Geofence Warrant Decision Exposes Hole in Fourth Amendment Law

A split appeals court opinion clearing the government’s acquisition of users’ mobile-device location data from Google of constitutional scrutiny will likely spark more friction between emerging technologies and the scope of law enforcement searches, attorneys warned.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in US v. Chatrie concluded, over a dissent, that the use of such geofencing doesn’t constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment.

It comes six years after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Carpenter v. United States, which held the government has to obtain a search warrant to access historical cell site location ...