United States v Jones
Dissenting Opinion
Jones' side
Our opinion
Basis for the case
- It is an invasion of privacy to put GPS on another person's car
- I agree with the outcome of the decison
- Was there a "reasonable expectation of privacy?"
- Small scale monitoring of movement would have been fine, but 24 hour tracking for 4 weeks is highly unreasonable.
- The Government would be in the wrong even if there were no physical tracker (no trespassing).
- GPS tracking without a valid warrant is an unreasonable search
- Supreme Court id not make him aware of the use of technology.
- The data that the GPS device gathered could have given them information about many more private things.
- Without technology, a team of agents would have been much more expensive, making it less abused.
- 4th Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches
- Police need a warrant to search a person's home
- Police suspected Jones was running a drug trade and put a tracker on his car without a warrant
- GPS data --> Police warrant --> Police found drugs --> Jones in prison
Leading questions:
Is the placement of a GPS tracker on a person car without a warrant a search?
Constitutional precedents
How does this effect us?
Majority Opinion
The United States' side
- Now we know that a Police Officer cannot put a GPS tracker on our car without our knowledge
- In our private car, we can expect a certain level of privacy
- There is no privacy while driving on public streets. All of Jones' movements were in public, so he could have been seen regardless.
- The GPS device could have been removed by Jones at any time.
- There is no privacy on the outside of a car.
- A team of offers can legally track a person's location for a month, technology changes nothing..
- Placing a GPS tracker on a persons car is trespassing on private property.
- When putting the device on the car, police violated Jones' physical property. Having GPS on the car is the equivalent of having an officer hiding in your trunk.
- The Government can not invade property that it owned by the suspect in any case.
4th amendment- "The right to be secure in houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. "
US vs. Knotts- Federal Agents placed a beeper into a bucket of chloroform that was sold to a person suspected of using it to make illegal drugs. Court ruled that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
US vs. Katz- FBI recorded pay phone conversations when used to illegally gamble. This introduced the Court's reasonable expectation of privacy test.
Kyllo vs. US- A federal agent used an imaging device to scan a home suspected of having marijuana growing operations. Supreme Court ruled that it was a search and that the device detected information that otherwise would not have been known.