circumstances surrounding the incident.
• Warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment are typically per se unreasonable.
o The Supreme Court decided in Katz v. United States that the attachment of an eavesdropping device outside of a public phone booth constituted an unreasonable search.
 REP. If an individual has a subjective expectation of privacy over the domain in question and society objectively recognizes that expectation as reasonable, then the search is unconstitutional unless law enforcement acquired a warrant or one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement applies.

• Technology and 4th Amendment
o In United States v. Knotts, the Supreme Court concluded that the surveillance, tracking, and following of an individual traveling on a public roadway did not constitute as a search or seizure.
 Beeper
 Consent from original owner
 No REP on public roadways
 Does not address duration of the surveillance

o In United States v. Karo, the Supreme Court held that the warrantless use of an electronic monitor within a container was reasonable and did not infringe on Karo’s interests within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
 Beeper
 Led to the facility and not the specific locker
 No REP on public roadway

o In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court held that law enforcement committed a search by attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle.

 GPS
 Government “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information,” the encroachment and intrusion on a protected area constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.
 Distinguished Karo, where law enforcement obtained consent of the original owner prior to the beeper being placed in the container to track the vehicle.
 “The Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test [] added to, not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test.”

o Carpenter v. United States, holding that the warrantless acquisition of cell-site information violated Carpenter’s Fourth Amendment right against searches and seizures.
https://youtu.be/VmjsxoM83rM
 cell-site information implicated greater privacy concerns than did GPS tracking
 A cell-site information system would allow the Government to gather “near perfect surveillance”