{"id":8051,"date":"2012-01-25T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=8051"},"modified":"2012-01-25T11:01:59","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T17:01:59","slug":"supreme-courts-gps-decision-avoids-real-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/hardware\/supreme-courts-gps-decision-avoids-real-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court’s GPS Decision Avoids Real Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
This Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in U.S. v. Jones<\/em>, both addressing and evading key concepts of privacy in relation to the Fourth Amendment and the ways in which emerging technology affects such privacy. The Fourth Amendment, which\u00a0protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” is the reason police officers must — with few exceptions — obtain warrants before searching someone\u2019s house or car. In Jones<\/em>, police officers obtained a warrant to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect\u2019s car. Even though the police obtained the warrant, they waited until it expired and then attached the tracker before leaving it on for four weeks. When Jones sought to have the collected data banned from the evidence in the case, the prosecution argued that a GPS tracker doesn’t need a warrant, because the movements of a car through public streets is public information. In other words, Jones didn’t have a reasonable expectation of his car to go unobserved this way.<\/p>\n